arrange • compose • conduct
A lot of it is just, knuckling under and, what’s the right analogy? Man, you just gotta dig harder and slow it down. Slowing stuff down is the biggest thing. You can see kind of a recurring theme here. My desire to create works of quality at a certain rate […]
JEFF: You got a dollar? JOSH: Yeah. JEFF: Take it out. Look at the back. The seal, the pyramid, it’s unfinished. With the eye of God looking over it. And the words Annuit Coeptis. “He, God, Favors our Undertaking.” The seal is meant to be unfinished, because this country’s meant […]
The Michigan Choral Commission Consortium has been a labor of love for me for four years – during which time we have commissioned nearly 10 new choral works from a remarkable and diverse group of American composers. When the Stay-at-Home order hit in Michigan, I offered my services for one […]
Here are five questions I ask myself before I start an arrangement: In as much detail as I can determine, who will be performing the piece? In as much detail as I can determine, who will be listening to the piece? (Is the audience fluent in the style of music, […]
It’s understandable – it’s admirable! – to aim for perfection with every project. We all want every project to be the best possible version when we finish it. But I know that I have fallen victim to projects that may be perfect but not repeatable. I’ve devised elaborate weekly rehearsal […]
The Aces endeavor to sing in as many musical styles as possible each year, with no discrimination except quality of music. In that spirit, the entire list is organized alphabetically, as in our folders (except music for December, which goes at the end…) We had around twenty 2-hour rehearsals this […]
Take advantage of these two recent video panel discussions coming from the vocal jazz community. There is much to learn from here as we move into new worlds in the choral world. First, this forum from a couple weeks ago, titled Race Conversations in Vocal Jazz, features a wonderful group […]
What could you do if you didn’t “know” you couldn’t? There are so many things we don’t attempt, because we already “know” we’ll never achieve them. But time after time, we are proved wrong when we assume we can’t do something. My eleven-year-old son has been singing along to really […]
I am committed to amplifying more music from Black culture in teaching music theory, ear training, and repertoire. As such I want to amplify these resources from my old friend Justin Binek, who has begun creating an online, freely accessible repository of examples. Included as of now are interval examples […]
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 […]