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As we near the end of the year, I am reflecting on the skills I most want my students to have built over the last year. Here are my top three: Work ethic. Musicianship. Teamwork. I am reflecting because I know I can’t hit each of these skills equally; perhaps work ethic […]

So is yours. So is everyone’s. We have blind spots, preferences, biases. In hindsight, our experiences appear to be leading us – but in the right direction? Who can say. A mentor can. That’s why it’s so important to have a mentor in our life. (Especially before our mid-20’s, when our prefrontal cortex is […]

My organic farmer friend used to look longingly at our little vegetable garden – “I wish I had time for a garden!” Wait, what? Why would someone who toils 16 hours a day to grow organic crops want a vegetable garden? The answer is that it would be a job-hobby. A jobby. Professional […]

The empty page is always challenging. It stares at you and dares you to fill it in. It asks whether you really have anything worth saying. It waits patiently for your guard to be down. But. Make friends with the empty page and you can weather the empty page. Here are a […]

In his book Every Song Ever, Ben Ratliff correctly writes: I am reminded of this every day by my four-year-old, who will bounce directly from Cats to Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony to What a Girl Is by Liv and Maddie (Disneypop). A day of listening might include James Taylor/George Gershwin/Taylor Swift/Stephen Sondheim/Gene Puerling/Yannick Nézet-Seguin/Lin-Manuel Miranda/Pentatonix/Bruno Mars/Adam Gwon/The […]

You’ve heard the expression, “If it were easy, everyone would do it.” There’s a truth there – it takes stamina, willpower to repeatedly accomplish tough things. But I think there is another side to this. Those who succeed again and again look at the tasks they repeat and ask, “What would this look like if […]

Dear singers, why should you work hard in rehearsal? Here’s how I look at it. You’re going to be tired at the end of a 2-hour rehearsal. No matter what. The vast majority of the energy you spend in rehearsal is non-negotiable. Sitting or standing, your body uses energy, and even half-committed work […]

“Conductor” is a job in the service sector. Serve your choristers. Serve your students. Serve your audience. Serve your community. Serve your colleagues. Serve your profession. And most of all Serve the music. Today when you begin a rehearsal, silently ask yourself, “How can I be of service today.”

Michael McGlynn wrote us an amazing, complex, rich setting of an amazing, complex, rich poem. We spent much of the year working hard to expand our ears, expand our technique, to do it justice. Please enjoy Michael McGlynn’s “May”, the brand-new sister piece of his popular “August“. The Rockford Aces are proud to be the commissioning […]

Michigan Youth Arts Festival for me has always been a lot of things. Hearing some of the finest choirs in Michigan make music. Catching up in the hallways with colleagues and friends. Seeing tremendous films/paintings/dances/plays. I wrote a little about this the other day. This year, I left my day at MYAF refreshed, […]