Musical Mayhem by Paul Carey, composer

Happy New Year!

2012-01-17T22:18:00.001-06:00

(photo: normal happy newt, not newtus gingrichus)

Happy New Year to all!

Here is what is going on in my little corner of the music world:

Since I last wrote you in June 2011 I have had some great experiences and met so many wonderful people. Here's a quick recap (often with links to the blogs I wrote regarding them):

June and July was my regular gig teaching the amazingly gifted choral students at the North Carolina Governor's School in Raleigh. This year's students, a women's choir of 24 voices, was beyond spectacular. I have never led a choir so committed to deep probing rehearsal, to an impeccable level of performance quality, to each other, and to having so much fun all along the way. We learned and performed repertoire far beyond the HS realm- one piece in particular was a premiere which was written in response to the tsunami in Japan and the piece was quite difficult-certainly a professional level score. These kids just rolled up their sleeves and worked like crazy to learn this score. Yes we struggled at times, but no one ever suggested we give up. It was truly a memorable summer for us. By the way, we memorized every score for the summer except for the premiere piece. I would also like to thank my assistant for the summer, Beth Philemon.

In September I visited the Portland, OR/Vancouver WA area for the Chor Anno premiere of my double choir piece "When Jesus Wept" (a modernization of the Billings' tune). Everyone there was so friendly and committed to learning this piece of mine, which is also not terribly easy.

(Chor Anno)

Special thanks to Howard Meharg, Reg Unterseher, April and Greg Duvic, Margaret Green and a slew of other folks. I still have to finish blogging about this experience and tell you about Tim Sharp's "Come Away to the Skies", which was performed as well and with Tim there on banjo. So look for that blog soon.

October marked the release of the latest Atlanta Sacred Chorale CD "Awake the Dawn" (da Chiesa DCSR 119). The chorale, led by Eric Nelson, did a wonderful job on my piece "Morning Person", (published by Roger Dean) with a text by New Orleans poet Vassar Miller, retelling Creation in a new, highly imaginative way. I channelled Canadian dude Healy Willan and Sondheim while writing this (yeah you'll have to hear it to figure that out- go buy the CD!). Other composers on the CD include Rutter, Chilcott, Bernstein, J. Hairston, some guy named Lauridsen, Lee Dengler and more. Visit www.atlantasacredchorale.org for more info.

In November I attended the National Collegiate Choral Organization conference in Ft. Collins, CO (multiple blogs starting here). This was a blast and hearing Robert Taylor's University of Charleston Choir and Graeme Langager's University of British Columbia Singers were big discoveries for me. Everyone had a great time at NCCO and the future looks very bright for this organization. Congrats to Buddy James, Lisa Graham, Mitos Andaya, Bill Bausano, Bill Dehning, Sarah Graham, and James Kim for putting on such a great program.

December held a slew of performances and premieres of my music- thank you to all who performed my holiday music- and I am proud to have written quality pieces that do fall out of the realm of strictly Christmas, such as "Winter Solstice" (SSA/harp or piano which was performed a lot) and "Unending Flame" (a non-dorky Hanukkah piece which got multiple performances by Ethan Sperry's Oregon Repertory Singers-- thanks Ethan!).

What's up for the next few months? Plenty!

Roger Dean is releasing in a week or two these new titles (too bad there is not an SATB title there):

"Rain" SSA/piano Uptempo, jazzy and very fun (commissioned by the Cincinnati Children's Choir, directed by Robyn Lana). This piece would be for HS and up women's choirs.

"May I be Happy" SA/piano In two parts, the first is a slow-ish Eastern Orthodox benediction of sorts, and the piece then becomes more lively to the text of a Buddhist chant. This piece was commissioned by a great young choir in Hong Kong last year. This piece would be for grade 6 and up treble choirs. Both titles will be in place for ACDA conferences in Feb. and March.

Roger Dean is currently my main publisher- they have been so supportive. If you would like a free perusal copy of these new releases, or single copies of all of my Roger Dean scores (treble and mixed titles), let me know. They are happy to mail out scores. I can also sign you up to be on their mailing list to receive all the new releases by all their composers. In an age when most publishers are very stingy about supplying free scores, Roger Dean is a breath of fresh air.

In February I will be presenting an interest session at the North Central ACDA conference in Madison, WI. This will be my first time at a NC ACDA conference and I expect it will be great. My session will be on ways to enable your choir to take more initiative and allow you, as teacher, to do less heavy lifting. It's influenced by teaching theories at NC Governor's School and by ideas from Rick Bjella (now at Texas Tech) and Sandra Snow. In April I will be presenting the same session at the Tennessee MEA conference in Chattanooga.

All through the spring there will be a number of performances of various pieces, including premieres. One I am very excited about is a performance of "When Jesus Wept" (the piece I mentioned up above) by the University of North Texas choir directed by DMA candidate Patrick Dill. Richard Sparks suggested that Patrick look at this piece and he has decided to do it- so I am thrilled to see another advanced SATB piece getting a performance by an excellent choir. If you would like a free perusal pdf file of this piece let me know.

In May I will be wrapping up my one year stint with Angie Johnson's Young Naperville Singers as their composer in residence. Last night I just finished the fourth piece I have written for them for this season. It has been a blast working with the various choirs in the program and I look forward to even more fun interaction with them between now and May.

Just a few things left to say:

This here blog is fun to do but very time consuming-- I am on the lookout for anyone who would like to guest blog (a few people have, and done great jobs) about anything they would like to share. So if you have ever thought of doing a choral music blog but didn't really want to commit to keeping one going- here's your chance to just jump in and guest blog here. I get about 25-250 readers a day, FYI. Here is a link to a recent guest blog by Kira Rugen about her trip, as a member of Anuna, to sing for and interact with the children in the tsunami/nuclear radiation affected area of Japan. Kira did a great job communicating this story.

I am now taking inquiries and orders for commissions for the 2012-13 concert season. If you would like a new, exciting piece of music for your choir contact me. Commissioning (and also consider doing a consortium commission- it saves you money) is very rewarding for all and I do my best to make each piece special in some way. I am also entertaining inquiries for composer in residence situations- either in the Midwest area or anywhere, as a composer in cyber-residence I guess you could say (hey, with Skype anything is possible). I am also available for short residencies at high schools or colleges here and there around the country since I love to travel. Also, I am happy to work with you and your choir on a piece of mine via Skype (no charge of course). The piece doesn't have to be in perfect shape--this is about the process, yes? Skype is a great tool for us all and it's really great fun to interact and have a realtime relationship with a choir that might be 2,000 miles away from me!

So I hope you all have a great finish to your concert season- best wishes as you continue to make magic with soundwaves! And I'll leave you with this kwazy lil clip which has been going pretty viral this last week (so you may have already seen it):

Pt. 2: Guest blog by Kira Rugen- Anúna's Concert Tour of Japan

2012-01-11T10:25:00.026-06:00

Part II

Tsunami stricken Fukushima

This was my first time visiting Japan and I knew very little about the country before arriving. Therefore, I feel blessed that my first experience singing with Anúna was for the Japanese people in Fukushima, the most heavily damaged region stricken by the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. The Ambassador of Ireland sponsored a series of projects in which several Irish artists provided comfort and cheer to children in the region through benefit concerts. The Japanese put a lot of stake into the healing power of music, but this is especially true for a country that has recently endured a catastrophic natural disaster. Anúna and Irish musician, Liam Ó Maonlaí, gave performances to primary age and secondary age Japanese students over the course of two days. Although I am an American, by virtue of singing with Anúna, I was a part of these extraordinary events.

We were told that this region is devastated. Yet, on the surface it would not be immediately clear to a visitor why the region continues to suffer. On a driving tour of the worst hit neighborhoods, we noticed that large areas have been cleared and in some cases rebuilt. The cleanup was thorough and swift. It is not the aftermath of the tsunami itself that has devastated the region, but rather, the ever-present radiation that continues to exist in the ground, drinking water and continues to touch every part of the residents’ lives. The children are not allowed to play outside because there is radiation in the ground. The food supply, such as crops and animal products, has been infiltrated. A pathway is cleared and sprayed down daily for students to walk on to and from school in the hopes that there will be less radiation exposure. To us it was a poignant and telling moment to see those children, wearing their matching uniforms and matching backpacks, walk in lines along these pathways as they made their way home. I found their return to everyday life and their display of routine impressive, but also emotionally unsettling. They have been through immense upheaval, yet they go on with their regular lives attending school, going to work and buying goods. They exhibited a sense of ‘normalcy’ that the rest of the world hopes and prays for in that region.

Anúna in Fukushima, December 2011 from Anuna on Vimeo.

[Note: Vimeo player may be a little slmow in loading]

The children were very excited for the ‘foreigners’ to arrive. In their shy demeanor, they insisted on saying ‘Konnichiwa’ in the hallways, and the entire campus was abuzz with excitement. During the performance, students sat in rows organized by age, with five-year olds in the front.

photo: Yoko Nozaki

As we began our concert, the children were so surprised by our entrance that they began murmuring and standing up to understand what was happening around them. They continued to be mesmerized as we sang and moved around the space. We ended our program by having the children join us in the traditional Japanese song “Yuki”, our own special version of which we had prepared for them on the bus ride to the region. Young children stood up to sing with us, and instruments were given to older student for them to join in on the fun!

photo: Yoko Nozaki

At the close of our concert, the 4th-6th grade band performed for us. It was a true education for me to see what these children ages nine to eleven were capable of musically. The talent displayed by the forty-member band was outstanding. There were xylophones, accordions, melodicas, hand drums, timpani and piano. Never mind that these were not ‘traditional’ band instruments, this elementary school ensemble had an extraordinary gift to offer. They were rhythmic, musical, and the pieces were completely memorized. The entire program had the air of respect and appreciation for our presence at their school. I was fully impressed and felt that instead of our concert being the catalyst for healing them, they instead healed us with their impressive display. As the Japanese children exited the hall, they were not shy in their desire to touch us. Plenty of high fives, handshakes, hugs and pictures with the peace sign were exchanged.

photo: Anúna

The effect Anúna can have on an audience of any age, socioeconomic status, or culture is profound. These children were enthusiastic about our performance and fascinated with Anúna’s ritualized movement, shimmering voices and historical costumes. Our presentation was completely foreign to anything they have ever experienced and their reaction, given in the universal language of children, was pure joy!

After this experience, I was certain that I would have been happy to spend the entire tour doing several benefit concerts for the children in Japan. As I sang with Anúna, I held a sense of hope that this little gift we gave them was enough to at least offset their pain for a while. I gazed at those adorable little girls and boys, who were fascinated with our program, and I wanted to weep for them. They looked and acted exactly like my son and daughter, who are five and seven, and I found myself making comparisons. They are all full of life, smiles and joy! I couldn’t help but think of their great potential. Yet, I was able to see resigned acceptance and pain behind the eyes in the parents who were seated in the back of the hall. They exhibited an ache and a yearning for what was lost, but also a great appreciation for what we were there to do. It took all of my strength as a performer to avoid deteriorating emotionally while we were sharing our music and I utterly failed in my composure during their concert and gift giving ceremony. It touched and shook me, particularly because I am a parent and understand so keenly the hopes, dreams and fears that we all have for our children. It did my heart good to know that we were a part of an effort to support the victims of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami.

Many heartfelt thanks goes to Onahama 1^st Elementary School, Yuko Maeda, Plankton Company, The Embassy of Ireland to Japan, and Anúna for organizing the benefit concerts in the Fukushima region. The Japanese peoples' greatest desire is for rest of the world to not forget what happened and continue to reach out to them. Japan, with your extraordinary attention to service, giving, kindness, beauty and healing: this privileged musician will not forget you.

[PC here: Thank you so much, Kira, for such a personal, heart touching blog. I will follow this soon with information on a musical project/website called "Sing for Japan", put together last year by Marian Dolan, Yo Matsushita, and Sherri Lasko, which has raised money and awareness for the plight of the people in Fukushima.]

Visit Sing for Japan: http://www.thechoirproject.org/sing4japan/

Visit them on FB: http://www.facebook.com/#!/singjapan

Guest blog by Kira Rugen- Anúna's Concert Tour of Japan

2012-01-09T21:12:00.043-06:00

At this November's National Collegiate Choral Organization conference (start reading my many blogs from NCCO here) I was fortunate to meet Kira Zeeman Rugen, a bright young singer/conductor and grad student from Greg Gentry's Arizona State University choir who performed at NCCO. Kira asked to interview me as part of her dissertation on recent trends in American choral music and after the interview she told me that she would be singing with Michael McGlynn's Anúna on tour in Japan (I had met Michael earlier this year at ACDA Chicago and we really hit it off). I invited Kira to guest blog about her experiences- you are in for a treat of a read. It will be in two parts starting today.

(BTW, I am looking for more cool guest bloggers who woudl liek to share interesting ideas and expereinces in the choral world- please step forward if you are interested).

Here is a pic of Kira and her bio, and then I will turn the rest of the blog over to her:

Kira Zeeman Rugen, singer and conductor, is pursuing a DMA in choral conducting with a cognate in vocal performance at Arizona State University where she conducts the early music ensemble, Solis Camerata (Choir of the Sun). Kira is also in her eighth season as a singer in the Phoenix Chorale under Charles Bruffy, and is a member of Anuna, Irelands National Choir. She has performed under the direction of Ton Koopman in Carnegie Hall’s Young Artist Concert Series, at the Incheon International Choral Festival in Korea and has sung extensively throughout Italy, Ireland and the U.S. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in vocal performance and choral conducting from Weber State University, and a Master of Music in choral education with an emphasis in vocal performance from Arizona State University. Kira has taught children and youth choirs, high school choirs, orchestra and musical theater in the greater Phoenix area.

Singing with Anúna – Part I

My name is Kira Zeeman Rugen and I am a DMA candidate in the Choral Conducting program at Arizona State University. I’d like to thank Paul Carey for inviting me to be a guest writer on his blog and I’m excited to share my story.

As a part of my degree, I am pursuing research on the performance practice techniques of contemporary professional choirs. I have had the fortune to interview many interesting conductors and composers for my research, and through this process I met Michael McGlynn. I have always been fascinated with the music of Anúna, particularly the visual beauty and the aural esthetic they have become famous for and wanted to include it in my research. I attended Anúna‘s summer workshop in Dublin last July, and had the honor of singing with Anúna as a part of that event. It was a memorable and fun experience and the information I gleaned for my research was of great value to me. Much to my surprise and excitement, in August, Michael McGlynn invited me to become a touring member of his choir, Anúna. It was an offer of a lifetime that I could not refuse.

My first tour with Anúna, Ireland’s National Choir, was on a two-week concert tour to Japan just last month (December 2011). This adventure certainly gave me first hand eye-opening information for my research. When the schedule of events for the tour arrived, I took one look at the timetable and immediately thought, “That looks like the ugly underbelly of the life of a rock star.” I didn’t know then just how accurate a description that was. Working with Anúna is not like working with a traditional classical choir. As an eight-year member of the Phoenix Chorale and having traveled with them extensively during that time, I am accustomed to rigorous schedules, flights, buses, great friends, exciting cities, beautiful music and rewarding concerts. Touring with Anúna had all of those same elements but with a whole new set of dynamics. Many elements were new to me as a professional singer, and particularly unique to Anúna.

We perform as twelve singers. Every voice is integral, and balancing the sections was always of primary importance. We perform without a conductor, giving us the freedom to perform as a chamber ensemble, communicating directly with an audience. Typically this technique is practiced by ensembles that regularly rehearse and perform together. Often, an Anúna touring group doesn’t get the chance to rehearse together until on location… so we learn fast!
We usually perform with microphones in larger halls. The amplification is meant to ‘lift’ the sound for a natural mix, rather than amplify the sound. The effect is one of a quiet wash of voices that the audience strains hear, as opposed to the wall of blasting speakers found in rock music.
We perform everything memorized, and had to learn by heart all potential lines (S1, S2, and A for girls. T1, T2, B for the guys).

The women of Anúna

I had to alter my tone to fit within the context of their sound, which does stems from a classical tradition, but has a different production than I am accustomed to. There is a mixture of trained classical singers and gifted amateurs, which provides for a unique and beautiful color. I think the best way to describe the tone is to compare it to the traditional solo Irish folk song tradition, and then applied to a choral medium. Let’s just say that operatic vowels do not work here!

Language pronunciation is an issue as the singers are from several different countries. Anúna is based in Dublin, with about thirty-six singers currently on the roster. They come from Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, England and the U.S. The Japanese tour included twelve of those singers: three from Northern Ireland, seven from the Dublin area and two from the United States. There are times that the natural Irish accent is compelling in the music. Other times, such as when singing in Latin, we have to work to find some middle ground.

We never know what music, what order, what part or which solo will be sung by whom until we are well into the dress rehearsal of a concert that opens in two hours. Also, Michael prefers to operate without a printed program. There are pros and cons to this method:

Con: It is difficult to know the show down ‘cold’ before it begins and the dress rehearsals feel frantic.

Pros: The show can be flexible, improvisational and fresh for every audience. If someone is sick or is unable to perform, anyone in the ensemble can fill in as necessary. This format prevents the show from growing stale or old and allows for artistic license in any given setting. There is no program to dictate what is coming next, so the audience may experience surprise and wonder by not knowing what is expected.

