arrange • compose • conduct
A snow day exists outside the usual routine. Commitments vanish, duties get postponed. Students sleep. What do you do? Perhaps you catch up on some grading or lay out some lesson plans. Maybe you just curl up with a good book and a mug of tea. I challenge you to […]
There’s something magical about the first snow, isn’t there? It uplifts, even as it chills you. That same snow, falling in March, wouldn’t have the same effect. We want to maintain our joy in the things that we do, but it’s simply not possible, always, when we’ve been doing the […]
Welcome to Week 16 of The Definitive Version, a new weekly feature of my website. You can read more about the project here and read all past entries here. Song: “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!” (1945)Composer: Jule StyneLyricist: Sammy CahnForm: AABAStandard Key: There doesn’t seem to be a particularly standard key. […]
Take a walk around your neighborhood at the end of a 50-degree late-winter day. Chances are that even if you had several inches of snow on the grass, it’s mostly or all gone now. But the snow piles–the three- and four-foot tile piles from driveways and sidewalks–are still basically intact, having resisted melting and soaking […]
I re-shared my post “Discovery Day” yesterday, about how to make a Snow Day productive and fun. Yesterday for me, like many snow days, was about extra writing time. And I finished the day feeling light and free. Enervated, rejuvenated. I wrote a tremendous amount for me: about 2/3 of a choral […]
Okay, so you’re going to build a tall pile of snow. Where do you want to build it? Giant Steps? Conducting Gesture? Sprechstimme? I want to argue in favor of building meta-skills. Learn how to learn. Practice effective practice. Get better at getting better. If you can build a massive […]
The grass is liberated in my part of Michigan. I went for a run a few days ago on a 65º day and saw the beginnings of new green shoots coming up in many lawns. But in a few spots, piles of snow remain. When some people shoveled or plowed […]
Most of Lower Michigan is waking up to a Snow Day today. Here’s a little letter I wrote to my students this morning. Dear Students, Consider this: You have been granted a seven hour bonus to your life. Are you really going to spend it all sleeping? Or watching Friends […]
By my count, Chanticleer has released six Christmas albums and a DVD. Of them, my favorite is probably “Christmas with Chanticleer” featuring Dawn Upshaw. Today, however, I want to talk about their 2007 album “Let it Snow”. Over the years, Chanticleer has dabbled in vocal jazz – most memorably in their commissioned […]
How much of a contingency plan do you have as an educator/conductor? I think a lot about this – usually when I get sick shortly before a concert. And what I come up with is always the same: plan on a snow day. In other words, assume that your penultimate […]