arrange • compose • conduct
For a long time, I haven’t been very interested in endings. I’m almost always looking forward to the next concert, the next year, the next project. I’ll celebrate in the moment, but pretty soon I’m on to the next thing. This school year feels like something I need to sit […]
Most of the time, the right people show up. During the Long Quiet, enrollment has gone down in virtually every elective activity – from music to theatre to Scouting to Advanced Placement classes to church attendance. Maybe there was too much else going on, maybe some people were afraid of […]
In my rehearsal today, as we warmed up, I looked around the room and saw two things: contorted posture and stress about the end of the school year. Thus began my Overrated/Underrated For Teenagers list: Overrated: Knowing what you want to do with your life. Underrated: Attention to posture. Attention […]
Just like that, it’s June. It’s the last week of this impossible, interminable year, at least here. (Some ended last week. Some have a week or two to go.) Of course, it wasn’t just like that. Every year is a marathon, but this was an ironman triathlon if ever I […]
My dad described one of his first chances to scrub in with an orthopedic surgeon, on the day he was interviewing for an internship in that hospital. When the surgery was mostly done, the doctor offered him a chance to see the work, and my dad noticed, and pointed out, […]
I am trying to take more advantage of Schedule Send, and you should, too. Both Gmail and Microsoft Outlook have the option to schedule an email’s delivery, rather than sending it immediately. It has two big values for a portion of the emails we all send. First, the smaller advantage: […]
There are some birds I see year-round in my yard. Chickadees. Cardinals. Blue Jays. There are others, migratory birds, that I might see only briefly, if I’m watching carefully, as they pass over en route to their summer or winter homes. This spring I saw a group of Redpolls for […]
I had an interesting arrangement challenge recently – it was for a flash mob-style performance at a wedding, and had some very specific requirements, not least a very limited amount of rehearsal time. Since the commissioning party is an excellent singer but not a professional musician, I thought carefully about […]
I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling a bit jarred. After more than a year of talking about how to begin gathering again, how to make it meaningful, how to take meaningful steps toward a healthier balance…after that year, my world has thundered back into a busyness that looks […]
I consider the albums recorded by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong (Ella and Louis, Ella and Louis Again, and Porgy and Bess) to be some of the most important jazz vocal albums of all time. The playing, the singing, the swinging, the sheer joy of these albums is immeasurable. I […]