arrange • compose • conduct
The Rockford Aces perform Richard Gregory’s Christmas Medley every year. It’s just so fun, so clever – and it’s a great teaching tool for a lot of concepts, too. This year, of course, we couldn’t do it in person. We had just started learning it when we switched back to […]
My friends, I’m sorry. I find myself no more able to attend virtual concerts at the moment than I was able to attend physical concerts in Decembers past or earlier, when I was in the midst of twenty concerts in three weeks. Part of it is a consistent overload of […]
Over the years, you learn to plan Thanksgiving dinner well in advance. We’re planning an elaborate feast for Thanksgiving this year. (For my immediate family, because that’s clearly the right choice). Each dish is a favorite of one or more in our house; they’ve all been in rotation for years. […]
I am so glad that music classes rarely focus on winning. Even at state adjudicated festivals, even at the World Choir Games, judgements are based on objective assessments, not on a true head-to-head competition. So any awards or “wins” can be filed under “reaching the ensemble’s potential.” The reason I’m […]
Let’s make sure we clarify the difference between singing concurrently and being an ensemble. Singing concurrently is about projecting. Being an ensemble is about listening. Singing concurrently is about confidence. Being an ensemble is about humility. Singing concurrently is mechanical. Being an ensemble is affirming and soul-filling. The best some […]
The evenings for the past few weeks in my house have been filled with our first read-aloud of The Hobbit. Our oldest had read it last year as a free choice book in English class, but for the other two kids it’s the first exposure to Middle Earth. The interesting […]
Do you have a someday list of repertoire? I don’t keep as long a list as many conductors I know – most of the time my repertoire choices comes as a response to the needs directly in front of my ensemble, and what I think will be most effective in […]
I like to think about how it was for a thunderstorm to move in before we had radar, weather maps, and other meteorological predictions. Sometimes, it was a complete surprise. Other times, there were signs that you could use to predict. Signs that we might not even know to look […]
Great singers are often gifted mimics. The ability to imitate what you hear, especially if it’s done well enough to win over an audience, is a skill that has direct impact on your performance level. If you can imitate whatever you hear, you can perform anything. And if your ear […]
We Shall Overcome is perhaps the most iconic protest song of all time – a sweet, potent melody and an equally potent lyric that have been used worldwide as a rallying cry, though it’s probably most strongly associated with the 1960’s Civil Rights Movement; Joan Baez famously sang it as […]