Anúna is known for their use of space and sound in creative and unconventional ways. We use the entire space of the hall for choreographed and movement numbers. There is a presentation, a gait and appearance that is a part of being an Anúna singer, in particular for the women- slow, graceful, beautiful and natural. It’s not as easy as it sounds!

A unique and defining characteristic of Anúna, is how much we rely heavily upon one another in concert. Even though Michael McGlynn is the leader, there is an egalitarian aspect to the duties and interaction. All singers correct and help each other, create the staging together, and everyone is highlighted as a soloist or instrumentalist in the concerts. Although the choir takes the rehearsals seriously, there is silliness in the work. When the stress gets high, the clowning around keeps the tone light. The Irish work as hard as they play, in all aspects of their life! Their jokes, sarcastic banter and clever tongues add to the camaraderie and fun that defines the group. At first they made my transition into the group comfortable and fun. Then the ‘all-in-good-fun’ teasing began! But by the end of the trip we were all the best of friends. You know what they say about the Irish… neither do I. But I’m sure it’s something like… “The more they razz you, the more they like you!”

(Michael McGlynn)

On the Japanese tour we gave nine or ten concerts and three workshops, each in a different city of Japan, over thirteen days. The workshops were really fun because it gave the audience and locals a chance to interact on a personal level with the choir. We even had the privilege of singing on Japanese national television for three - four million viewers (yes, I was nervous).

Anúna on Japanese TV (photo: Yoko Nozaki)

We took planes, buses, bullet trains and jumbo taxis everywhere we traveled. We stayed in seven or eight different cities (I lost track!) and checked out the local cuisine everywhere we traveled. For those of us who were brave enough, we tested out the Japanese Onsen spas. THAT was certainly a new experience for many of us.

Perhaps the most profound element of performance that I learned as a new singer to Anúna, was the effect this music has on an audience. The Japanese are respectful and quiet people and as a whole, they are some of the most well behaved audiences I have ever sung for. They sat captivated and completely silent throughout each concert and their rapt attention, combined with the compelling music and colorful lighting, created an atmosphere of a dream-like sequence. Musicians are used to gauging an audience based on their reaction to a concert. We describe it by saying we can feel the ‘energy’ of an audience, or we know it by their exuberant clapping. I had to be much more keenly aware of the ‘energy’ in a Japanese audience because of their unmoving and concentrated attention. Over the course of the tour, I became more and more aware that there was a gentle hum of energy flowing from the listeners. They were touched by the atmosphere and soaked up every last nuance. I think they were really listening, and not just hearing the music. The more I was aware of this newly identified energy, the more I was able to respond and change how I performed for them.

After the concerts the Japanese audiences relayed much appreciation by sharing their happiness and sense of peace. They expressed a genuine gratitude and love for our music by presenting us with gifts everywhere we went. It seems to me that the emotional experience listeners have when hearing the music of Anúna, is the magic that makes this ensemble compelling and successful. After all, it is certainly the aspect that initially drew me to love the music of Anúna.

In concert in Japan (photo: Yoko Nozaki)

As a professional singer, I have had some really beautiful musical experiences that I cherish and value. But my experience with Anúna was completely different than anything I’ve done before… and I loved it! In my opinion, the culture that Anúna has developed over the past twenty-five years is something uniquely individual and noteworthy. Their music, which could be identified as a ‘crossover’, is easily approachable and loved worldwide. Having now had the experience of touring with Anúna, I must agree with the comment Michael McGlynn shared with me last August: being Anúna just might be “dangerous to the soul”.

Coming Up: Part Two of Kira's experience

Xavier University Concert Choir Winter Tour

2012-01-04T10:13:00.005-06:00

Happy New Year!

Sherri, Aidan, and I had a great trip right after Christmas and on through yesterday down to the Buffalo River area of Missouri/Arkansas. We hiked Lost Valley near Ponca- an incredible area with caves and waterfalls. Also near Ponca we saw a herd of wild elk (these are western elk restored where the eastern elk disappeared from years ago). We also saw eight bald eagles soaring above the dam on Table Rock Lake, thousands of young trout at the fish hatchery, owls out during daylight, and much more. Aidan also spent a ton of time in the very large pool at the motel working on his swimming (and splashing) skills. All in all we had a great time.

Just a quick heads up if you are in any of the following areas (see below)- Tom Merrill's Xavier University Concert Choir from Cincinnati is touring the Midwest now and the repertoire includes my “Play with your Food”. The other repertoire (which I can't seem to find right now) is pretty classy stuff. Catch them if you can!

(Tom Merrill)

Winter Tour Venues 2012

Tuesday, January 3
Concert Venue:
St, Francis Xavier Church (SLU campus)
3628 Lindell Blvd.
St. Louis, MO 63108

Wednesday, January 4
Concert: (7:30 pm)
Holy Cross Church
405 West Clark St.
Champaign, IL 61820

Thursday, January 5
Concert: (7:30 pm)
St. John the Baptist Catholic Church
209 South Street
Wauanakee, WI 53597

Saturday, January 7
Concert: (7:30 pm).
St. Matthew Cathedral
1701 Miami St.
South Bend, IN 46613

Sunday, January 8
10 am Mass at Basilica of Notre Dame
Basilica of the Sacred Heart
Notre Dame, IN 46556

A Cradle Song, text by William Blake

2011-12-26T18:20:00.005-06:00

Here is another seasonal song, this one written back a few years and performed here by the Michigan State University Childrens Choir. They are directed by good friend Mary Alice Stollak with one of my favorite pianists, Judy Kabodian.

Hope you enjoy it!

Beautiful video presentation of "Winter Solstice"

2011-12-24T06:19:00.000-06:00

Please enjoy this gorgeous video presentation by Sherri Lasko of my "Winter Solstice" for SSA/harp or piano. It's published by Roger Dean and if you like I can send you a free perusal score.

Here are comments from my website:

When I was asked to write a commissioned piece for the Santa Fe Women’s Ensemble I was determined to write something very special for the group, as they had been so kind as to present other pieces of mine on a number of earlier programs. I have always loved New Mexico, and decided that I would try to write a piece for them that would have a specifically New Mexico flavor. I eventually found and read many poems by New Mexico poets and settled on works by Miriam Sagen, Lonnie Howard, and the late Elizabeth Searle Lamb. Eventually I realized that if I used all of the poems I had selected by these three wonderful writers it would create a piece that might be too long and unwieldy, so I reluctantly dropped the long Sagen poem and all but one of the beautiful haiku by Lamb. I hope to set Miriam Sagen’s poetry in the near future and will also look at more of Elizabeth Lamb’s poetry as well.

The texts are about the winter solstice in New Mexico, a very special time and place. They are not Christmas texts, yet the passing of the winter solstice is, of course, often associated with the Christmas hope of renewal. What I have tried to write, with these poems as inspiration, is “night music”, a genre which I have always loved. Also, while the landscapes are New Mexican, I hope that the beauty of the texts and the winter solstice theme will still attract interest from choir directors and audiences in the larger choral world.

Sherri, Aidan, and I had a great time in Santa Fe during the week of the premiere with our hosts Linda and Jim Beck. Aidan especially enjoyed our own little casita with all its little pathways -- what a magical week! We also met Natalie Goldberg, who now lives in Santa Fe, and whose poetry I have set to music (My Friend Elijah, and Into this World) and really had a great time getting to know the main poet for this piece, Lonnie Howard. Lonnie's energy was so warm and positive -- just a wonderful person in so many ways.

Happy Hanukkah! Gorgeous video of Unending Flame (by P. Carey and Sherri Lasko

2011-12-20T13:03:00.008-06:00

Happy Hanukkah!

Here is a great video version by Sherri Lasko of the song we wrote together. It's been getting a lot of performances the last few years, including four this month by the Oregon Repertory Singers directed by Ethan Sperry. Ethan, who is Jewish, told me that until he heard this piece at a reading session at Chicago ACDA 2011 that he hated all Hanukkah music- I'm pretty honored he thinks this one rocks.

The piece is published by Santa Barbara and comes in two voicings- SA/clarinet/piano and SATB/clarinet/piano. The voice parts are not difficult. There is also an orchestration which you will hear on this video. It is available for rental directly from me.

This piece was commissioned by the Michigan State University Children's Choir and their director, Mary Alice Stollak. She had originally asked for an arrangement of an existing Hanukkah song of my choice, but I just couldn't find one that really grabbed me. I then looked for Hanukkah poems that I could set with original music. No luck there either-- the poems I found were either too short, way too silly, or just really didn't inspire me (hey I was feeling the way Ethan does about the Hanukkah repertoire!). It was then that I asked Sherri Lasko for a text. She wrote a beautiful poem that captures the history, hope, and family traditions and fun of the holiday in a very sweet and musical way and we worked together to make my music complement her poem. I'm really thrilled with our final result.

TEXT

Unending Flame by Sherri Lasko

Unending flame of ages past
burn bright within our hearts tonight,
rekindle hope and love of old
to carry now into the cold.

The greatest strength within us lies,
the promise old renew'd again,
not in our might, but in our heart
do peace and joy within us start.

The gift pass'd on through ev'ry child
I give to you and yours this night,
burn bright your flame,
change the world from dark to light.

------

Dance, sing, shout, clap,
flame of Hanukkah,
Sing, shout, clap, dance,
shining bright Menorah,
Shout, clap, dance, sing,
Send your glowing light
to bring new love to us this night.

Young Naperville Singers 2011 Holiday Concerts

2011-12-17T23:37:00.058-06:00

Happy Holidays! I thought I would share some recent thoughts and experiences working with young choirs and especially with the Young Naperville Singers (Naperville, IL) where I am the composer in residence for 2010-11.

The holiday concerts were Sunday, Dec. 11th, and they were a smash hit. The choirs have grown so much that they now have to present three full concerts throughout the afternoon and early evening in order to have enough seats for all who want to attend- a good problem to have. The organization now boasts well over 300 singers grade 2-12. The Chamber Singers, generally high school age young women and some young men with unchanged voices, under artistic director Angie Johnson, can sing up a storm and match any other top independent children's choir in the country.

My son Aidan sang in the first concert- they did a great under the leadership of Amanda Block. This was a great experience for Aidan at age eight- last year, his first as a singer, was a bit of overload for him. He is just now getting the idea of what it is to be in a musical ensemble and how much responsibility goes into rehearsals, memorizing scores, etc. We are proud that he has more than just sports activities in his life- since so many of his male friends at school do NOTHING but sports- ugh.

The first and second concerts held the premiere of my new piece written for the "Concert Singers" directed nicely by Anne Kasprczak - a simple setting of a beautifully atmospheric poem called "Alone in Winter".

The second and third concerts held the big massed piece I wrote for the organization "Come Christmas the Morn"- to a poem by Eleanor Farjeon. Here is the text I used (this is about 3/4 of the full text):

Now every Child that dwells on earth,
Stand up, stand up and sing!
The passing night has given birth
Unto the Childrens' King.

[refrain] Sing sweet as the flute,
Sing clear as the horn,
Sing joy of the Stars
Come Christmas the morn!
Little Christ Jesus
Our Brother is born.

Now ever Star that dwells in sky,
Look down with shining eyes!
That night has dropped in passing by
A Star from Paradise.
(refrain)

Now every Bird that flies in air,
Sing, raven, lark and dove!
The night has brooded on her lair
And fledged the Bird of Love.
(refrain)

Now every Beast that crops in field,
Breathe sweetly and adore!
The night has brought the richest yield
That ever harvest bore.
(refrain)

Now every Child that dwells on earth,
Stand up, stand up and sing!
The passing night has given birth
Unto the Childrens' King.
(refrain)

Here is a phone video of the second performance- hopefully we will have a more official recording sometime soon:

Some words on the writing of this piece- for the third year in a row I was able to complete a commission in June/July (or at least get pieces mostly written) while teaching at the North Carolina Governor's School in Raleigh, NC. This is a job I love- the students are ridiculously talented, dedicated, and also wacky- totally amazing young people. Late at night I often steal back into the music building and work on commissions- yeah, I'm kind of tired but working on these pieces is something I am of course dedicated to and which I later look back on with pride- the fact that I could teach in such a pressure cooker and still complete commissions. The 2009 commission I worked on there was for the prestigious Incheon City Chorale, one of the great choirs in the world, in 2010 it was a Christmas big honking processional tune (SATB, brass, organ, percussion, massive bell choir) for Edie Copley's Holiday Dinners at Northern Arizona University, and then of course for 2011 these Young Naperville Singer's pieces.

Searching for a great Christmas text and writing a Christmas piece, for this Chicagoan, feels weird in the 100 degree North Carolina heat of June and July! I visited the Meredith College library where Governor's School is held, and found an ancient collection of holiday texts and checked the compilation out- the librarian and I remarked that the book hadn't been checked out in 28 years! But lo and behold, this poor little ignored book contained Farjeon's poem, which I felt was festive and so prefect for young voices- so I was thrilled that this little book and I found each other.

Ideas came quickly and the idea of including a flute and horn part floated into my brain and was quickly squelched- too much of a cliche. Angie did suggest we utilize handbells as she was already inviting a great bell group, the Agape Ringers directed by David Weck. There is a bit of chromaticism in the music, which I thought might be a problem with the sustain of bells- but that was overcome later when one of the ringers volunteered to write a bell part, and he simply left the bells out of the chromatic passages.

I met most of the singers at their early Fall retreat- retreats are brilliant tools for team-building. The kids were great fun in our chat and Q and A about music and what not-dead composers do. We then worked here and there on some misc. rehearsals in November and December. Around October Angie and her great accompanist Melinda Arnold challenged me gently to tweak the ending of Come Christmas Morn. How could we come up with the biggest massed choir joyful impact and still make sure the poetry made sense? And as you see the poem has a lot of repetition- could we ellipse that repetition a bit to be less predicable toward the end? So of course I gained more gray hairs as these two cool people made me jump through the hoops of suggested rewrites but it was truly worth it- after about 5-6 slightly different endings I think we truly nailed it. The ending builds and builds dramatically and still fits the poetry. So I thank Angie and Melinda for being tough critics! And actually when we set out on this composer in residence thing I told them this is what it can be about- the idea that a composer can and should be open to editing a piece and that the choir be open to trying those rewrites. In other words, we as musicians stay flexible to each others ideas. Many choirs will never experience this relationship with a composer, but for us to create this atmosphere for all these young singers is a gift, I would say. And of course they give back the gift of joyful singing and spontaneity to us as well. What a great dynamic to have and to experience.

Angie asked if I would like to conduct Come Christmas the Morn. I at first suggested she should conduct since this is her choir/organization, but I also realized that she wanted me to take some ownership of not just the piece but the performance too, and beside, this woman would of course be totally exhausted at some point in the day- it wouldn't kill me to conduct a piece and take some load off of her.

In rehearsal we had plenty of fun- I teased the older singers about their purposely mismatched socks (I actually think this fashion statement is pretty awesome- but I pretended to be a non-understating old fogey) and we also joked around about them singing more like bests for the section "Now every Beast that crops in field" and let them know that for years I have been hoping for Santa to bring me a baby Congo Buffalo. Hey, anything I can do to get them laughing and breathing is always a good thing. I'll blog soon about a similar rehearsal I had with young people in Hong Kong-- it's really pretty funny.

In concert the piece totally rocked- the bells were amazing-- they used both standard handbells but also chimes- the voicing of those chords and the truly sweet, vibrato effect of the chimes was perfect for the piece. Melinda was rocking on the piano and the singers were totally pumped. The Chamber Singers (the mature HS voices) sang the entire piece, with the younger choirs added into the refrains and some echo effect passages. I got a kick out of the timbral shift from advanced HS to very young voices during the echo effect passage- it was fun to listen to! And I would also like to point out that EVERY song by every ensemble at the three concerts was memorized by these young singers. That meant they were all fully engaged with their directors, audience and the musical sound waves in the room- NO scores getting in the way of communication and joy.

When I conducted Cone Christmas the Morn at concert number two I just came out and did the piece, but at concert three I really felt I wanted to talk to the audience for a tiny but. All I really all I wanted to say was this-- that I know plenty of people at the university level around the country doing great things, but I truly feel they are missing out on the fun of working with young singers. Young singers can be highly artistic, and also are so full of fresh ideas, the joy of singing, etc. They are not jaded and are so much fun to work with. I remember my good friend Mary Alice Stollak working with her own youth choir at Michigan State University and also guest conducting youth honor choirs and she also made a point of letting them know that she considered them musical artists- they just happened to be young musical artists. Whenever Mary Alice would say this to a young choir you could truly see the pride swell in each singer- they were being honored and recognized for striving for and achieving something most people might think was far beyond their reach.

Happy Holidays!

Paul

Richard Sparks on the beauty of earlier tuning systems

2011-12-15T22:32:00.018-06:00

Yes dear friends, we need more people blogging about classical music and especially our art of choral music, won't you enter in? Well one brilliant fellow who has been at it quite awhile is Richard Sparks, a most awesome musician with an amazing amount of musical experience all across the globe. Richard's blog is titled "Richard Sparks- Music, Conducting, Choirs". Well that's straight and to the point, no mention of Saint Olaf lutefisk dinners, wookies, or retrograde hemiolas- I say keep it that way, don't distract the readers, eh? You can read Richard's wonderful posts here:

http://richardsparks1.blogspot.com/

What made me want to reference this currently is that Richard blogged a few days ago about the NCCO conference (which my blog dissected completely via 3,122 posts and which I am still recuperating from via really cheap wine from Trader Joe's) and he mentioned something which I totally missed and which I now feel stupid about (especially since I studied under Ben Johnston for awhile- a master of tuning systems)--namely the tuning options in early music, including the Bach which Helmuth Rilling conducted at NCCO. Richard is not critical of Rilling, he simply points out the options available and so on and it is great reading. And just earlier tonight via email he elaborated even more to me- I am hoping he will add those elaborations to his blog soon. So keep an eye out for that as you check back on on his blog.

