arrange • compose • conduct
If you dream and dream, every week is full of small victories and small disappointments. And some weeks have big disappointments or big victories. Last night was a big victory of dreaming. Celebrate with me the creation of the Rockford High School Performing Arts Series. One year ago, I proposed to […]
Something I remember Steve Zegree reminding us of repeatedly in Gold Company: Once you proven that you can sing a phrase properly – in tune, balanced, blended, dynamics, etc. – anything less than that is unacceptable. Once you’ve cleared the bar, you have proven you can do it consistently well, and […]
I loved the recent news story of the Princeton professor who published a CV of his failures. Dreaming – trying new things – guarantees both failure and success. But we don’t often talk about the failures. Even when you succeed at something new, it often feels like a failure right up until […]
One of my longest and most consistent collaborators is a treble choir from Grosse Pointe, Michigan, Noteworthy. (They like to refer to themselves as “No fella a cappella.”) I just want to congratulate them on a job well done at their annual performance at Spring Sing – an annual a cappella meet […]
One of the things I’m most excited about starting this year is a new concert series. Our amazing local non-profit education supporter, the Rockford Education Foundation, gave the high school music department a grant to start a series that can be self-sustaining, providing masterclasses and concerts of first-rank musicians for […]
In Friday’s RAMChoir rehearsal, I had 40+ tenors and basses in a room, learning four pieces for an hour and half. (After school on a Friday!) As an arranger at heart, I love to pepper my rehearsals with theoretical questions and an eye to what’s happening musically. Friday, that ended up being about first-inversion chords. First-inversion […]
Robert Shaw, arguably the most influential American choral conductor of the 20th century, would have been 100 today. He left us before I had moved from vocal jazz to a wider love of choral music, so I never had the chance to experience his legendary conducting, as so many of my colleagues […]
Tim Ferriss’ podcast can be excellent: he brings on smart, wise guests and gives them the space to tell stories worth listening to. But sometimes he can say pretty crazy stuff. Indeed, he’s known for pushing the envelope of sanity in personal development. But what got me calling him “Crazy Tim […]
That’s the unofficial – and very popular – motto of my school district. It’s profoundly affected my aim. The intent isn’t “succeed or quit”. The idea is, a failure from aiming high is way more worthwhile than a success from aiming low. What you have to lose from chasing outsized dreams is much […]
Commissioned premieres are a special kind of anxiety and stress. First comes month of discussion, negotiation, waiting for the piece to arrive. Then, if you’re lucky, the piece is a beautiful, challenging piece that pushes your ensemble in the best possible ways. Hours spent in rehearsal, interaction with the composer, […]