arrange • compose • conduct
Posts specifically about choral music
I love Thanksgiving for the Usuals. I love that when I make this cranberry recipe, I think of that person and our meal together twenty years ago. I love that when I make this apple pie recipe, I know to omit the golden raisins because my niece has strong opinions. […]
Keep the music you select on the correct side of this axis. My students in Shades of Blue are working on the very difficult a cappella arrangement of “Almost Like Being In Love” by Darmon Meader. It’s aurally demanding, rhythmically tricky, and long! It’s been hard work, but they haven’t […]
Performances don’t always go as planned. Some lackluster performances can be blamed on someone – “I missed that cue” or “You didn’t learn that part as well as you should have.” But many performances don’t have a convenient spot to blame. It was a novel acoustic environment, or what someone […]
Which is most important to you? It has to depend on the context – if I’m picking a Renaissance motet, I’m more likely to focus on the music, because the Latin text isn’t going to be a significant resonating factor for my students. If I’m picking a contemporary choral piece, […]
Pieces need time to breathe, too. What happens between notes and rhythms and performance? Sometimes, not much. Sometimes, an efficient polish and development of musicianship. But there’s something else that can happen over time. I’ve found that the pieces we’ve polished, made musical, and even performed continue to develop with […]
Wait, scores doesn’t always mean the same thing? No, the traditions around interpreting scores can be radically different depending on context, and we don’t do a great job of making that clear to students. We tend to treat the score as an encyclopedia of interpretation – all information for interpretation […]
I’m watching a trio of men with commercial leaf blowers working to make sure a neighbor’s lawn is utterly devoid of fall leaves. From 100 yards away, the sound drowns out all other background noises. Now, I don’t hold with those who say leave the leaves, because I don’t want […]
I’ve found an unanticipated gift in my increased commitment to preparing sung part recordings for my students. I’ve written before how they have positively impacted my students, and why I came around to a tool I was initially opposed to. It’s certainly not the time and effort – I wasn’t […]
Don’t only program wow pieces. Some pieces don’t wow you right away. But sometimes, they’re essential parts of your repertoire selection. It’s easy to program wow pieces, because they immediately engage the ensemble. When the ensemble is excited, they work harder, grow faster, and are committed to preparing performances that […]
What are your ensemble’s keywords? In preparation for the Rockford Aces’ fifteenth anniversary celebration, I asked our alumni to answer that question. I loved reading their responses and learning about what they carried with them – and how it mapped onto how I think about the ensemble. Some words that […]