arrange • compose • conduct
It’s dad’s birthday. Not my biological dad – that was a few months ago. My musical dad. My most profound musical influences – my musical mom and dad – are Alice Parker and Gene Puerling. Today Gene would have been 87 years old. We celebrated last year when his archives were acquired by the […]
It is rare for me to have a guest clinician to work with my choir. Because we only meet once a week, we always seem to be hurrying to get ready for the next concert. Plus, I’m self-conscious about my own conducting skills, a feeling only enhanced when I bring in an expert colleague. This […]
Singers can have legitimate fear of trying things: auditioning, taking voice lessons, singing a solo, asking for help. To get over these fears, they need one of two things to happen. First, they can get pushed off the proverbial cliff by a wise teacher or parent. But if they dig in and don’t let […]
A weekend of flowers peeking up and walks without coats reminds me that spring is coming. You know what else is coming? The Real Group! If you haven’t heard and seen them live, you haven’t seen Shakespeare the way it was meant to be played. Here are their 2016 US tour dates (sadly, […]
My sister-in-law shared the following quote on Facebook yesterday: The ancient Druids are said to have taken a special interest in in-between things like mistletoe, which is neither quite a plant nor quite a tree, and mist, which is neither quite a rain nor quite air, and dreams, which are […]
Being creative means making mistakes. The research is perfectly clear that more successful creators don’t have many ideas, they just have more. Many more bad –> a few more good. I want my students to be creative. I want my children to be creative. Giving them a safe place to make mistakes is important, but it […]
For March Reading Month, my sons’ elementary school had a fun challenge this week: teachers would call home once this week; if you were “caught reading”, i.e. reading when they called, you would win a prize. I think it was a good motivator and fun. I’m going to try a variation on it next […]
We have piano lessons on Wednesdays. That’s what we do. I had two sons balking at piano lessons yesterday – one tired after a long day with a sub at school, the other who had stayed home from school with a little cold. I was unapologetic in my insistence. They […]
There’s a certain variety of student who aspires for things but doesn’t want to bother anyone. If they want to audition but the slots on the signup are full, they won’t audition. If they get sick the day of auditions, they will shrug their shoulders and say, “Oh, well.” Newsflash: […]
At a recent rehearsal, I was missing roughly 1/3 of my group (4 of 13) for various reasons. Several of them wrote and asked for what we worked on, so they could keep up on their own. What responsibility! Here is my response. We worked on: FOCUS. STAMINA. ENSEMBLE. EXPRESSION. MUSICALITY. […]