arrange • compose • conduct
On my morning walks this week, there’s one piece on a loop in my head. It’s the cherry blossoms around every corner that call to mind the timeless A.E. Housman poem, “Loveliest of Trees.” And I love the version I was lucky enough to commission for the Rockford Aces from […]
Allow me to offer a first listen to my long-delayed canon based on Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky, best known for its appearance in Through The Looking Glass. I completed the piece in late-2019, and would have premiered it with the Rockford Aces at the 2020 World Choir Games. We all know […]
Every performer in the world needs an audience. And to get one, they have to ask people to come and see their performance. No one will come to your thing unless you personally ask them. That’s a message I always try to drive home before my Aces Concert, because they […]
A memory came up yesterday of me with my students on the elementary playground, nine years ago. This was at the end of a long week of rehearsals, preparing for our arrival at the 2012 World Choir Games on July 4. As I remember it, the Aces had worked incredibly […]
The Aces endeavor to sing in as many musical styles as possible each year, with no discrimination except quality of music. In that spirit, the entire list is organized alphabetically, as in our folders (except music for December, which goes at the end…) Despite the challenges of this year, we […]
Both of the ensembles I lead got to have cathartic ends to the year – an outdoor concert in May for Shades of Blue, and just last night, a year-capping concert with the Rockford Aces. It wasn’t precisely the same as usual – we didn’t have our usual size of […]
Four virtual choirs, a senior tribute. Countless hours of work. I’m delighted with the results of our weeks and weeks of work together/apart. Here are the four virtual song performances we presented at the Virtual Aces Concert last night. (We also debuted a track from our new album, “Take Me […]
The Aces Concert 2020 is at 8pm tonight. It’s the 12th annual and, of course, it’s virtual. I thought it might be instructive to think about the numbers involved in a typical concert and in this year’s edition. Typical run time: 2 hours2020: 23 minutes. Typical number of pieces: 18-202020: […]
The Aces endeavor to sing in as many musical styles as possible each year, with no discrimination except quality of music. In that spirit, the entire list is organized alphabetically, as in our folders (except music for Christmas, which goes at the end…) We had around thirty 2-hour rehearsals this […]
We recently celebrated our tenth anniversary with The Rockford Aces – and an amazing celebration it was, with nearly half of our ten years worth of alumni returning for our reunion/concert. Considering the retrospective quality, we did a lot of looking back this year with our repertoire. The Aces endeavor […]