arrange • compose • conduct
Posts discussing education, both in and outside of music
One of the joys of singing choral masterworks is being aware of the connection across time. Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony has surely been sung by millions of singers since its premiere 1824 (198 years ago!). Getting the chance to perform it connects you with all those amazing singers across ten generations […]
There’s another debt college students are unfortunately graduating with. College costs have ballooned far faster than inflation in the last thirty years, leading to the well-known ballooning in student debt. But that deficit isn’t the only one students have when they leave. So many students I know necessarily have to […]
As you get further removed from the age and generation of your students, how do you maintain mutual reference points? There are at least two ways. You should probably use them both. Stay current! Do your best to engage with current music, styles, trends. It’s important to draw a distinction […]
The real art of teaching is singular. The real art of teaching is figuring out what makes one student tick, and then devising techniques to (a) make them curious about a subject and (b) help them feed their curiosity. It’s not scalable. It’s personal. It’s one-on-one. The best teachers can […]
Summertime affords space for reflection. Can you bring that to your everyday? But I think that waiting till summer to reflect on what’s working and what isn’t takes too long. Often, when I’m in the middle of work, I don’t think I can possibly also devote time to stepping back […]
Content dictates form • Less is more • God is in the detailsall in the service ofClaritywithout which nothing else matters. – Stephen Sondheim This is the mantra at the beginning of both volumes of Stephen Sondheim’s magical lyric collections, Finishing The Hat and Look, I Made a Hat. But […]
Content dictates form • Less is more • God is in the detailsall in the service ofClaritywithout which nothing else matters. – Stephen Sondheim This is the mantra at the beginning of both volumes of Stephen Sondheim’s magical lyric collections, Finishing The Hat and Look, I Made a Hat. But […]
Content dictates form • Less is more • God is in the detailsall in the service ofClaritywithout which nothing else matters. – Stephen Sondheim This is the mantra at the beginning of both volumes of Stephen Sondheim’s magical lyric collections, Finishing The Hat and Look, I Made a Hat. But […]
Content dictates form • Less is more • God is in the detailsall in the service ofClaritywithout which nothing else matters. – Stephen Sondheim This is the mantra at the beginning of both volumes of Stephen Sondheim’s magical lyric collections, Finishing The Hat and Look, I Made a Hat. But […]
What’s your personal purpose statement? I’ve worked in the past on developing a purpose statement for my ensembles. Here’s where I landed for the Aces: To make high-level genre-agnostic music with tenors and basses from Rockford HS and share it with people through performance and recording, such that (A) a […]