Richard now teaches at the University of North Texas alongside Jerry McCoy. UNT is a leader in live streaming their choral concerts. The live stream info can be found here:

http://recording.music.unt.edu/index.php/live

Also, Richard's Collegium performances, whose broadcasts are not as restricted (under copyright law), can be found on YouTube here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/untrecserv

It's amazing the amount of resources we have today that us old folks didn't have "back in the day". Hmmm...I still have my eight year old sort of believing I grew up with dinosaurs. And heck, he doesn't even really know what a videocassette tape was/is, or for that matter a vinyl LP, blah blah, blah.

Anyway, here is some of what Richard wrote about Bach and some tuning ideas (yes, my immediate thought was too many choirs rehearsing with a piano present-- with the piano's percussive, uber high major thirds overwhelming the ear!). But to read the entire Sparks blog on this subject please go here

And now excerpts from Richard:

"I was able to attend the NCCO (National Collegiate Choral Organization) conference in Colorado Springs in early November.

It was a marvelous conference with both excellent concerts/choirs and sessions.

Helmuth Rilling was the headliner, working with James Kim's excellent CSU Chamber Choir. Everyone knows Rilling's work, of course, from his Gächinger Kantorei and Bach-Collegium Stuttgart and his work since 1970 with the Oregon Bach Festival.

Certainly, his work had a big impact on me. As an undergraduate I was tremendously interested in baroque music and got to know his recordings and those of Wilhelm Ehmann, among others. In 1971 the University of Washington Chorale, under the direction of Rod Eichenberger, took part in one of the Vienna Symposiums organized by Paul Koutney..."

"Since I've done lots of work with period instruments (it's one of the reasons the job at UNT was intriguing to me, and certainly one of the reasons I got the job)--the Bach Ensemble in Seattle from 1978-80 began using period instruments--my ideas about performance have changed as well.

With that in mind, it was interesting to listen to the concert at the NCCO, which had two motets (Singet dem Herrn and Jesu, meine Freude) plus the Magnificat. I found that there were two things that struck me most strongly: some aspects of phrasing and the tuning of major thirds. As I mentioned, Rilling has certainly changed many things about the way he phrases baroque music (with the example of the Kyrie in the B Minor), but there are other aspects where my way of phrasing has changed.

In addition, I've gotten so used to different tuning systems that my ear now wants a considerably lower/pure major third, particularly at cadences. For me, the thirds I heard in Colorado were far too "jangly," the only way I can describe the difference between the "beats" of a tempered third and the beatless relative calm of a pure third (the purity refers to a major third which matches the third heard in the natural harmonic series.

Since I'd just done Jesu, meine Freude with my Collegium Singers at UNT, that was very fresh in my mind. Given what I've said, it's only fair that I provide a link to what we did, not that I'm claiming anything for it, but it represents in a more concrete way what can only be expressed poorly in writing. You can find that performance here: the Bach begins at 1:04 (that's one hour, four minutes). You'll know it's live, not only because it's on video with no possibility of editing, but also because our organist (the fabulous Christoph Hammer) played a decidedly non-picardy third at the end of one of the movements! We were using Vallotti for tuning the organ, a decent compromise for this program, which was mostly mid-baroque from northern Germany (Buxtehude, particularly). For other repertoire (Monteverdi Vespers, for example) we've used quarter-comma meantone, which has extremely pure thirds (in some keys!)."

The Portland, Oregon Area Classical Scene- good reading!

2011-12-13T10:16:00.028-06:00

As you may recall, I was out in the Portland, Oregon/Vancouver, WA area (plus over east to the Tri-Cities, WA area as well) in September for the premiere by Howard Meharg's Chor Anno of my modernized version of William Billings' "When Jesus Wept" (conducted by Reg Unterseher). I met so many great people and had a blast exploring downtown Portland and other areas. This trip also led to a premiere last week of a new piece "Winter Moon ", directed by April Duvic with the Clark College Women's Choir in Vancouver, and this past Sunday plus this coming Friday, Saturday, and Sunday Ethan Sperry's Oregon Repertory Singers are preforming my Hanukkah piece "Unending Flame" (great text by Sherri Lasko) on their holiday concerts. By the way, Ethan told me that he now can't say that he hates all Hanukkah pieces, now that he has discovered "Unending Flame"!

What I have for you today are some recent news articles about the classical music scene in the Portland area. The second article, an interview with chorister Stephanie Kramer, is one that Ethan shared on FaceBook recently, and the first, from the wall Street Journal online, includes some quotes from Kathy FitzGibbon, a great choral director who I first met way on the other side of the country when her women's choir from Clark University in Worcester, MA was a participant, along with other colleges in the area, in the premiere performance of my "El Limonar Florido" both in Worcester and then on tour of Spain. Kathy was instrumental (haha) in teaching the choirs how to play their cricket clickers in the dream sequence portion of one of the movements (and yes, cricket clickers do figure into another piece of mine- the bestselling kids piece "Peace on Earth..and lots of little crickets"). O f course beyond my silly andecdote, Kathy is immensely talented and a very sweet person.

Here are the articles- hope you enjoy reading them:

From the Wall Street Journal Online Dec., 13, 2011

by Brett Campbell

'We love classical music. We love playing classical music. We love listening to classical music. We are tired of the elitist and inaccessible nature of the classical world. We believe that there are many that would enjoy classical music if they could access it in a setting that is comfortable for them. We believe classical musicians should be allowed to perform in a setting that is more casual—where the audience is allowed to have a drink, eat a scone, laugh a little, and clap a lot. We believe everyone can enjoy the music that we love." So began a 2006 posting on Portland's Craigslist that became the manifesto for Classical Revolution PDX, which today draws on a roster of more than 200 classical musicians for its chamber jams and other performances, including a concert called "Sympathy for the Devil" featuring music associated with you-know-who.

That show was a co-production with Portland's Electric Opera Company, which plays classical music on electric guitars and other rock instruments. More than a dozen such alt-classical ensembles have emerged here in the past few years, enlivening a city better known nationally for bikes, brews, baristas, beards, the television show "Portlandia," and a thriving indie-rock scene that boasts such bands as the Decemberists. The city teems with organizations presenting new music, old music in clubs, or both.

The Portland Cello Project's all-cello performances of original arrangements of everything from Beethoven to Britney Spears regularly sell out some of the city's biggest clubs and attract guest vocalists from the city's indie-rock scene. The group has been touring nationally for the past three years and is recording its fourth CD. Its holiday concerts this Friday and Saturday will feature music by composers ranging from Bach, Khachaturian and Lili Boulanger to Lil' Wayne.

Opera Theater Oregon stages cheeky, low-budget productions of classic operas (including Wagner's "Das Rheingold" reimagined as a "Baywatch" episode). Several vocal ensembles, drawn from the city's strong choral-music scene, devote considerable programming to contemporary, often homegrown music. The young Cascadia Composers organization will stage at least eight concerts of music by Oregon composers this year. Improvising musicians have a jazz composers orchestra and an avant-garde presenting series. Two more new-music groups launched this year, and this fall three different organizations presented programs dominated by new music by women composers—electronic, choral and contemporary classical—most from the Pacific Northwest.

This fall also saw CD releases and national tours by both Vagabond Opera, a "Balkan Arabic Klezmer-based, original absurdist cabaret ensemble," led by Eric Stern, a former opera tenor, and the March Fourth Marching Band, which plays original and cover tunes of funk, rock and dance music on its brass instruments.

What's fueling Portland's alt-classical surge? "There's a growing sense with the current generation of performers that those jobs they trained for aren't there, so you have to make your own opportunities," says Katie Taylor, former producing artistic director of Opera Theater Oregon, "and while you're at it, build a new audience."

The West Coast's most affordable cultural center, Portland offers numerous attractions to exploratory classical musicians. "The city itself is a desirable place to live, particularly to those interested in the arts and being around other artists," explains composer Galen Huckins, who runs Filmusik, which sets old films to original live music by various local composers at historic theaters. "Having so many top-tier players around, many of whom have full-time jobs outside of music, means that there's a wealth of players excited to be part of new groups and experiment with emerging organizations."

Many of the alt-classical adventurers share a collaborative spirit. "Relative to other places where I've lived and worked, Portland has an incredibly vibrant and dynamic alternative classical-music scene," says Katherine FitzGibbon, who moved to Portland from Boston in 2008 to direct choral programming at Lewis & Clark College.

Her Resonance Ensemble regularly programs contemporary and 20th-century choral music, and collaborates with poets, painters, dancers and other artists. "Everyone wants everybody else's group to be successful," she says. "Everybody's looking for ways to deepen the performing experience and the audience experience as well."The entrepenurial newcomers are building on groundwork laid over the past 20 years by the busy new-music ensembles FearNoMusic and Third Angle, which have shown listeners that "art music has re-established its claim to beauty," says Third Angle director and Oregon Symphony violinist Ron Blessinger. "Audiences and artists have gotten away from the attitude that it has to be incomprehensible to be art. Our geography helps. We don't have proximity to major cultural centers, so we have this laboratory here where the independent creative culture of Portland gives you permission to be creative."

Opera Theater's Ms. Taylor predicts that the alt-classical scene will continue to blossom. "I would expect more busking and original film projects, and more happening online," she says. "And you'll see more traditional groups applying these alternative methods to build their audiences. I also think heavy turnover is going to become the norm."

The venerable Portland Opera invited both Opera Theater Oregon and Electric Opera to perform at a street party outside its season-opening concert. The 40-year-old Chamber Music Northwest and old-line Portland Piano International, seeing the younger audiences flocking to alt-classical performances, have been presenting less-traditional concerts in some of the same venues.

Still, Ms. Taylor's own experience shows that chronic underfunding makes the alt-classical scene as risky financially as it is musically. Staging even a small-scale opera costs a lot more than bringing a string quartet into a club, and after five years shepherding Opera Theater Oregon to increasing artistic success and burgeoning audiences, she still wound up in debt, and stepped down as producing artistic director this summer.

"Our last show involving filmed elements required sophisticated equipment—software, HD cameras, lighting—the sheer number of people involved made it superexpensive just to feed them, which is the only pay people got," she says. "The longer you do something, the less likely people want to pitch in for free."

Such obstacles don't seem to discourage Portland's many alt-classical musicians. Next spring, composer Bob Priest's annual March Music Moderne festival, involving both alternative and traditional classical groups, will incorporate at least two dozen new music-spiced events featuring about 100 20th- and 21st-century works.

"Portland has never liked being told how to behave or what to do," says pianist Maria Choban, locally renowned for electrifying performances of contemporary and classic repertoire. "I think this is why it's so fertile for spawning a 'bad-boy' alt-classical music scene. We might be the geographic location most likely to give classical music a much needed blood transfusion, in the same way Seattle was for pop when it spawned grunge."

From Oregonmusicnews.com
by James Bash

Portland is a haven for choral singers, including the select few who are paid to sing in choirs. One of the very best singers in this specialized profession is Stephanie Kramer. I’ve heard Kramer sing at a number of choral concerts and have found her name listed in several recordings, including the latest Portland Baroque Recording of the St. John Passion. So, I got in contact with her to find out more about her work as a professional choral singer.

Tell us a little about your background as a singer. Have you been singing for a long time?

Kramer: I’ve been singing as long as I can remember. Music is a part of my heritage. My mom sang in her high school choir and her church choir. My grandmother taught piano and played organ at the same Lutheran church for sixty years. She started when she was twelve and played until she was seventy-two.

I grew up in little towns, singing in school and at church. Growing up Lutheran played a big part. As Garrison Keillor says, ‘Lutherans are bred to sing in four-part harmony.’ I also had a great high school director, John Baker at Rex Putnam, who taught us music theory and sight singing.

I went to Concordia University in Portland for a couple of years and then transferred to Portland State University where I sang under Dr. Bruce Browne. I sang for him in the PSU Chamber Choir. That led to singing in Choral Cross-Ties, which was a professional vocal ensemble. I ended up singing with Choral Cross-Ties for ten years. One of the highlights of my early career was returning to my high school and performing with CCT as a professional choral singer.

How many choirs are you singing with now?

Kramer: I’m singing with several professional choirs. I mainly sing with Cappella Romana, under the direction of Dr. Alexander Lingas, and Resonance Ensemble, under the direction of Dr. Katherine FitzGibbon. I also frequently sing with Trinity Episcopal and Cantores in Ecclesia. Looking back over my career, I’ve sung with many of the groups in town: Oregon Repertory Singers, Portland Symphonic Choir, Portland Pro Musica, and Portland Opera Chorus. I’ve had quite a few church choir jobs.

There must be times when you could be in a rehearsal or concert every night of the week.

Kramer: Right! Certain months can be very busy. Last March I had a crazy schedule… performing, touring, and recording the St. John Passion with PBO, and then going directly from that to a tour to San Francisco with Cappella Romana. I think that I had something every night. August was like that too, with the William Byrd Festival and preparing for the Greece tour with Cappella Romana. December, of course, is always full. This is my fourteenth year in a row to sing the Messiah with PBO, and I never get tired of it!

So some gigs have taken you to foreign countries?

Kramer: I’ve been to France with Cantores in Ecclesia, and to London, England and Greece in two separate tours with Cappella Romana. I also took some wonderful trips when I was in the PSU Chamber Choir, including a tour to the Czech Republic.

Are you a soprano or an alto?

Kramer: I sing a little of both. I have a pretty big range and an ability to blend with different vocal timbres. I’m singing alto this week in the Vaughan Williams Hodie with the choir at Trinity. Next week I’m singing soprano in Handel’s Messiah with Portland Baroque Orchestra. Then I go back to singing alto for the Rachmaninoff All Night Vigil with Cappella Romana.

Do you ever do solos?

Kramer: I’ve done some – usually within the context of a choral concert. But I’ve never truly had the desire to be a soloist. Over the years, I’ve found that singing in small ensembles is really my niche. Ensemble singing requires a different skill set than singing solos. It just suits my personality better.

Have you every counted how many languages you’ve sung?

Kramer: Oh no! I’ve lost count of that a long time ago. But some of the more interesting and challenging languages I’ve sung in are Czech, Finnish, Serbian, Russian, and Greek. Having a good ear to hone the language skills is a great asset.

Do you teach voice?

Kramer: No. I’ve never felt that I had the gift of teaching. So that is not something that I’ve been inspired to do. But I have mentored a few younger singers, and am a hundred percent supportive of music and arts education in our schools.

Then do you have a day job in addition to your choral singing?

Kramer: Yes. I work part-time at Oregon Catholic Press in its recordings department. Many of my professional singing friends teach voice or conduct school or church choirs. I’m also the Managing Director of Resonance Ensemble, and I do some administrative work for Cappella Romana.

I feel extremely blessed to have a job in music.

How many recordings have you done?

Kramer: I’ve probably done more than fifty recordings with Oregon Catholic Press. I’ve been singing for them since 1996; so it adds up after a while. I think that I’ve done about twelve CDs with Cappella Romana. The most recent release is our recording of the Bach St. John Passion with Portland Baroque Orchestra. Cappella Romana also just recorded a new CD when we were on tour in Greece. It’s been a wonderful year!

Are recordings more difficult than singing for a live audience?

Kramer: Yes! I find that it’s difficult to keep the same energy that you have when you are in front of an audience. Sometimes I try to picture the people who might listen to the recording – like my mom. That seems to help me.

Recording sessions have their pitfalls. Sometimes (especially in large works) you have to take sections of music out of order. That can disrupt the flow of the music. And of course it’s always frustrating when you have to stop in the middle of a great take because of a motorcycle going by or a rooster crowing.

A rooster crowing?
Kramer: That happened on the Greece tour. We were recording in a lovely little country church on the island of Paros, and a rooster crowed during one of our takes. We all burst out laughing. Singing, and all of the experiences that come along with it, is one of the greatest joys of my life.

NCCO- Introducing the new NCCO Choral Music Series

2011-12-09T09:35:00.000-06:00

Paraphrased from the NCCO website:

"At this year's conference the National Collegiate Choral Organization was pleased to announce that four outstanding choral compositions had been chosen as the inaugural selections for the NCCO Choral Music Series. These works were presented in a literature session at the 2011 NCCO Conference, on Sat, Nov. 5 at Fort Collins, CO, at Colorado State University.

The composers and titles of the selected compositions are:

Dwight Bigler — Miss Mackenzie
Joseph Gregorio — Love, thricewise
Brian Holmes — The Cat and the Moon
Robinson McClellan — Nunc dimittis

These compositions will soon available for purchase from NCCO. An NCCO membership is not be a requirement for purchasing the scores."

