arrange • compose • conduct
As you start up the new year, ask this chicken-egg question… Which comes first? Vulnerability or trust? Does willingness to be vulnerable engender trust? Or can you only be vulnerable when you have amassed sufficient trust? We can agree, at least, that both are important traits of the successful choir: […]
Think of three of the best in the field you want to succeed in. If it’s choral conducting, you might pick Robert Shaw, Craig Hella Johnson, Sandra Snow. Broadway performers? Audra McDonald, Bernadette Peters, Barbara Cook. For leading vocal jazz, I’d pick Steve Zegree, Phil Mattson, Duane Davis. If I were […]
It takes a long time to be ready on day one. Teachers perform extensive training before their first day of teaching – college, accreditation, internship – but Day One of Year Fifteen finds you feeling much more ready. Basic Training is meant to prepare soldiers, but my guess is most would say they […]
Imagine two genetically identical tree seeds, planted in different locations – and then imagine them in 20 years. Do they still look identical? No, of course not. Weather, soil, neighboring plants, animal traffic, and 1,000 other factors are distinct enough to cause slight differences that magnify over time. Even with the same starting point, […]
Without a doubt, the best way to see Europe is with a choir. Your travel group is made up of people you already know well from rehearsals and performances. When everyone else is taking pictures of famous locations and moving on, you get to make music in places expressly designed for singing. After all of […]
We embrace the picture of the free-spirited creative individual, following whims to make art. The reality, though, is that creativity thrives in routine. It is only in daily practice that creative ideas can be hammered into hard reality. I am reminded every August that the freedom of a routine-free summer […]
Solar eclipses have been predictable to astronomers for millennia. And yet, they feel decidedly strange to us as we experience them. Predictable and strange is an interesting pairing – we tend to think of predictable events as boring, and strange experiences as unpredictable. Yesterday I did a trust fall, and though I’ve […]
A choir needs many leaders – leading quietly or loudly from inside the group or in front of it. A choir needs one decider – one who can have the ultimate say on musical choices, among many other things. If you’re that person, make sure you make the decisions without doing all the […]
A message to students starting in new places: space is not a constant size. A building might seem huge, but in a month it will feel smaller because you know it better. The gaps in your knowledge in a new subject might seem huge, but with daily practice and study, you will […]
If you don’t pass through a stage of abject fear on your way to the first day of school, you are in the distinct minority. Here are three reasons I have that fear on a rotating basis: Trying something new – what if it doesn’t work? Repeating past successes – what […]