arrange • compose • conduct
A project finished without learning one new thing is a wasted project. I’ve been doing a lot of recording studio work this year. That was unexpected. With each project, I’ve been honing skills I developed in my college and grad school years, and then more or less rested on since. […]
Can we talk about last minute decisions? There is value in taking all the time you need to make a decision. Perhaps new information will come in and change the outcome. Perhaps the information will help a large majority come to a consensus on the right decision. But waiting until […]
Provided you’re not hiding, not ignoring the problem, and not being blocked from finishing by forces beyond your control, projects take the time they take. I started a family musical project in May, and finished 90% of it today. It’s not because I procrastinated or because I didn’t think it […]
Take some time tonight starting at 7pm to check out the premiere of my friend Jeffrey Cobb’s new major work, The Lesson of the Lark. Based on a children’s book by his wife, Laura Knight Cobb, it’s a concert work celebrating the centenary of women’s voting rights in a work […]
The Rockford Aces have been working hard, under difficult circumstances, to learn music and be an ensemble this year. With the switch to remote learning several weeks ago, we made the difficult decision to work on a virtual recording for the holidays. I say difficult, because I’ve been promising them […]
Motivation can be external or internal. Each of us uses a mixture of the two to get our work completed. This pandemic, and particularly remote education, has compelled many students to become better acquainted with internal motivation. When the teacher is standing ten feet from you, it’s harder to disengage […]
In the weeks of in-person school, my wife had the brilliant idea to have all the choirs working on the same piece. A perfect message arrived in Gwyneth Walker’s “How Can I Keep From Singing.” It also offered, just before high schools in Michigan all returned to remote learning, a […]
I talked with my students about a specific type of vertical awareness today. I think it’s really essential to train ourselves as choir singers to be able to see beyond our own staff – it’s one of the gifts of being in a choir rather than a band or orchestra, […]
Our family usually counts down the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas not with days, but with concerts. Twenty in these three weeks of school isn’t out of the ordinary. Of course, there won’t be anything close to that this year. What’s to come of a December without concerts? Well, probably […]
With the Michigan Choral Commission Consortium (MC3), last year I commissioned Z. Randall Stroope’s SATB a cappella setting of Sara Teasdale’s “I Have Loved Hours At Sea.” It’s passionate, evocative, and lyrical – it ranks, to my mind, alongside his most beloved choral works. The statewide premieres and performances of […]