PC speaking now- NCCO took this step into publishing and championing of new choral music to fill a vacuum in the world created by the conventional publishers overload on music that is either too simple or too simple-minded. I wholeheartedly love that instead of complaining about the conventional publishers they went the next step and are trying to solve the problem, even if it is just baby steps for the time being. They also chose to break the publishers' mold- and I was happy to be consulted on how to do this- for instance NCCO is not taking ownership of the composers' copyrights, the royalty level is far more favorable for the composers and other new ideas which the conventional publishers ought to sit up and take notice of, in my opinion. My participation in this was informal, but I have to day that I was honored that Buddy James desired my input so much. Buddy, Bill & Bill, Lisa, Sarah, and Mitos- you got this right and I hope it grows and grows. And I would also like to add that the score layout of these pieces is highly professional. Great job there too!

Hopefully more info will be up at http://www.ncco-usa.org/ soon about these pieces.

So to finally wrap up the NCCO conference- it was beyond great. I had so much fun and heard so much inspired singing and met so many wonderful people. And guess what-- on the bus shuttle going south from Ft. Collins down to Denver I actually saw a mountain lion just a hundred yards from the highway- at first I couldn't believe my eyes!

Thanks for reading, folks!

NCCO- Panel Discussion on Commissioning New Choral Works

2011-12-07T14:27:00.002-06:00

NCCO More Saturday Interest Sessions

In addition to the Alice Parker-centered events Saturday there were two other events. These were choir/composer based events-- the first was on commissioning new choral music and the second was the introduction of the initial compositions of the new NCCO Choral Music Series. Both events were heavily attended and excellent.

The commissioning event was a round table discussion ably led by Alan Harler, whose Mendelssohn Club based in Philadelphia has commissioned 48 works since 1990. The panel members were composers Kirke Mechem and Libby Larsen, composer/conductor Steven Sametz, and conductors Jeffrey Douma and Nathaniel Lew.

(Alan Harler)

Much of the discussion centered on mechanics, contracts, communication between composer and conductors but also on the reason a choir should want to commission new works. A lot of stress was put on the importance of the composer being in the community the week of the performance and interacting with singers, the community, etc instead of just writing a work from a thousand miles away, mailing it in and never having any real personal interaction with the music makers. Good points often with goood humor were made. Steven Sametz was especially entertaining in his comments and Kirke Mechem was wonderful in his sharing of resources.

Here is a link to a book called Composers on Composing for Choirs (published by GIA, right down the street from me!) which you can see on Google Books (go to p. 99) and read for yourself this checklist that Mechem shared with us at NCCO ( I have not yet received written permission to post it directly).

Here are some further commissioning info sources for you if you want to explore this more:

From Meet the Composer

And Catherine Davies of ChorusAmerica has varied materials and articles she is happy to share if you write to her at Catherine@chorusameirca.org

Now some personal feelings about this- and there may be a bit of mayhem ahead- oh how I wish I could name names!

I have commissioned just a few works but have been commissioned a pretty fair amount in the last ten years. In my opinion there are some things that just have to happen in order for everyone to "be happy" as Bobby McFerrin would say--

First of all I am going to look at this from the conductor/organizational side of things, and not approach it from where you may have expected for me to start from- the composers side. I am doing this because I am very disappointed by the behavior of some composers and I think some of them need to work a lot harder to do the right thing by conductors and organizations (Lew gave an example of receiving a commissioned work two years past its due date- ugh, ugh, and shall I say it again?- ugh!). Also composers need to realize that conductors and organizations have rehearsal schedules to maintain and that also they are paying out their trust AND money to the composer- they really don't have a true guarantee of receiving a masterpiece and may even get a dud, or something that just doesn't work for their choir or the event the piece was to be for. Because most of the artistic risk is on the organizational side, composers should be far more willing to work harder to gain AND MAINTAIN trust. When I heard of the two year overdue piece that Lew referred to I was mad- it reflects badly on all composer and makes us look like narcissistic spoiled brats.

Conductors deserve to have some real input into the piece in some way- and perhaps in a lot of ways (conductors do vary a lot on how much they hope to control and how much they want to leave open). Sharing text selection decisions with the composer and/or at least approving the final choice to make sure it fits the scope of what they want is something that is very important to most all involved.

Composers ought to NEVER EVER be late with delivering a commission unless they have been run over by a Pizza Hut truck, or succumbed to dementia from being kidnapped by zombies and forced to watch Kardashian reality series shows or something along those lines.

Composers need to strive and honor difficulty parameters, range parameters, and so on that have been discussed in some sort of depth. Even though some of this is subjective, I am able to put some of this into contract language. And I'm not implying here that commissioned pieces should be easy- I am just saying they should fit what was discussed.

All composers should be willing to be open to all communication- not shut it off.

Finally, maybe even some composers who can't respect conductors/organizations should not appear on panels that discuss commissioning new music.

So... I'll keep going...a few years ago the following was my horror story. I have not told this story to any but close friends until now and have pretty much let go my anger about it- but the offending composer was in the room at this NCCO event and it was just galling me over and over to see this person present.

This was a joint commission between my group and two other groups. We chose a well-known composer (who was a friend of two of us at the time, btw) and worked out many musical parameters and timelines in phone calls.

And after all this groundwork here is what then gradually transpired:

We wrote up a contract which included language for a down payment from us once we received a signed contract. But the composer never signed the contract, even when reminded again and again.

We started asking more detailed questions about the text (which was roughly agreed upon to earlier- it was a series of texts on a theme - some texts were already chosen and some still to be discovered) to which we were told "It's none of your business"

We started asking for even simple progress reports which were ignored and then were answered with "Leave me alone, and I will only talk to you through my assistant" (oh yeah, he didn't talk to us either).

As the date the score was due had almost arrived we were becoming so worried it was ridiculous. And then the deadline for the piece to be delivered passed and we were left waiting and with no response to our inquiries. We wondered-- would we ever receive it, how would we handle the fact that we had already printed up professionally printed promotional items heralding performances of this commission, how would one of our parties handle the fact that they were expecting to tour this piece?

The piece became even more and more overdue. I contacted the composers high profile publisher (thankfully the person answering the phone was someone I knew personally and who chose to speak freely to me) and here is what I was told: "Oh, I bet X hasn't even started this piece- X is behind on all X's commission commitments". My stunned response was- "You can't be right- and I can't fathom where we are if you ARE right"!

At this point we were all aghast. We pushed and pushed for communication (after all, by now all three groups should already be starting to rehearse this piece) and finally what happened was this- we received a shoddily, seemingly quickly written piece that did not fit any of the parameters discussed, and which included some text passages that would be obviously offensive to the world view of one of the commissioning parties institution, was far short of the duration time agreed upon, was a cappella instead of with piano as had been agreed upon and many more transgressions. The composer then demanded ALL the fee be paid immediately. In fact, payment of this fee became the only thing that X wanted to discuss. Wow- all we could do was shake our collective heads!

We consulted a couple attorneys (working pro bono, thankfully) and their advice was to refuse the piece as it 1) was so late as to be impossible for at least one of our choirs to prepare in time 2) didn't honor any of the verbally agreed upon parameters 3) the composer had refused to communicate, and 4) the composer had refused to sign a contract. This was met with a threat to sue us- but we stood firm- we knew we were in the right.

Was I comfortable and happy with our stance? Being a composer myself, in a sense I never was- but it was the logical one considering how illogical and unfair all the composer's many actions or shall I say inactions were. The composer finally backed off and saved face I guess in their mind by hawking this piece to their publisher-- needless to say friendships ended and tough lessons were learned by some of us. But today I know WE did no wrong- or perhaps the only thing we did do wrong was trust this "friend" way too much and not find a way to force the composer to sign a contract and talk to us. I have wondered now and then if the composer in question learned anything from what happened- I would hope so, but I really have no way of knowing.

So here is what I learned as a commissioned composer from this- I have vowed to never ever be late with a piece, I listen really hard to what people want from me, I stay in touch and so on. And I think this has really paid off well- I believe that everyone who has commissioned me over the years has been really happy with how I deal with them regarding contracts, text selection, communication-- and I also try to make each special in some musical or textual way- not just delivering one size fits all pieces. So...I write this not to scare people away from commissioning- but to help them get it right. And it does go right, I would bet, about 90% or more of the time!

REMEMBER: WRITE (and get it signed) A CONTRACT-- even with "friends".

KEEP THE COMMUNICATION GOING, and hey, have some fun along the way too- we're creating new art and new artistic experiences together! Commissioning is almost always a great experience for everyone.

Fun Holiday Performances- thank you, directors!

2011-12-03T09:28:00.017-06:00

Holiday Fun!

Hey, I just wanted to give a shout out to the following directors and their groups who are performing some of my holiday music in December. And if you are a director who is also doing a piece of mine, please let me know. It's great fun for me to meet people from around the country and the world who are doing my music, AND the more performances I can show ASCAP, the more reimbursement humble classical composers like myself can receive from money set aside from the pile of money that pop artists have (this is called the ASCAP AWARDS program- it's a yearly cash award based on performances, recordings, premieres, commissions, etc, but I have to document it all).

Anyhoo here are some performances I do know of and I thank these people so much!

Nov 30th (Philly) Temple University Men's and Women's Choir performing Winter Solstice, directed by my bud Rollo Dilworth (Rollo is also doing this piece at the New Mexico All-State choir in early January- thanks, Rollo!)

Dec. 2 (Hotlanta) The Gwinnett Young Singers perform Hush My Dear Lie Still and Slumber, directed by Lynne Duke Urda

Dec. 3 (Kansas City) The Kansas City Children's Choir will perform Peace on Earth...and lots of little crickets, directed by Becky Penerosa

(this will be one of a gazillion performances of this piece this month- it's been viral for at least three years now with kids choirs)

Dec. 4th (Chicago) Northwestern University Chapel Choir performing I Saw Three Ships, directed by Stephen Alltop

Dec. 4th (Newark, NJ) The Newark Symphony with The Delaware Children's Choir (Marybeth Miller) will perform Unending Flame in the choral/orchestral version, directed by Simeone Tartaglia (say all of that ten times)

Dec. 5th (Omaha) Madrigali et al performing Ding Dong Merrily on High with the Joslyn Castle Brass Consort, directed by Matt Harden

Dec. 8th (Vancouver, WA) Clark College Women's Choir PREMIERES Winter Moon, directed by April Duvic

Dec. 10th (South Bend, IN) The Vesper Choral PREMIERES Gabriel's Message, directed by Wishart Bell

Dec. 11th (Naperville, IL) Various choirs of The Young Naperville Singers PREMIERE Alone in Winter, directed by Anne Kasprzak, and also PREMIERE Come Christmas the Morn, the massed choirs directed by me (yay, twill be great fun)

Dec. 11, 16,17, 18 (Portland, OR) Oregon Repertory Singers perform the Chanukkah piece Unending Flame, directed by Ethan Sperry

Dec. 12 (Pittsburgh) the Children's Festival Choir of Pittsburgh perform Clap Your Hands, directed by Christine Jordanoff

There may be gobs more performances of Hush My Dear Lie Still and Slumber and also Ding Dong Merrily on High- sales of those two pieces are really strong- I just haven't heard from many directors performing them!

Thanks, cool directors-- and relay a big thank you to your singers!

If you happen to read this post and you are performing one of my pieces this holiday season, please contact me at paulcarey440@yahoo.com I'd love to hear from you!

Alice Parker at the 2011 NCCO Conference

2011-11-30T22:04:00.032-06:00

Change of Plan- I will blog about Alice Parker's work on Saturday at NCCO- then write a new blog about the rest of Saturday's interest sessions.

Saturday began with Alice Parker recounting how she wrote what are known as the Parker/Shaw arrangements. From her recounting of the process, it was pretty obvious that these arrangements were mostly her work, and that Shaw guided and helped her tweak them. I was not aware of this- the fact that Miss Parker wrote most of the notes and created this music first by herself, with tweaking by Shaw coming after her first inspirations. She has told me, when I questioned her politely on this, that the designation Parker/Shaw was and still is the right name for these works because Shaw guided her so well when she was quite young (she started working when she was 21) and not fully confident of her work. And she has reminded me that later on a number of the arrangements have only her name on them, as she was becoming more confident and far less in need of the guidance/editing of Shaw. In our correspondence on this Miss Parker is quite sweet about how she views their early collaborations- she was ten years his junior, and she says that at that time she truly needed his experience to help her compositional and arranging skills.

We had a whole packet of these pieces and we sang them through with her leading. She was tough on this crowd of choral directors, some of whom (including moi) may have been up too late the previous night! In fact, someone nearby whispered to me- "Hey, I though she would be like a sweet Grandma, I didn't think she would yell at us for sucking at singing!" And yes she was tough on us- at one point telling us that 5% of us had gotten a phrase right and the other 95% were terrible, and berating us for always crescendo rising lines. Personally, I thought it was great fun!

I would also add my opinion that the quality of these arrangements is not totally even- there are many brilliant arrangements which stand the test of time, but also some things which go on too long without fresh ideas warranting the length of them. But there is a great heritage here and so much to like-- and I will always have to say that I love her adamant statement (which she iterates quite often in her appearances) that all the arrangements pick a key and stay there- no knee jerk, "Hey Judy, let's add a half-step up modulation, and another, and another" stuff going on.

Some Parkerisms for y'all:

"Some people were 12 tone composers- I turned into a 5 note composer"

"Phrasing shouldn't be about beats- it should be like waves or a current"

"Never ignore a text comma"

And to counteract the usual performance tendencies of most people conducting "Hark I Hear the Harps Eternal" she said, " It's not ALL joyous. It's more dramatic, and at times tearful- it only gradually grows in its affirmation." What a brilliant soul- would that we all could be so cool and full of energy at age 86!

On Saturday night Alice Parker was named an Honorary Life Member of NCCO- here is what she said as her accepted this honor:

"I am honored more than I can say by this award, and also totally humbled by the fact that I’m standing on the stage before wonderful music is going to be made here. I will be brief in my remarks so we can get to that. I want to thank NCCO for inviting me here, and giving me the chance to be with a delightfully enthusiastic and varied group of people who love what I love, vocal music, and are searching after its many means of expression, with true humor and intelligence and diligence.

We are all here because we have ears. We are taking part in a tradition that goes back to the beginning of the human race, wherever we can find it: people have always listened. People have always learned songs and carried them on. The styles of music vary enormously, as do the languages in which people sing, but the reality is that music is a form of expression that we humans share all over the world. It does something for us that nothing else can do. Words are a basic part of it, but what happens when we combine words and rhythms and tones, is really miraculous. And what it allows for us is a language for our emotions, for sharing in those things which are most human about us and which unite us one to another. All of the different walls of race and color and age and language, political beliefs, everything else falls when we begin to sing together. And I can only wish that all the world would do a lot more singing. That if our Congress always sang a folk song to remind them of our common beliefs, we might be better off. And the same thing at the United Nations. Our rational brains get us into trouble. They are amazing things, but they get us into trouble when they are not balanced by our intuitive brains. And I honestly believe that when I am singing, or making music in this way, I am using all of the faculties at my disposal in a way that nothing else challenges me to do. My mind, my heart, my spirit, my body, my breath, everything I know, all the sounds I’ve ever heard, all come into it. And the incredible thing is that it all happens right now, right here. And the challenge for all of us is to keep learning, to keep hearing better and better, finer and finer distinctions in tone quality or in text accentuation, or the purity of the vowel, or the kind of rhythm which calls forth a certain kind of dance, which indeed calls it into being. So we listen more and more.

When we have the chance to be at a weekend like this, concentrating on both hearing excellent groups sing, and talking about the things that go into making it possible, it is a marvelous opportunity. And it is capped off in a superb way by tonight’s concert, where we are all in communion with Bach, through Helmuth Rilling, and his lifetime of absorbing himself in that language. So we kind of take fire from this. We are part of that tradition. We all are part of what we have been taught by the many visionary teachers who have influenced us. But we are also that next generation that needs to hand it on. So be very aware that we are all, each one of us, a fulcrum between the past and the future, and the only time we have to express that is right now. So don’t hold back: express it, learn tonight, listen tonight, revel in being a human being that is part of the same race that can produce this music that gives to each of us this chance to drink at those springs of inspiration that keep us working and singing together."

Interest Sessions (Thursday/Friday) at the 2011 NCCO Conference

2011-11-30T09:24:00.024-06:00

Hi all!

Here is a recap ('twill be in two parts) of the many interest sessions at the 2011 NCCO conference in Ft. Collins, CO. There was a wide variety of events and many featured brilliant, famous folks like Alice Parker and Kirke Mechem, both octogenarians with lots of zip and lots to share!

THURSDAY

At 5:15 there was a panel discussion on conducting- specifically how do the panel members teach choral conducting to their students. The panelists were mostly from big schools with MM and DMA programs-- David Rayl (Michigan State), Kevin Fenton (Florida State), Jill Burleson (Northern Colorado)-- but also Joshua Bronfman, who has a much smaller program at the University of North Dakota. Actually, Josh was really fun to listen to- he intimated what his goals were at a small school and how he went about achieving them- all delivered with great humor. Meeting him later and getting to chat was great fun for me. All the panelists had great ideas to share- Jill stressed student responsibility and reminded us that having singers work in quartets is a great idea. She also had other great insights on how to keep students progressing well.

There were also a great quote from David Rayl when he was asked by moderator Charlene Archibeuque what he wished students would bring with them when they (as grad students at MSU) start working closely with him on their advanced degrees:

"I wish students had more vivid imaginations and bolder ideas and had the ability to make more choices-- and feel free enough to make those decisions." Bronfman added "I wish they would listen more."

