The President Has His Photograph Taken (2005) This piece for trumpet and video takes its title and loose inspiration from the 1928 Kurt Weill opera "Der Zar lässt sich Photographieren", in which a monarch with a slightly different title than mine goes about his self-absorbed ways having his photograph taken -- oblivious to a terrorist plot against his life. I was interested in creating a piece that deals with illusion on multiple levels and that replicates the very private mental world that we create when we think we are alone (itself a kind of illusion). Beyond that, the piece should explain itself.