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Katarina Henryson has anchored The Real Group in the second position since their founding in 1984. Tonight marks her final a cappella concert with the group. After 32 years, she has a remarkable legacy of recordings (I personally own 20 different albums), live concerts (over 2,000), and lives affected by her beautiful personality and […]

Bravo to the entire operation involved in putting She Loves Me on Broadway and then live streaming it last night at BroadwayHD. Aside from some streaming problems early in the show, the show appeared flawlessly in our family room, direct from Studio 54 on Broadway. Everything about this performance was charming, from sets and costumes, choreography […]

Basic graphic design skills are an integral and overlooked part of choral training. Unless you’re in an organization that can afford a marketing person (which leaves 99.9% of us), your choral program needs quality design. If you didn’t receive it during your undergrad or grad programs (few do), take the following steps. […]

In a podcast interview about his tremendous novel The Bone Clocks, David Mitchell gave this answer to a question about “hiding” big ideas under a great story: It is replete with ideas. I am at heart a novelist; I am not at heart an academic or a critic or a scholar or a great […]

Dreams are great. When you graduate high school–when you graduate preschool!–everyone wants to know, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Tell them something, for sure. “I want to get a Ph.D in political science and run for congress.” “I want to perform on Broadway.” “I want to […]

  The best way to express your love isn’t in words, it’s in actions. Making jam is a small token of love; so is a note in a lunch or a favorite meal. Teaching is an act of love. Tiny gestures are a magical way to say “I love you.” So […]

I first started making jam when my oldest son was a few weeks old – curious and excited, I used the recipe from the back of a Sure-Jell box and bought some jars. Now, ten years later, it’s a much more streamlined act, with hundreds of jars waiting patiently to be […]

The secret of life Is enjoying the passage of time. Any fool can do it, There ain’t nothing to it. Nobody knows how we got To the top of the hill. But since we’re on our way down, We might as well enjoy the ride. – James Taylor, Secret of Life […]

One of my favorite poet’s most famous poems is The Emperor of Ice Cream. In it, Wallace Stevens writes the immortal line: Let be be finale of seem. You’d be hard pressed to find a better motto for life. End “it seems like” in the face of “it is”. We must see the world as […]

If we don’t reflect on our failures, we squander the chance to learn from them and improve. If you thought listening back to your voice lessons was hard, try looking back at your failures and being honest about how you failed. Painful is the word. But without that pain, you’ll just keep making […]