(Joshua Bronfman)

The panelists all agreed that they loved teaching choral conducting and also stressed the importance of one on one lessons in addition to choral conducting class. Overall this session was filled with interesting personal insights and plenty of humor as well.

FRIDAY

There were early morning sessions by the following people (contact them for more info):

Andrew Crow: Music and Architecture and a Bruckner Case Study

Seth Houstion: The Shape-Note Tradition: New Resources

Nicole Lamartine: Choral Resonance: A Singer's Constructive Resonance through Standing Arrangement or Active Listening

(hmm, there's that "listening" thing again!)

James Niblock: Spectral Analysis in Collegiate Choral Training

Albert Pinsonneault: Choral Intonation Exercises

Andrea Solya: Thymiaterium Musical by Andreas Rauch

10 AM brought us an open rehearsal of James Kim's Colorado State Chamber Choir led by guest Helmuth Rilling as they worked in very dedicated manner on their all-Bach program. Mr. Rilling was miked so that he could alternate between speaking to the musicians and speaking more directly to us about his ideas and rehearsal techniques. I mentioned most of this in an earlier post.

11:15 AM brought another session with the very talented Nicole Lamartine-she presented recordings and her own University of Wyoming Chorale in a sampler of choral music by Jennifer Higdon- an interesting subject. Known as an award-winning orchestral composer, Higdon's choral music is far less sophisticated and at times somewhat odd, which even Nicole admitted. Higdon's choral writing still needs work in the craftsmanship area (tessitura and knowledge of passagio issues, text underlay issues, etc) and perhaps even could use better texts- but one has to respect that, with encouragement from people like Nicole, a person with such a high profile in the orchestral composing world has ventured into a totally new area. This issue came up later, on Saturday- the idea of conductors encouraging fine composers who might not have a lot of choral crafting experience (plus also young, generally inexperienced composers) to still go ahead and start writing for voices. Most of those in the audience were in favor of this.

4 PM brought an interest session on current Israel Choral Music from Eric Johnson and Orna Arania from Northern Illinois University . Eric has been doing good work in finding interesting ethnic music to explore. He has some other upcoming things worthy of our attention.

NEXT BLOG: Saturday interest sessions

Giving my thanks to singers and conductors

2011-11-24T14:48:00.005-06:00

I will get back to summarizing the interest session events at NCCO, but first I wanted to blog about the following:

With Thanksgiving and Christmas approaching I realize there are tons of performances of my holiday music going on around the country- some of them I know about and some I don't. But it's pretty astounding and often doesn't seem totally real to me that my music and the texts I so carefully choose are out there entertaining people or even doing more sometimes. There are two recent occurrences that were really unexpected and which I appreciated hearing about so much.

The first was in September, when I came across a blog by a young woman in Pennsylvania that touched me. I was able to exchange some thoughts with her via e-mail and it once again made me realize why we do what we do. What I do is hope that people will want to sing the texts I set, whether they are serious or silly (read more on "silly" further down). And so I am so thankful for the conductors and singers out there doing this- working hard in rehearsals, polishing things, trying to decipher what the heck I meant here and there (!)-- thank you all so much. You have no full idea how much it means to me, especially since I went twenty years without writing any music after leaving grad school.

Here are some excerpts from Alyssa Eichen's very thoughtful blog, and you can read the whole thing here. I was also able to connect with her director, Mark A. Boyle of Millersville University and start a nice relationship with him as well. Their concert which held my piece was just a few dys ago on Nov. 20th.

Good Music and a Clean Conscience

The Power of Words and Music to Reduce Perfectly Rational People to Emotional Messes (A.k.a., How Choir Made Me Cry)

Music can affect us at times and in ways we never expect. Warning: the following is purely emotional and neither scholarly nor academic :)

The music we sang in Cantilena, my alma mater's women's choir, absolutely killed me tonight. So emotional. First, we started learning "Life Has Loveliness to Sell", a setting by Paul Carey of the text of "Barter", by Sara Teasdale. It's about loving little moments of life, and littlest things making the rest worthwhile. Especially the last two stanzas of it: "Spend all you have for loveliness"...it's so relatable, because it's what I'm doing right now; sure, I'm dirt-broke, but I'm taking in every good moment I have here. I stayed where I wanted to be, and though it's rough a lot of the time, it's absolutely beautiful at others. Also, the setting of the text is extremely modal, which just adds to its power.

Listen here.

Life has loveliness to sell,

All beautiful and splendid things,

Blue waves whitened on a cliff,

Soaring fire that sways and sings,

And children's faces looking up

Holding wonder like a cup.

Life has loveliness to sell,

Music like a curve of gold,

Scent of pine trees in the rain,

Eyes that love you, arms that hold,

And for your spirit's still delight,

Holy thoughts that star the night.

Spend all you have for loveliness,

Buy it and never count the cost;

For one white singing hour of peace

Count many a year of strife well lost,

And for a breath of ecstasy

Give all you have been, or could be.

I felt a little silly getting teary-eyed; it was a completely personal thing that connected me emotionally to the text. We moved on "Wanting Memories", by Ysaye M. Barnwell, and our choir director said "It's okay to cry", to be emotionally invested in the piece. It was all over from there; getting the words out through the tears just wasn't happening. It's about loss, wishing someone you lost was still there to comfort and lead you, but realizing that what they told you while they were there is enough. I do relate to it, since in the last year I've lost my maternal grandfather and paternal grandmother, the two grandparents who were the most influential in my upbringing. So, lines like "You said you'd rock me in the cradle of your arms. You said you'd hold me ‘til the storms of life were gone." and the rest, are something that gets to me. Even worse, "Since you've gone and left me, there's been so little beauty" and the rest of that section, kills me because it's how my grandfather has felt about my grandmother's passing. It's been almost 9 months now, and he's still completely lost without her. Songs like this, I just want to play for him, to let him know that everything will be alright.

Listen here.

PC speaking again:

The other new connection was more recent- my friend Susan Hahn, a former assistant of mine at the North Carolina Governor's School was attending the North Carolina MEA state conference and was texting me that a choir was about to launch into a program which included my Mashed Potato Love Poem. She later reported that they rocked the piece, and in fact their whole program rocked the audience. I found out the name of the choir and its director and we have been in contact now. The choir was the Panther Creek High School choir located in Cary, N. Carolina and their fine director is Brad Bensen. Here is their full program- pretty great, eh?Just as the Tide was flowing (Vaughn Williams)

Veni Creator Spiritus (M. Haydn)

Ce Beau Printemps (M. Sirrett)

Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day (Stroope)

Mashed Potato Love Poem (Carey)

Country Dances (arr. Ward Swingle)

Brad then told me an amusing anecdote about the experience of some of his singers while at NC MEA and what happened at a Carrabas restaurant - here's what he said:

We stopped...“at Carrabas restaurant. One of the students had gotten mashed potatoes as a side; the others noticed this as she was eating-- they took her plate, held it up high, and began serenading. After this occurred, the student was unable to eat the remainder of the creamy spuds as she kept laughing every time she tried to take a bite; somehow, something sacred occurred to that plate that night.”

How cool is that- kids launching into a fun song in public and having such great fun!

What does this mean to me? It mean that music can be serious or silly- but that it always has the power to connect us. And with Thanksgiving here I would like to lobby people about something they can do this year or some other year when they sing Mashed Potato Love Poem-- please consider doing some kind of small or large scale (you decide which) food drive for the hungry when you perform this piece. Please enjoy the humor during your concert but also realize the potential of outreach when you program a concert of food songs-- why couldn't we all easily do something for those in need in our local community? I first heard of someone using Mashed Potato Love Poem in this way a few years ago via an email from Sheree' Stoppel in Kansas. She received a ton of food donations when she did a musical food program that included this piece. So, once again, we see that even a droll,witty poem/song can do something serious awesome in our crazy world!

Btw, this tune is the middle item in the three part set titled "Play with your Food" (SATB/a.c., published by Walton). You can hear the piece here in a performance conducted by Steve Zielke

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

Concert #6: Highlights from the 2011 NCCO Conference

2011-11-20T21:56:00.000-06:00

Saturday night- the final concert of NCCO 2011

Colorado State University Chamber Choir, plus orchestra, James Kim, director; Guest conductor for the performance, Helmuth Rilling

Singet den Herrn ein neues Lied, BWV 225 by JS Bach

Jesu, meine Freude, BWV 227, by JS Bach

Magnificat, BWV 243, by JS Bach

As members of NCCO we were blessed to be part of the ongoing process of James Kim's fine singers as they worked with Helmuth Rilling on these Bach masterpieces. We were allowed to watch an open rehearsal, during which Rilling also addressed the audience now and then about something in the music or a rehearsal technique he was using, plus also another session of Q and A with Rilling. It was obvious that 1) Kim's singers were highly prepared and astounding musicians going in 2) Rilling challenged them to go even further. To me, these challenges he set for them should be taken overall as a great compliment- for he treated them as professional musicians, not students. Kudos to every singer for aspiring to these levels. You know ole JS was looking down with a smile.

In rehearsal, Rilling stopped the choir for tiny details- but hey, maybe they weren't so tiny. One very telling point was when the singers' articulation did not match the violin articulation of the same fairly florid pattern- maybe some other conductor would let it slide, figuring it was too much of a burden for all to fix, but with Rilling it was just the opposite-it had to be fixed. And when we heard, as observers, the difference this made in the clarity of the overall contrapuntal sound- it was obvious that Rilling was right to be so meticulous.

So... the Saturday evening concert approached and everyone was excited- just how good would this performance be? And the answer was, it was spectacular. The singing was intense and so detailed, the professional orchestra was riveted to their parts, and Rilling was in fine form. I was glad to see that he seemed in better physical shape than when he conducted the Mendelssohn Elijah at ACDA Chicago when, to me, it seemed that he was be having difficulties with his back and posture. At NCCO these issues seemed to be gone- he was erect and in his element. Sarah Graham and I sat close to the front and off to the side, Sarah's choice- and it was because she wanted to see all the conductor/singer interaction. It was great fun to watch, and I especially enjoyed watching the trumpet section and also highly enjoyed the fine work of the very wonderful continuo organist (a player far too often overlooked). But the most interesting was watching these young singers faces as they took on the challenge of every wild, crazy, unrelenting melisma passage ole JS and Rilling could throw at them- wow!

When the evening ended there was a prolonged standing ovation- and this was one of the few standing ovations at NCCO ( fine with me, automatic standing ovations for mediocre performances have become ridiculously commonplace). Everyone was so thrilled at the successes of this young chorus, the young soloists, and with James Kim and Helmuth Rilling's fine work.

It was fitting that this group of young musicians who had been so wonderfully prepared by Kim and then worked their tails off for three days in very long rehearsals with Rilling finally got to have center stage on the final night- bravo to them all.

NEXT POST:

With Thanksgiving coming up, I will have a slight interruption in my NCCO posts (I will return to them and talk about all the interest sessions- and the contributions of some pretty energetic octogenarians). But next I want to post a short blog about a college choir and also a high school choir who I have come in contact with recently- it's a bit fitting for Thanksgiving I think- so see you soon for that.

Concert #5: Highlights from the 2011 NCCO Conference

2011-11-17T22:51:00.024-06:00

Northwest Missouri State University, Tower Chamber Choir, dir. by Stephen Town

Literature from the English School for Chorus and Organ (Sean Vogt, organ)

God is gone up, by Finzi (Boosey)

Like as a hart desireth the waterbrooks, by Howells (OUP)

The Lord is Risen, by Arthur Bliss (Novello)

Magnificat and Nunc dimittis, by Rubbra (Allied Lengnick)

Nunc dimittis, by Stanford (cpdl.org)

I am a gigantic fan of this genre and the performance by this amazing chamber choir concert was to die for. Almost late, I scurried in and grabbed a seat in the front row, almost inside the choir! This concert was held in the Organ Performance Hall, a more intimate setting than the large hall where the other concerts were held. I opened up my program and saw "Finzi" and of course melted away with the beauty of the music - great singing, great communication between conductor and singers (one advantage of sitting close and slightly to the side is that you get to see the interactions more).

Then as they were about to start piece two I glance down at the program- it's one of my favorite gems, Howells' Like as a hart! The Howells' starts and not that far into it I am really overcome with emotion, not even an emotion I can put my fingers on exactly. Some of it comes from the beauty of the music, its odd flatted, virtually blues fifths and poignant minor mode and subtle dissonances- but it also comes from the communication I was sensing from soul to soul in the choir/conductor realm, and also, I realize, the music is bringing forth subconscious feelings of both pain and beauty in my own life experience. Somehow these intense feelings of floating freely in a glorious ether, yet also the sadness and pain tied our daily travails, are somehow all being brought together by this piece and by this performance of otherworldly beauty. This leads to some tears, and of course grown men aren't supposed to cry, right? So I wiped some tears away, but more replaced them- not to the point of being a distraction to the people behind me, but they were there and weren't going away. As an inner dialogue I said to myself- this is what music is supposed to do to us, for us, or with us- don't fight it. And so in a sense I didn't- I let myself go and become one with this music and the experience was beautiful on so many levels. I can tell you that this happened to me at another concert not long ago- tears of sheer joy which unexpectedly overtook me with a wallop as I watched Marie Guinand's choir from South America sing, dance, and smile, and then exit the stage dancing and waving to a raving audience (ACDA Oklahoma City 2009 National Conference).

The next piece, by Arthur Bliss, was a bit of textual craziness- I loved it- wild Middle English images of dragons and what-not, and brilliantly sung, of course.

The concert ended with a gorgeous Magnifikitty and a Nook and another Nook (oops, I meant a Nunc and another Nunc). All in all this was a sublime performance- I am sorry for anyone who missed it. To me this was a major highlight of the conference- and thanks to Buddy James for creating an NCCO category for chamber choirs. The energy between conductor and choir was beyond words. The sopranos were amazing- they floated so beautifully at times, yet never out of context with their lower-voiced colleagues and the music. Stephen Town was masterful in his control and understanding of this music- he lead, shaped, and enabled a great, soulful performance by singers finely attuned to his musical models. And then there was organist Sean Vogt, the glue that held it all together in tandem with Dr. Town.

More info on Dr. Town: In 1993 he was the recipient of the prestigious Ralph Vaughan Williams Fellowship, given by the Carthusian Trust and Charter House School in the United Kingdom to a North American scholar for research on the great English composer.

Concert #4: Highlights from the 2011 NCCO Conference

2011-11-17T10:26:00.001-06:00

Friday evening programs

By looking at the names of the choirs and conductors about to take the stage, it was fairly obvious that the Friday night program was potentially spectacular, and I am happy to report that it truly was. While these choirs were different from each other (most noticeably the youthfulness of the all-undergrad Iowa State Singers) what connected them was the maturity and experience of their conductors- Kent Hatteberg, James Rodde, and Jo-Michael Scheibe. These three fine musicians have conducted thousands of concerts over the years and they may well still conduct thousands more- their love of the choral art knows no boundaries.

University of Louisville Cardinal Singers, dir. by Kent Hatteberg

Kyrie from Missa Papae Marcelli, by Palestrina (cpdl.org)

Amazingly beautiful- I don't think I have ever heard a choir so perfectly and sweetly in tune in my life. This performance glowed from within. People were gasping at the end.

Der 2te Psalm: Warum toben die Heiden, by Mendelssohn (Carus)

Mendelssohn was on more than one program- bravo. This performance was full of depth and emotion

Veni, dilecte mi!, by Wolfram Buchenberg (ms from composer)

O lux beata Trinitas, by Ko Matsushita (Carus)

Another performance of this piece (the first was by John Byun's fine group on Thursday) and I like it more and more- so much energy and so many voices to listen to. The performance was flawless and exciting. If one were keeping score, Louisville was the best choir of the three day conference. Their singing was impeccably tuned on such a magisterial level that the sound seemed to magically hover and shimmer in the air around you; every phrase and tiny, tiny nuance of the music was unified in all members of the choir. It was virtually impossible to find fault with anything they did. This was singing not just on a high collegiate level but on a truly professional level.

Iowa State Singers, dir. by James Rodde

Deus in adiutorium meum intende, by Juan Gutierrez de Padilla (Vanderbeek and Imrie)

O Radix Jesse, by Vytauta Miskinis (Ferrimontana)

Sitvit anima mea, by Palestrina (cpdl.org)

Just as gorgeous as Louisville was in this repertoire

Warum ist das Licht gegeben?, by Johannes Brahms (Peters)

Satamasho, by Otar Taktakishvili, adapted Rodde (earthsongs)

A great piece- highly recommended!

A Worshipper and a Man, Tinothy Takach (TimothyCTakach.com)

So this was a great, fun moment of contrast- as the audience showered the mixture of undergrads and grad students making up the Louisville choir with enormous amounts of applause, on walked Iowa State, looking super young, an entire large ( 80-90 voices, perhaps?) choir of undergrads. And in fact Rodde told me later that half of these kids are freshmen and sophomores! Wow, upper Midwest choirs are amazing. Their entire program was spectacular, and I wonder what Rodde could further achieve if do if he were leading a choir at a school with an MM/DMA program. I loved watching and listening to these young artists as they sang with joy on a level far beyond their chronological age.

