arrange • compose • conduct
I’ve written multiple times about our family’s work for more disconnected time, and in particular about our adoption of a 24/6 approach, which we termed “Singing Brook Days.” Full disclosure: we’ve struggled to implement them regularly since school started. And I miss them deeply. (Sounds like a New Year’s Resolution […]
A few years ago, Terry Gross got songwriting team Hugh Martin and Ralph Blaine to talk about writing their classic “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas,” and in particular about the various versions of the lyric. They began by sharing the original penultimate lyric, which Judy Garland refused to sing: […]
“I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.” Joan Didion I learn what I think by writing it down, and it’s exactly the same when I’m writing music. With every bar […]
There are two kinds of board games I love to play. The first has complex and subtle rules: they are difficult to learn, at first (your first round might feel like riding a roller coaster blindfolded, trying to understand what’s happening) but when you’ve mastered the gameplay, there are all […]
I think the best learning happens when you have enough time to have fun. Sometimes, in the crunch of the moment, I have to move with peak efficiency. In the recording studio or in the rehearsal process, I am leaving no moment unused. It’s effective but it isn’t very fun. […]
Leadership in an ensemble can take many forms, ranging by degrees from a detail oriented clockmaker, who finely tunes and controls every moment of performance, and an ensemble member who does a count off to start the performance and then fades back into the ensemble. The range does not include […]
These are the seven albums (one per artist) that mean Christmas to me as a vocal harmony lover. Christmas: The Singers Unlimited The Christmas Album: Manhattan Transfer He Is Christmas: Take 6 The World For Christmas: The Real Group Noels Sans Passport: The Swingle Singers Let It Snow: New York […]
To me, one big component of the Christmas music I choose to listen to is that it feels Christmassy. In other words, it reminds me of past Christmases. That’s a big challenge when I want to adopt any new music into my rotation. How do I feel nostalgia from something […]
I had lots of opportunities (six concerts this week with me directing) to be reminded of why I do what I do. I do it to see students flourish. I watched my high school students flourish with new ideas, new commitment, new professionalism in every one of their four performances […]
I left our choir concert last night so inspired by my colleagues, Mandy Mikita Scott and Melanie Dorn Kraut, and the amazing students we all work with. They took time in the last couple of weeks to reinterpret the Oxford High School Fight Song as a heartfelt statement of solidarity […]