In response to a question about how he approached writing, the great sportswriter Red Smith once famously answered, “All you do is sit down and open a vein.” As a composer, I’ve often thought of this remark and how appropriately it reflects the unfolding of any personal creative act. Such a reflection expresses both the ease with which one reveals oneself, while simultaneously describing an act (opening veins) from which there is no going back – an honest exposure of one’s most personal ideas and feelings, a revelation of one’s life blood. Opening Veins, then, is a work which takes Red Smith’s famous remark to heart, to reveal myself in ways previously not attempted, to expose a certain vulnerability, to open my veins.