University of Southern California Thornton Chamber Singers, dir. by Jo-Michael Scheibe

A Retrospective of the Music of Morten Lauridsen

Lament for Pasiphae, from Mid-Winter Songs (Opus)

This is an early piece, before Lauridsen had discovered his signature sound, harmonies. etc. I found it be the most interesting thing on the program- it was full of angularity, counterpoint, large dynamic contrasts, a very engaging and independent piano part- overall far more dramatic than his later, more languid music- very interesting stuff. Folks should look at this piece and perform it. In talking to Morten on Saturday night at Buddy James' intimate Saturday night reception, he told me that he devised this program personally and he very much wanted this piece on the program.

Contre qui, Rose (Peer, plus all following pieces by Peer)

Amore lo Sento L'alma (Fored Songs)

Se Per Havervi, Oime (Fire songs0

Soneto de la Noche (from Nocturnes)

Sure on this Shining Night (from Nocturnes)

The entire program was beautiful and memorable, and I had been very much looking forward to hearing Mike's USC choir- I had not yet heard them (I was an enormous fan of his University of Miami choirs). I was surprised to hear how big the sound was on the mostly gentle Lauridsen pieces everyone knows- I love that Mike expanded the sound that much in mf/f passages. I know Mike is very proud of his current grad conducting students/singers, and I believe the choir is going to get better and better as they learn more of what he wants from them. I would love to hear this group again in 1-2 years, for sure. Of course there will be turnover, but by then Mike will have his complete stamp on the approach and the sound. I would also like to make a shout out to ChoEun Lee, whose subtle phrasing was the epitome of expressive choral accompanying. Every note and phrase she touched was golden, EVERY note mattered, and that is something you do not often hear. Lauridsen replaced her for the final number, Sure on this Shining Night, and the audience simply melted with joy as the entire program, and magical evening, ended. This was a night that validated NCCO beyond measure- there was so much magical musicmaking by so many people - from teenagers in the Iowa choir all the way to Morten Lauridsen himself.

After this concert there was a wonderful reception at the Hilton with yummy beverages and food. Everyone mingled and chatted things up. What I especially loved here (as in elsewhere during the three days) was that I could not detect a single occurrence of jealousy among these folks, they are all there for each other- amazing. At the reception I was able to chat with old chums like Nancy Menk, Sarah Graham, and others, and still also meet and get to know a few people I did not know yet, but who had impressed me greatly in concerts or sessions-folks like Michelle Jensen, Joshua Bronfman, Nicole Lamartine, and many others. What a great day and evening of concerts and and a great reception too!

Review of Mount Marty College CD- Vespers 2010

2011-11-14T21:16:00.044-06:00

Back to reporting on NCCO very soon, but right now I thought it would be timely to address the release of a rather amazing Christmas CD, a lessons & carols vespers from a very small college in South Dakota- Mount Marty College. When you think of Lessons & Carols CDs, the big daddy of them all, and a CD I am sometimes obsessed by, is the Nine Lessons and Carols directed by Stephen Cleobury and King's College on EMI. And of course, when we think of Christmas season choral traditions and CD and/or TV productions we all are familiar with big schools such as St . Olaf, BYU, etc. So how can a school with an enrollment of 400 students, 90 of whom raise their voices to sing in the choir, and yet only three music majors, dare to enter into this realm? Enter one Sean Vogt, who, as the universe dictated, I just happened to meet at NCCO at about the time this lovely CD was announced on ChoralNet!

Here is the Choralnet announcement:

http://choralnet.com/view/299646

So what was Sean doing at NCCO? Playing the organ for an amazing program of early 20th century British music with Stephen Town's choir from Northwest Missouri State University (highly favorable review upcoming). And then, as Sean is a Michigan State alum, we wound up having dinner with MSU mutual dear friend Sarah Graham and also Peter Durrow. Sean and I also got to know each other a bit more at the Friday night NCCO reception.

I asked Sean to mail me a copy of the Vespers CD. He did and I must say it is amazing- a brilliantly devised program of gorgeous orchestral and/or choral pieces for the holidays plus excellent readings makes this a wonderful holiday purchase for music lovers. Sean tells me that enthusiastic students skip lunch to be in the choir- since choir currently is scheduled in most folks lunch hour. Most students have had little or no vocal training, yet Sean has brought such enthusiasm and solid teaching skills into this small program that it is where everyone wants to be- what an amazing success story!

Especially beautiful tracks are the orchestral version (the superb orchestra is mainly made up of members of the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra) ) of Rutter's What Sweeter Music (wonderful rubato), big ole exciting arrangements of Praise to the Lord, the Almighty and Carol to the King by Mack Wilberg, plus other quality music by Prokoviev, Vaughan Williams, Chilcott, Holst and others.

Sean has related to me that he has been very much influenced by working with Helmuth Rilling at the Oregon Bach Festival, and that one byproduct of this is that he conducted every track without a score (bravo- for more about how I feel about "scores", "music", and memorization read an earlier blog of mine here). Some of you may ask, how good are the singers at this small school compared to a St. Olaf? Well, they aren't perfect, but there is plenty of quality music making here and so much enthusiasm. There is a Midwest tendency toward spread vowels, especially in the ladies (keep in mind that all these singers are age 18-22 and generally untrained until Sean works with them), but it is easily overlooked when you hear the music making going on. Sean tells me that working on these vowel issues (and other vocal pedagogy issues) is an ongoing process of getting them to listen and understand the essential importance of this issue.

I'm pretty thrilled to be able to praise this CD- it's a "Mouse that Roared" story! And Sean Vogt is a very grounded young conductor/organist to keep an eye on- he's going to be doing some great things over the years.

Next post: The spectacular Friday night concert at NCCO- featuring choirs from the University of Louisville, the Iowa Sate Singers, and University of Southern California

Concert #3: Highlights from the 2011 NCCO Conference

2011-11-09T13:58:00.046-06:00

Here are highlights from the day two afternoon concert:

University of Northern Colorado Concert Choir, dir. by Galen Darrough

Choral music of Argentina: A Sampler

Cantate Domino, by Antonio Russi (ediciones GCC)

Gala del Dia, from Las Indianas, by Carlos Guastavino (Kjos)

Mi Lumia, by Javier Zentner (GCC)

A wonderful piece- I would love to hear with score in hand. Bravo!

La Muerte del Angel, by Astor Piazolla (GCC)

Chacarera de las Piedras, by Atahualps Yupanqui, arr. Gustavo Felice (no publisher info)

Milonguera, by Oscar Escalada (Kjos)

This was a great program which I am sure Galen is very proud of putting together. All his singers were in fine form and much of this music is quite difficult- what you hope to do is sing it so well and so naturally that it doesn't appear to be so daunting at all! I especially loved the first song, the Zentner and the Piazolla of course. I don't know the full story about how Galen researched all this, but maybe I can ask him soon. He did tell me that it was really hard to figure out what to use, since there were hundreds of great tunes he had sifted through. In addition to the very fine singing and conducting, guitarist Socrates Garcia (now that's a cool name) brought so much electricity and joy to the music; his smile and love of performing shone through on the two pieces he played on and the audience loved him.

Bravo to the singers- all this intricate and expressive music was fully memorized- no small feat!

Azusa Pacific University Chamber Singers, dir. by Michelle Jensen

In Windsor Forest, by RV Williams

This was a sheer delight, Vaughn Williams' five-movement cantata for SATB/chamber string orchestra/piano written in 1931; an adaptation of scenes from his opera "Sir John [Falstaff] in Love". The singing was spot-on cheery and felicitous and from where I was sitting, off to the side, you could see the smiling playfulness between conductor Jensen and her choir and instrumentalists. Two performers were standouts-- the first I'll mention was Arie Moriguchi, who had a couple solo spots as the Queen/Mrs. Quickly. Arie's voice and acting was perfect for this. The other standout was the young pianist Anna Nizhegorodtseva, whose supple phrasing, shading of color, and brilliant sense of rhythm added so much to the ensemble sound (and who knew Vaughn Williams wrote so well for the piano? Ms. Nizhegorodtseva was one of my very favorite pianists who performed over the three day stretch of concerts.

Michelle Jensen was wonderful, she presented this little-known piece in such a charming and playful way. I did get to talk to Michelle a couple times about the music- she is a very gregarious musician who loves to talk passionately about music and I also discovered that we are both former harpists. She has the distinction of studying, over a period of time at USC, with three amazing teachers there- William Dehning, Paul Salamunovich, and now finishing up her choral music DMA with Mike Scheibe. Oh and btw, this choir was full of beautiful southern California folks with posture so impeccable that it would bring a smile to any Alexander technique teacher observing them. Great singer posture, smiles, delightful music, and a very positive conductor inviting singers and audience inside the music and action led to a great performance.

Free harp joke of the day- Stravinsky: "Harpists spend 90 percent of their lives tuning their harps and 10 percent playing out of tune"

Free viola joke of the day: What's the difference between a viola and an onion? No one cries when you cut up a viola!

Next Post: the day two evening concert

Announcement: If you would like a free pdf file perusal score of my latest advanced SATB piece, please contact me. The piece is a compelling, expressive modern arrangement of William Billings' famous round "When Jesus Wept" for SATB double choir, suitable for college and professional ensembles. It was successfully premiered this past September by Chor Anno, Reg Unterseher conducting, in Vancouver, WA. The duration is six minutes. E-mail me at paulcarey440@yahoo.com for a pdf file.

Concert #2: Highlights from the 2011 NCCO Conference

2011-11-07T21:58:00.076-06:00

Thursday Night Highlights

University of British Columbia University Singers, dir. Graeme Langager

Ave Virgo sanctissima, by David Azurza (Oihu Hau)

Rich, luxurious tone colours (there you go, friends from the north- I shall honour you by spelling in your manner)

Mitten wir in leben sind, by Mendelssohn (cpdl.org)

Again, so many colours to the sound and impeccable Deutsch- btw, The Felix was well represented by choirs at the conference.

S I Do Mhaimeo, by David Mooney, (ECS)

Lots of fun, and also artistic- why do so many choirs never really sing their best on fun pieces? You can do so much more with pieces like this than just rip through them, and this choir proved it.

Nigra Sum sed formosa, by Jean L'Hereitier (cpdl.org)

Heavenly- such beautiful lines, I absolutely loved this piece and the interpretation. I advise you to check it out at cpdl

I am the rose of Sharon, by Ivo Antognini (Alliance)

Melancholia, by Duke Ellington arr. by Rejean Marois (ms)

Can you guess I loved this choir? For me they were a very large highlight of this conference. They sang with a very rich, deep, and a bit different sound than the American choirs- it was wonderful to hear this contrast (not that any one is necessarily better than the other- hurray for variety). I wanted to keep listening to them- too bad they had to stop at their allotted 25 minutes! I was thrilled and honoured to meet Graeme the next day.

College of Charleston Concert Choir, dir. by Robert Taylor

Choral Dances from Gloriana, by Benjamin Britten

Wonderful, marvelous!

Three Shakespeare Songs, by RV Williams

Oh my, oh my-- Rapture. Robert is a good friend of a good friend (Lisa Fredenburgh). We now got a chance to talk more and I found out that he is as big a RVW fan as I am. He even invited me impromptu to tell his choir what I had just told him, mainly that they rocked. We also discussed things in the scores, like RVW's love of modes/temporary modal inflections (yes, RVW is a big influence on my sacred/spiritual music), in particular in some of these pieces the major third with a minor sixth

Movements from "The Passing of the Year", by Jonathan Dove

I was not excited by this piece, as the piano was too jangly and took away from the choir, which is so worthy of listening to in a cappella music.

Robert has some great things going with this choir and I love his passionate approach to music. He lays it all out there without apologies. If a big full Cabernet started to sing to you- this is what it would sound like! Southern choirs rocked here- Rob's choir and University of Louisville were great. And, by the way, ACDA South division (the largest ACDA division) is full of amazing choirs singing sophisticated music- if you have never attended a Southern ACDA conference you need to head there pronto.

All in all, I loved this choir! They will be the hosts for NCCO 2013 and I know many people will want to attend not only for the music but also for the Charleston, SC experience.

Next Posts: Day two program highlights

Announcement: If you would like a free pdf file perusal score of my latest advanced SATB piece, please contact me. The piece is a compelling, expressive modern arrangement of William Billings' famous round "When Jesus Wept" for SATB double choir, suitable for college and professional ensembles. It was successfully premiered this past September by Chor Anno, Reg Unterseher conducting, in Vancouver, WA. The duration is six minutes. E-mail me at paulcarey440@yahoo.com for a pdf file.

Concert #1: Highlights from the 2011 NCCO Conference

2011-11-07T14:03:00.092-06:00

You have probably already seen my posts listing all the repertoire from the three days of NCCO in Ft. Collins. Now I will highlight a number of the programs, and overall the performances and conducting ranged mostly from great to spectacular. Also evident was healthy singing with free sound production, use of more than one tonal color (thank you!) and also a Canadian choir which had amazingly varied, beautiful tonal colours (hehe- they spell that word funny). Conductor beat patterns and gestures were masterful about 97% of the time. Other than one conductor who was just working way too hard and did not not INVITE the choir to sing, there were no flailing arms or pomp and circumstance. I would think that attending this conference and watching closely would be highly beneficial to any young conducting student.

In my opinion, two programs were sung well but the repertoire was suspect- specifically they contained material that was more like average high school material, and in one case even included some mega church pop singing with three soloists using handheld mikes, a piano part filled with Disney ballad ninth choirs and the like. I don't think this was at all what NCCO had in mind when creating this organization. The other program was not offensive, but simply had vocal parts with no real challenge on the collegiate level and which contained all piano accompanied pieces.

By the way, as I am about tackle all this-- I would like to say I honestly wish more people were blogging about the choral world- come on, people, get to it. Or be a guest blogger here if you like, even if you are a young'n. Richard Sparks writes a great choral music blog, and Philip Copeland and Tim Sharp do great work through ChoralNet mostly, but we need more people doing this!

Program One: Riverside City College Chamber Singers, dir. Jon Byun

Der Feuerreiter by Hugo Wolf (CF Peters)

Lay a Garland, by Robert Pearsall (cpdl.org)

This was sung with crystalline clarity and an amazing contrast with the preceding highly dramatic piece

O lux beata Trinitas, by Ko Matsushita, (Carus)

Easily by far the most fascinating new piece of music in the three days. It also showed up on the University of Louisville program. There is so much going on here, I loved getting a chance to hear it twice in three days. The music is generally set up with an amazing amount of highly intricate, divisi ostinati in the women's voices- very complex and very beautiful. I'd love to see a score of this piece. Ko is a Japanese composer.conductor well-known in the international choral scene. He, Marian Dolan, and my partner Sherri Lasko worked on a great project for Japanese tsunami relief (which is ongoing). You can visit the site Sherri developed for the project here.

O vos omnes, by Richard Birchard, (ms)

Hmm, a letdown after the Matsushita; this piece had the usual slow tempo and heavily homophonic American musical style we've been hearing so much of the time for the last ten years. There were even a few "Whitacre-isms" that you only tend to hear from composers younger than Whitacre, which this composer is not.

Alleluia, by Hyo-Won Woo (Chorus Center Publishing, South Korea)

This is a great piece, and one which will not forgive a single counting mistake from even a single singer. I have been fortunate to hear this piece live a number of times by Incheon City Chorale and other fine choirs and also get to know the very gracious and highly talented composer, Hyo-Won Woo. John Byun is a master of this kind of high energy piece which must not only be precise but artistic as well- bravo John!I am hoping that people here in the US will soon try to explore other pieces by Hyo-won. If you need a way to contact her or the Hak-won Yoon's publishing company which distributes her music e-mail me at paulcarey440@yahoo.com

Congrats to John and this choir- I have now heard them three times in ACDA or NCCO conference concerts and have loved getting to know John's musical approach and product- and it still amazes me that this is a two year college!

Arizona State University Symphonic Chorale, dir. Gregory Gentry

Dnes Hristos, by Vasily Titov (ca. 1650- 1715)

I absolutely loved this piece for three, count 'em, three choirs. There was an amazing amount of richness and depth to the sound, of course what you expect and hope to hear in Russian music, and Gentry was a master of pulling that sound out of a young choir- I didn't see any 45 year old vodka consuming basses or altos in the choir. Of course as editor of a new edition of this piece, Greg knew the piece so well. It is a joy to hear Russian music sung so well, and another group I can think of who does this repertoire complete justice is David Rayl's at Michigan State. Greg also had the choirs spaced at exactly the right positions to not only get perfect multi-choir effects, but also sounding great when choirs were united in sound. I wish I had asked him more about how he did this when we were having lunch Saturday. I would highly recommend this piece to any advanced choir (published by Musica Russica)

Mass, by Stravinsky

The Stravinsky Mass was great as well, but with some roughness in the instrumentalists sound. Many attendees at the conference were so glad to see this long-ish, somewhat neglected piece programmed, and the entire Russian-themed program was one of a number of intelligently constructed themed programs that were true highlights of the conference.

After the concert I was interviewed by DMA student from the ASU choir Kira Rugen, whose dissertation is on the direction over the last ten years in choral music, as well as looking ahead to the next 10 or 20 years. Kira had a great bunch of questions for composers and also conductors and our interview went about an hour. I thoroughly enjoyed working with her and look forward to reading her work. She also was able to line up interviews at NCCO with actually famous people in the field (which I am not) like Morten Lauridsen and other personable folks who were on hand. Bravo, Kira.

Speaking of questions, as I travel around the country here and there to work with choirs here are some common questions I get from young people- usually K-5 folks but even sometimes from JHS through HS choir members:

1) what kind of car do you drive?
2) what is your favorite video game?
3) what is your real job?

Funny stuff- and yes, they also ask some great questions too!

Next Post: Day one evening concert highlights

Announcement: If you would like a free pdf file perusal score of my latest advanced SATB piece, please contact me. The piece is a compelling, expressive modern arrangement of William Billings' famous round "When Jesus Wept" for SATB double choir, suitable for college and professional ensembles. It was successfully premiered this past September by Chor Anno, Reg Unterseher conducting, in Vancouver, WA. The duration is six minutes. E-mail me at paulcarey440@yahoo.com for a pdf file.

Day Three Repertoire from the NCCO Conference in Ft Collins

2011-11-06T01:44:00.011-05:00

Okay sports fans- here is the rep from day three- the final day of an extremely successful NCCO conference. Everyone is all smiles about what they got out of this three days. Choral music is alive and well on many fronts, but especially I see the joy (arising out of their very strong efforts) on young singers' faces- it is thrilling to see!

Northwest Missouri State University, Tower Chamber Choir, dir. by Stephen Town

Literature from the English School for Chorus and Organ (Sean Vogt, organ)

God is gone up, by Finzi (Boosey)

Like as a hart desireth the waterbrooks, by Howells (OUP)

WOW! WOW!

The Lord is Risen, by Arthur Bliss (Novello)

Magnificat and Nunc dimittis, by Rubbra (Allied Lengnick)

Nunc dimittis, by Stanford (cpdl.org)

Colorado State University Chamber Choir, dir. by James Kim; Guest conductor for the performance, Helmuth Rilling

Singet den Herrn ein neues Lied, BWV 225 by JS Bach

Jesu, meine Freude, BWV 227, by JS Bach

Magnificat, BWV 243, by JS Bach

(Oh my, what glorious singing and phrasing, plus great 1st trumpet and piccolo trpt; trpt three filled in the rest of the notes ably)

All in all, great and extremely varied repertoire for this conference. More later, dudes and dudettes!

Day Two Repertoire from the NCCO Conference in Ft Collins

2011-11-05T17:13:00.015-05:00

Day Two

Here is the repertoire from day two of NCCO-- many stunning performances. I don't necessarily like rating choirs- I surely do not like all the choral competitions/battles in Europe- but FYI University of Louisville was beyond amazing...more on them later when I find time to blog in more detail.

By the way, you do not want to see spellcheck "corrections" of these titles and composers!!

Day Two

University of Northern Colorado, dir. by Galen Darrough

Choral music of Argentina: A Sampler

Cantate Domino, by Antonio Russi (ediciones GCC)

Gala del Dia, from Las Indianas, by Carlos Guastavino (Kjos)

Mi Lumia, by Javier Zentner (GCC)

La Muerte del Angel, by Astor Piazolla (GCC)

Chacarera de las Piedras, by Atahualps Yupanqui, arr. Gustavo Felice (no publisher info)

Say that title and composer ten times fast after you've had three Fat Tires (their brewery is here in ft Collins)

Milonguera, by Oscar Escalada (Kjos)

Azusa Pacific University Chamber Singers, dir. by Michelle Jensen

In Windsor Forest, by RV Williams

Western Michigan University Cantus Femina, dir. by Dee Gauthier

Anne Frank: A Living Voice, by Linda Tuta haugen (available from the composer)

Now I Become Myself, by Gwyneth Walker (ECS)

University of Louisville Cardinal Singers, dir. by Kent Hatteberg

Kyrie from Missa Papae Marcelli, by Palestrina (cpdl.org)

Der 2te Psalm: Warum toben die Heiden, by Mendelssohn (Carus)
(this translates as "Who went hiding my Toblerone?")

Veni, dilecte mi!, by Wolfram Buchenberg (ms from composer)

O lux beata Trinitas, by Ko Matsushita (Carus)

Iowa State Singers, dir. by James Rodde

Deus in adiutorium meum intende, by Juan Gutierrez de Padilla (Vanderbeek and Imrie)
(this translates as "Hey, who in the auditorium is playing my Nintendo?")

O Radix Jesse, by Vytauta Miskinis (Ferrimontana)

Sitvit anima mea, by Palestrina (cpdl.org)

Warum ist das Licht gegeben?, by Johnny Brahms (Peters)

Satamasho, by Otar Taktakishvili, adapted Rodde (earthsongs)

A Worshipper and a Man, Tinothy Takach (TimothyCTakach.com)

University of Southern California Thornton Chamber Singers, dir. by Jo-Michael Scheibe

A Retrospective of the Music of Morten Lauridsen

Lament for Pasiphae, from Mid-Winter Songs (Opus)

Contre qui, Rose (Peer, plus all follwoing pieces by Peer)

Amore lo Sento L'alma (Fored Songs)

Se Per Havervi, Oime (Fire songs0

Soneto de la Noche (from Nocturnes)

Sure on this Shining Night (from Nocturnes)

Check back in for Day Three-- mostly interest sessions, just two concerts

Day One Repertoire from the NCCO Conference in Ft Collins

2011-11-04T19:38:00.008-05:00

Hi all!

I'm in Ft. Collins, CO at the home of Colorado State University and the site of the three-day National Collegiate Choral Organization's National Conference. Great stuff happening-- this is my first time attending even though I am officially a founding member.

Often when I am at such events people are grilling me via e-mail for what the repertoire is, and since things are really busy, I can't really blog a lot of details of events right now but I will give you the repertoire being sung here. All I ask is that you send $5 to the Paul Carey's Family Has Never Been To Hawaii Fund And It's About Time They Went. Please, unmarked bills only.

Capitalizations are from the programs, publishers in parentheses where supplied on the programs:

Day One-

Riverside City College Chamber Singers, dir. Jon Byun

Der Feuerreiter by Hugo Wolf (CF Peters)

Lay a Garland, by Robert Pearsall (cpdl.org)

O lux beata Trinitas, by Ko Matsushita, (Carus)

O vos omnes, by Richard Birchard, (ms)

Alleluia, by Hyo-Won Woo (Chorus Center Publishing, South Korea)

Arizona State University Symphonic Chorale, dir. Gregory Gentry

Dnes Hristos (triple choir), by Vasily Titov

Mass, by some obscure dude named Stravinsky

University of British Columbia University Singers, dir. Graeme Langager

Ave Virgo sanctissima, by David Azurza (Oihu Hau)

Mitten wir in leben sind, by Mendelssohn (cpdl.org)

(This translates as "Mitten, I love you, but where is your twin? -- my hands are very cold here in the foothills of the Rockies)

S I Do Mhaimeo, by David Mooney, (ECS)

Nigra Sum sed formosa, by Jean L'Hereitier (cpdl.org)

I am the rose of Sharon, by Ivo Antognini (Alliance)

Melancholia, by Duke Ellington arr. by Rejean marois (ms)

College of Charleston Concert Choir, dir. by Robert Taylor

Choral Dances from Gloriana, by Benny Britten

Three Shakespeare Songs, by RV Williams

Movements from "The Passing of the Year", by Jonathan Dove

Capital University Concert Choir, directed by Lynda Hasseler

Forklaring, by Ola Gjeilo

Wondrous Love, by Steven Sametz

Tshiotsholoza, by Jeffery Ames

Himne, Roelof Temmingh
(My title for this is "Hmmm? Wha'...?" more info later)

Hear my prayer, O Lord, by Hank Purcell

Notre Pere, by Durufle

Schaffe in mir, Gott, ein rein Herz, by Brahms

(This translates as "I'm chafing here,God, please rent me a Hertz so I don't hafta walk no mo'")

Hey, I studied German for five years, don't pick on me

I Will Rise, by Chris Tomlin

Remember, send those donations in!

Paul

Atlanta Sacred Chorale New CD

2011-10-20T15:11:00.008-05:00

I am thrilled that my piece "Morning Person" (SATB/piano 4 hands) is on the Atlanta Sacred Chorale's new CD "Awake the Dawn", with listening samples and order info at:

http://atlantasacredchorale.org/index.php?page=cd&cd=11

The Chorale is led brilliantly by Emory University Professor Eric Nelson. Other composer/arrangers on the CD include David Brunner, John Rutter, Charles Stanford, John Rutter, Bob Chilcott, Leonard Bernstein, Lee Dengler, Morten Lauridsen, William L. Dawson, Robert Shaw, and Jester Hairston

Hmm, some pretty fine company there!

Morning Person is published by Roger Dean, cat. #15/2599R

The very creative text is by New Orleans poet Vassar Miller- it's about God waking up one fine morning and creating the world in ONE day (not six!). My setting sounds a bit like Healy Willan in places, and at times the piano part sounds like it's out of Sondheim- hey, I don't mind admitting who some of my influences are!It was premiered by Rick Bjella's White Heron Chorale in Wisconsin when Rick was still at Lawrence Conservatory. I visited a rehearsal and we had a great time working on the dizzying energy of the piece with Rick's great community choir.

Morning Person

God, best at making in the morning, tossed
stars and planets, singing and dancing, rolled
Saturn's rings spinning and humming, twirled the earth
so hard it coughed and spat the moon up, brilliant
bubble floating around it for good, stretched holy
hands till birds in nervous sparks flew forth from
them and beasts -- lizards, big and little, apes,
lions, elephants, dogs and cats cavorting,
tumbling over themselves, dizzy with joy when
God made us in the morning too, both man
and woman, leaving Adam no time for
sleep so nimbly was Eve bouncing out of
his side till as night came everything and
everybody, growing tired, declined, sat
down in one soft descended Hallelujah.

I hope you will visit the Chorale's CD page and take a listen to Morning Person and some of the other sample tracks- and maybe you will want to order a copy!

Thanks for reading

PS I will get back to discussing Tim Sharp's High Lonesome Mass and the rest of my Oregon/Washington trip soon

My great trip to Oregon and Washington, pt. 2

2011-10-07T10:53:00.017-05:00

Saturday and Sunday Concerts

Saturday morning at 9 AM Chor Anno gathered for a day-of-concert three hour rehearsal. Not much fun to sing that early, but this is how a professional group puts things together- intensive rehearsals during the week-of, not a seemingly never-ending once a week rehearsal like a community choir does things.

Musical interpretations were falling into place- probably the trickiest piece was still the Hyo Won Woo Alleluia, simply because any singer rhythmic inaccuracy, even from just one singer, will be totally exposed and noticed. But with each run through the piece was getting better and better. My piece was also sounding good- just some sagging pitch problems in the gnarliest bit of chromatic imitation, due to the fact that at the junction of voice imitation there is a vertical tritone for a moment,. making it tough to establish the new tonal center that each voice tries to claim as new territory. I knew this was not an easy passage when I wrote it, but of course I wasn't trying to make this piece easy! (Btw, please let me know if you would like a perusal copy of this score- contact me at paulcarey440@yahoo.com)

After the rehearsal, some of us went up to Brian Mtichell's awesome farmhouse with acreage on a high hill overlooking the river. Brian runs a wonderful choral program at Mark Morris High School in Longview, WA and he is also R and S for high schools for Washington ACDA. There is a maple tree on his property that must be over 150 years old I would guess. The few hours there were just what the singers needed- a little food, rest, and quiet.

Then it was time to get on back to our venue in Vancouver, WA and present a pre-concert talk sponsored by Meet the Composer Foundation. The event was well attended and the hour or so was moderated by Reg Unterseher with the composers in attendance being Tim Sharp and Wes Ramsey, co-composers of the High Lonesome Mass, Seattle-based composer John Muhleisen, and myself. The concert program contained other pieces by living composers, many from the NW, but they were not present for the talk or concerts (Vijay Singh and Richard Nance, to mention two).

The talk was great and the audience mostly wanted to know about our process for composing. We all seemed to have different answers to all the question but there were plenty of things in common too. I felt that we had a comfort zone and clear mutual respect for each other and the audience loved that we didn't see each other as competition, rather as brethren of the compositional art I suppose you could say. I was especially interested in how Tim and Wes co-compose as I have never tried to do such a thing. After an hour Reg had to go warm up, but the audience wanted us to keep talking and they veered us toward the area of publishing and the self-publishing that many of us are already doing. The audience was fascinated by this area and seemed to be cheering us on in the general quest to become independent from the traditional publishing houses. I think one telling factor here was a question posed by an audience member- she asked if we ever get commissions through any of our publishers' efforts. The answer across the panel was a resounding no- it's never happened. Seeing as how commissions are the biggest earnings item for a living composer, this was a pretty telling fact- not a single one of us have ever had a publisher pull in a commission for us- wow! Before this talk I had not intended at all to bring up publishing issues- many people know I am getting more and more militantly anti-traditional publisher so I didn't want to sound like I was on the offensive in front of a Meet the Composer audience. But the audience wanted to hear about this issue and I think everyone on the panel spoke fluently, fairly, and without avarice on the subject and where the future is going to be for us individually and for the choral world as well.

Finally concert time came. The church was filled- maybe 300-400 audience members (you would never achieve that in Chicago) Chor Annon was sounding great and my piece was early in the program- the third piece. They preformed my "When Jesus Wept" beautifully and as it trailed off with two soprano solo voices (one from each choir- thus quite antiphonal and echo-ish) Reg gestured a conductor's release to the end of the piece. Then there were at least 3-4 seconds of total silence and then some audible "wows" whispered hear and there, and then the applause. For a piece that has some drama and also has a quiet ending this is what you hope for- that extended silence where everyone soaks up the last phrase and appreciates the music enough to give the ending a stillness before we enter back into real rime. Obviously I was very pleased with the choir, Reg (who totally "gets" this piece), and the audience!

The rest of the program was rock solid and well-received. It included the Tim Sharp and Wes Ramsey "Come Away to the Skies: A High Lonesome Mass" and I'll write more about it in the next part. It's such a new and interesting work that I think it deserves a blog post of its own.

After the Saturday concert we all wound up at the Vancouver Hilton for celebration. I got to chat with national ACDA president-elect Karen Fulmer about her plans for the Dallas 2013 national conference. She and Tim have some great things planned. Karen also sings in Chor Anno.

The program was repeated Sunday in Longview, WA and the music was blossoming even more. On my piece the singers were becoming more and more comfortable and becoming more expressive of the drama packed into that short text. Once again we had a large appreciative audience- Chor Anno is well-liked and they deserve the support they get from their audiences!

Earlier that morning Tim Sharp, Reg, and I had a nice brunch overlooking a small sailboat harbor (you can decided whether the sailboats were small or the harbor). We had a great time chatting away, and we even talked about things other than music once in awhile. Reg and I especially love Tim's support for composers, his interest in the future of choral composition and how ACDA can build more mentor/partner support for that in various ways.

After the Sunday concert Reg, Justin, Molly, and I headed back to the Tri-Cities area, driving along the highway that follows the beautiful Columbia River back east. Before the sun set I got to enjoy the spectacular views of the river and cliffs, and we stopped at the Multnomah Waterfall for a few minutes to enjoy the view.

Up next: Before I continue my travelogue, I will backtrack to talk about the "High Lonesome Mass"

Thanks for reading!

My great trip to Oregon and Washington

2011-10-04T10:16:00.013-05:00

As you know from my last blog entry, I was invited out to the Portland, OR/Vancouver, WA area for the premiere of my unusual double choir arrangement of William Billings' When Jesus Wept. For the folks of Howard Meharg's Chor Anno this concert was also a big deal because ACDA executive director Tim Sharp would be there, and not just to visit- Tim would be present for, and performing as well, in the premiere of his “Come Away to the Skies: A High Lonesome [Bluegrass] Mass" -you can read some more about it here:

http://www.columbian.com/news/2011/sep/23/fish-tale-nets-music-for-chor-anno/

I decided to make this a work/networking/fun trip, so I got to Portland on Wednesday night and was picked up at PDX by April Duvic, choral director at Clark College in Vancouver.

On Thursday morning I worked with Margaret Green's amazing high school choir at the Vancouver School of the Arts. Margaret let me jump in and teach them some challenging warmups that I like, and we talked about music and ideas from Alexander technique, and I listened to them sing a piece, after which I worked with them on expression and other things. We really had a lot of fun getting barefoot and letting the sound start from our feet up (ooh, they liked the barefoot thing!) and since this is a long class session (I think it was over 90 minutes) we were able to really connect and pack a lot into the class session. I really liked the students in this class and I love what Margaret is doing with them- they all love music AND work hard for their achievements.

I then hopped on the very convenient mass transit to downtown Portland and strolled around. This was my first visit there and I felt that an older dude like myself needed to find a ponytail rental shop in order to fit in.

(I found a picture of this old guy on Google, whoever he is, with ponytail- but most of the old dudes in Portland didn't braid theirs)

If I were younger I would have needed some tattoos and piercings. But the people seem really cool and I love their diverse ways- “Keep Portland Weird” is a cool slogan, and we could use some more weird in Chicago, that's for sure.

I visited the small Chinese gardens there- very quaint and lovely. I also went to the Portland Art Museum,visiting all four floors of both buildings, using the stairs instead of elevators.

Next I did a couple of geocaches in one of the parks, and then took a break for people watching at sidewalk cafe. I then walked up to Powell's Books. I think this is the largest used and new bookstore in the country and it is way cool. Their selection was monumental and any nerd, geek, or Marian the Librarian could live here for a week.

But the weather was great so it was time to get outside for more strolling. I eventually wound up at a jazz club with a pretty decent group, though they put a little more cliched funk into their mainstream jazz than I cared for. I finally strolled down to where Greg Duvic (April's husband) works a late shift and we drove back up to Amboy, WA where they live. All in all a great day!

Friday started out with more sightseeing. Greg loves the Japanese gardens up in the hills to the west of downtown Portland so we headed there. The Japanese garden was large and the best I have ever been to, even surpassing the impressive Anderson Gardens in Rockford, IL. There's a lot more to do right there up in the hills, so we also strolled around the famous Portland Rose Test Garden- not that I am a rose fan, but that was fun too. We also smashed a few pennies in the souvenir penny smasher (Aidan loves smashed souvenir pennies!).

We then headed downtown since Greg needed to start his shift at the federal building where he is a security expert for the federal judges, which is a second career for him. He was a career police officer and investigator for the Portland Police Department. Greg's stories were amazing, and I was envious of his accomplishments in making the world a safer place.

So now it was time for more strolling and I wound up at the same outdoor cafe where I was doing my people watching the day before. I then headed over to Deschute's Brew Pub which was already massively busy at 3 PM.

Deschute's

I was to meet my old composer/conductor pal Reg Unterseher there, along with two new members of Chor Anno, since Reg and these two young and talented newbies, the very friendly Justin Raffa and Molly Holleran, live all the way three hours east in the Tri-Cities, WA area and were driving in for the Friday night Chor Anno rehearsal. While waiting for Reg, I did a sample flight of Deschute's brews and was impressed. They certainly are well above average. Reg found me and off we went for a funky dinner at The Tin Shack on the east side of Portland and then drove up to rehearsal.

The rehearsal went really well. Since my piece, directed by Reg, was new, I had never heard it for real except in my head and via Finale software playback. I was pleased that everything “worked”-- and I really did have some concerns going into this because the piece, as a double choir arrangement, is a bit complex in spots. There are a number of pages without barlines (but with a pulse), and at times various voice parts do not share downbeats. This was part of the reason for using few barlines or using dotted barlines at different points for various voices. It's not like singers haven't seen a score like this before, but I admit that at first it looks a little odd and challenging. Of course, that should draw the curious singer into the piece, and get them to explore it more- including exploring how their own voice part interacts contrapuntally with other parts. And this was also a goal for this piece- to take a simple round and write even more variations of counterpoint with the material. I am more and more convinced that today's American choral composer/arranger needs to get down to business and write more counterpoint- we have become so monophonic in the last fifteen years that it's pretty scary. When one finally tires of ear candy full of piled chords and lack of independent line, where does a singer or director turn for some counterpoint? Certainly not to any other of our new works- our output is out of balance today in this regard. So this is an area I want to continue to work within- writing creative choral counterpoint and giving altos lines to sing, giving basses lines to sing, etc, and not just writing blobs of homophony which usually give no voice part (other than perhaps the soprano part) an actual line to sing!

NEXT BLOG: The Saturday and Sunday concerts, including a Meet the Composer session

Chor Anno- a great program this coming weekend

2011-09-20T21:19:00.008-05:00

Today, Sept. 21st, I'm leaving Chicago to visit the Pacific NW for the first time in my life- something I've wanted to do for years. I will be at the world premiere of my modernized, quite contrapuntal double choir arrangement of William Billings' "When Jesus Wept" in a concert by Chor Anno, founded not long ago by Howard Meharg.

The idea behind Chor Anno is brilliant- take 25-30 professional choral singers/directors with chops and do one kickass concert each early fall. When else could all these busy directors find the time to be in a choir- they are too busy leading choirs all year!

Here is some info from the Chor Anno website about some of the piece on the upcoming concert which will be presented both Saturday and Sunday. Note that ACDA prez Tim Sharp also has a piece on the program and will be there!

Part of the program will include "Come Away to the Skies: A High Lonesome Mass," by Dr. Tim Sharp, Executive Director of the American Choral Directors Association.

Dr. Sharp, is well known in choral circles, not only as head of the 20,000 member ACDA, but as a conductor and composer.

The great thing for us is that Tim Sharp will not only be here for the premiere of his work, but he will also play the banjo as part of the accompanying bluegrass style group. Yes, you'll hear a marvelous combining of musical styles...wonderful choral writing and the poignant and mesmerizing sound of bluegrass instruments accompanying the choir.

But that's just part of the concert!

Early/Late American

The program will range from early American to present day compositions by American composers such as John Muehleisen (Seattle), Paul Carey (Chicago), Richard Nance (Tacoma), Vijay Singh (Ellensburg), Ola Gjeilo (New York)...all contemporary, as well as a work by the incomparable Leonard Bernstein.

Here is [part of] the program:

Come Away to the Skies - and early American hymn arranged by the legendary double-choir Alice Parker

Saints Bound for Heaven - a melody from Walker's "Southern Harmony" of 1835, arranged by Mack Wilberg

When Jesus Wept - William Billings, from the New England Psalm Singer of 1770, but with an amazing new twist...arranged for eight-part, double choir by Paul Carey. This is a premiere performance. (Paul will be in attendance for the Vancouver concert!)

Hark, I Hear the Harps Eternal - the robust and powerful hymn arranged by Alice Parker

Come Away to the Skies: a High Lonesome Mass - a west coast premiere of Tim Sharp's latest work. Tim uses his expertise as a scholar in early American music, taking hymns such as "Brethren, We Have Met to Worship," "Do Lord," "Hail, the Blest Morn," and "What Wondrous Love," and placed them in the framework of the mass. The result is a stunning 20 minute work.

INTERMISSION

Alleluia - by Hyo won Woo is a departure (along with the next two works) from our American themed concert...but we just had to perform 'em. This piece was premiered at the ACDA national convention by the Incheon Chorale of Seoul, Korea, in 2009. Powerful and very exciting. This may be another west-coast premiere performance.

The Beatitudes - by contemporary Estonian composer, Arvo Paert

Northern Lights - a composition by Ola Gjeilo

Carpenters of God - by our friend Vijay Singh

River Moons - is written by John Muehleisen, a Seattle composer who is becoming widely known. This piece was premiered and recorded by the Choral Arts Ensemble of Rochester, MN, in 2006. It's a setting of the poem by Carl Sandburg, who turns the image of the moon reflected in the water into a vivid memory from his youth.

The rest of my nine days in Oregon and Washington will be spent working with two excellent HS and college choirs,geocaching, sightseeing,and hanging out with my partner in crime, fellow composer Reg Ungerseher (who is the conductor for my piece). I guess when I am with Reg back at his home in Kennewick, WA I will see Mt. St. Helen's and many tumbleweeds (he does NOT live near the coast).

Here is the link to Chor Anno

http://www.choranno.org/program.html

I will try to blog while I am there!

A Concert for Peace 7.8.9.10.11

2011-09-14T09:23:00.008-05:00

My good friend Paul LaPrade, a humble genius, presented a program on September 10th (note, not September 11th) entilted "A Concert for Peace 7.8.9.10.11" in Rockford Illinois at the historic Coronado Theater. Paul’s intention was to avoid the painful date of the 11th and focus on peace and how we all must strive to achieve it.

Paul worked in cooperation with the Rockford Interfaith Council in this large undertaking, as it involved speakers from seven faiths plus eight choirs (thus the creative title 7.8.9.10.11). Yet despite the size of the undertaking it all played out in a relaxed, wonderfully creative and introspective way. Of course that would be the LaPrade touch- always a fine grace beneath the action taken.

I also must assume that most of my blog readers do not know much about Rockford. It is an aging city in NW Illinois which has struggled for years with rust belt problems- high unemployment, street gangs, poor schools, etc. To witness such an amazing event within a city with these chronic problems is hope embodied. It speaks volumes about the Interfaith Council and the fine people of Rockford who care for their city and about peace.

The speakers, representing the Native American tradition, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Baha‘i, for the most part stayed away from referencing 9/11 imagery and pain. Of course we all knew it was a subtext- yet their message for September 10th was of peace and what insight each religion, in its best hours not its worst, could share with us in our quest for peace. I enjoyed the opening short speech by Native American speaker Dennis Dillard, about visiting “Miracle” the white bison (symbolic of peace and unity to virtually all Native Americans), born in Wisconsin in 1994.

http://whitebuffalomiracle.homestead.com/

The speech which I enjoyed the most, and which necessitated audience participation was by Buddhist leader Xuan Dinh. Dressed in traditional orange Buddhist monk garb, he simply told us we must, as an audience, breathe. Well of course we were going to do that- but now he was gently imploring us to be conscious of our breath-- that which keeps us alive and connects us constantly to the ether of the world. And as he encouraged us to breathe and close our eyes, he intoned for us the Buddhist chant (alternating between the chant and telling us the translation) “May I be Happy”. It was a very sweet and touching few minutes and quite delightful in its simplicity. Please read below for more about this text.

Mixed between the speakers’ messages were performances of wonderful music by Rockford area choirs- a wide variety of dedicated amateur groups plus Paul’s new semi-pro chamber group ”Elysian Voices”. The groups were the Rock Valley Children’s Choir, directed by Leah Baskin; the Rock Valley College Concert Choir and Elysian Voices, directed by LaPrade; A Classic Chorale, directed by Larry Runestad; the DeKalb Festival Chorus, directed by Jennifer Whiting, and Kantorei, the Singing Boys of Rockford, directed by Joel Ross.

Al of the choirs acquitted themselves nicely and the repertoire choices were strong- not a clichéd piece in the entire evening. To me the highlights were the two youth choirs. The Rock Valley Children’s Choir featured some of their youngest voices on the main melody- a very sweet touch. When the older singers entered in two and three part harmony the tone quality was simply gorgeous. Leah Baskin’s direction showed a great enthusiasm for working with young people, I’d like to get to know this director! Joel Ross’ boy choir was also wonderfully expressive, and how great is it to see an all-boys choir thriving in 2011, when most moms and dads think their boys should only be playing sports an never do anything artistic. Bravo, Joel and singers.

The Rock Valley Choldren's Choir

The program ended with the massed choirs performing “Grant us your Peace” by Mendelssohn. When the music ended there was no great standing ovation, because we sensed the message of the evening in a deep way and there was no need for that kind of overt response. Everyone who attended will remember the words spoken that evening and the hopes that those words and the heartfelt music implored us to act upon in our daily lives as citizens of the world. Sherri and I, plus a sleeping Aidan in my arms, made our way to the stage to congratulate Paul and others- it was a beautiful evening and a great achievement by Paul and all the people involved.

Note about the chant “May I Be Happy”

I was actually familiar with this chant (and loved hearing its inclusion that evening), as I had used the English translation as a text for a piece recently commissioned by the International Christian School of Hong Kong directed by David Baldwin. I used a gentle Christian text (somewhat pantheistic) to open the piece and then moved to an up-tempo setting of the “May I be Happy” words, with my own melody. It was my way of joining Western and Eastern textual elements for that commission. The piece will be published soon by Roger Dean.

What I love about this chant is the hope for all to be happy and peaceful- including our ”enemies”. Here is the text:

May I be happy, may I be peaceful, may I be free.
May my friends be happy, may my friends be peaceful, may my friends be free.
May my enemies be happy, may my enemies be peaceful, may my enemies be free.
May all beings be happy, may all beings be peaceful, may all beings be free.

Choral Directors: Visit South Korea for little cost!

2011-09-13T22:31:00.005-05:00

A Great Opportunity

I just received a notice about a repeat of last year’s Accolades International Tours Choral Director Tour of South Korea. This is an opportunity for any US choral director to visit South Korea for a week of musical performances and networking, discussion of tour opportunities, cultural and historic touring, local food, and so on for a small fraction of what these activities would cost you if you were to pick up the whole tab yourself. It’s all part of South Korea’s venture to make their land a top choir tour destination.

Here is a link to all the information:

http://www.gtd.org/post/pdfbrochure/120104.pdf

And here is a link to my blogs about my visit to South Korea in Fall 2009, when Dr. Hak Won Yoon commissioned me to write a Missa Brevis for his amazing Incheon City Chorale, the group that wowed ACDA National conference attendees in Oklahoma City earlier in that year.

http://paulcarey440.blogspot.com/2009_10_01_archive.html

And, by the way, meeting Dr. Yoon and the chorale is part of the itinerary. FYI, I have no stake in this- just thought I would make sure people were aware of it, and would like you to know that South Korea and its people are wonderful.

The tour is in early January and you need to sign up by early October.

Accolades International Tours for the Arts/Group Travel Directors www.accoladestours.com ~ www.gtd.org ~ 800-747-2255 ~ 952-881-7811

Appointment as Composer in Residence

2011-09-08T10:16:00.005-05:00

The Young Naperville Singers

I'm pleased to announce that I have been appointed as composer in residence for 2011-12 for the Young Naperville Singers, Angie Johnson, artistic director. This is a blossoming organization fueled by Angie's great energy and vision – now boasting seven treble choirs covering ages K-12. They have just added a choir for boys only starting at 4th grade. I will guess that this will be generally a boys treble choir but that they will work with changing voices as well as that situation arises. This boys choir has been a dream of Angie's for awhile now. The organization has actually held ten years of a boys ”power sing” (adult male led rote singing and drumming = manly fun) twice yearly which has helped get a few more boys into the organization. I expect that this dedicated boys ensemble, led by a very energetic young man, Ryan Henry (a graduate of the fine choral program at Millikin), will take off and be a great success.

Angie Johnson, YNS Artistic Director

My main role as composer in residence is to write new pieces for specific choirs in the organization and for the choirs in a massed formation. For this December I wrote an SA/piano piece for Anne Kasprzak's group. The text is a wonderfully simple and sweet winter poem by J. Patrick Lewis:

Alone in Winter

Have you come upon a doe, alone in winter?
I did once. She was shy.
Wind galloped through the trees
And the trees stepped back
And the doe made a slow circle in the air
with her wet black nose, as if to say,
I have come upon a boy, alone in winter.

The other piece I wrote is for the massed choirs, a big, joyous setting of the poem On Christmas Morn by Eleanor Farjeon (below are the verses of the poem I used):

Now every child that dwells on earth,
Stand up, stand up and sing:
The passing night has given birth
Unto the childrens' King.
Sing sweet as the flute,
Sing clear as the horn,
Sing joy of the Children,
Come Christmas morn.

Now every Star that dwells in sky,
Look down with shining eyes:
The night has dropped in passing by
A Star from Paradise.

Now every Bird that flies in air,
Sing, raven, lark and dove:
The night has brooded on her lair
And fledged the Bird of love.
REPEAT REFRAIN

Now every Beast that crops in field,
Breathe sweetly and adore:
The night has brought the richest yield
That e’er harvest bore.
REPEAT REFRAIN

In addition to writing pieces for the groups I will also interact with them in rehearsal, do some workshops with them about the creative process and whatever else Angie and I can think up. I also hope to interact with the community in which the choir resides. This coming weekend the top two choirs will be in a retreat, which is a brilliant way to bond, build teamwork, and get cracking on learning scores. I have been invited to work with the choirs for about 45 minutes. I think instead of working with them on their singing or making it all about my music in some way, I have decided to bring a few poems (which I have set to music) and have a discussion about poetry and how we connect to its messages. Since these will be singers in their teens they will be able to get into just about anything I might bring in. I think I will bring in two poems, bu one of them for sure will be the following, which speaks to us about the transiency of life, and how we choose to live within that transient beauty:

LAKE SONG by Collette Inez

Every day our name is changed,
say stones colliding into waves.
Go read our names on the shore,
say waves colliding into stones.

Birds over water call their names
to each other again and again
to say where they are.
Where have you been, my small bird?

I know our names will change one day
to stones in a field
of anemones and lavender.

Before you read the farthest wave,
before our shadows disappear
in a starry blur, call out your name
to say where we are.

I am very much looking forward to this concert season working with Angie, the other directors, and of course the singers. This is my second appointment as a composer in residence. The first was with a very fine ensemble in Madison, Wisconsin, The Festival Singers. This new appointment with YNS will be very different since I will be around all the youthful energy that 300+ children create!

Note: For anyone interested, my SSA/piano setting of Lake Song is published by Roger Dean. A professional recording of the piece by the Milwaukee Choral Artists can be found on my website at www.paulcarey.net

Summer 2011 newsletter/new repertoire suggestions

2011-08-05T09:43:00.000-05:00

Hi choral director friends,

Since I last spoke to you in January, I've had some great experiences; I conducted premieres of two pieces commissioned by the Hong Kong International School Festival (organized by Calvin College alum David Baldwin) and really enjoyed my week of working with the young musicians there plus my sightseeing all over Hong Kong, including a trip to the REALLY BIG BUDDHA on Lantau Island.

Of the two pieces I wrote for Hong Kong one will be published, "May I be Happy", (SA/piano) soon by Roger Dean, and the other, "Clap your Hands" (also SA/piano with some optional perc) I am publishing personally. Treble directors, let me know if you would like to see free perusal scores. And by the way, "Clap your Hands" is very uptempo, fun, and a bit of a sequel to my children's choir mega-hit "Peace on Earth and lots of little crickets".Here's a link to a youtube performance conducted by Courtney Connelly in late Spring.

The national ACDA conference in my hometown of Chicago was a blast both on a professional and personal level. And the concert season wrapped up with a one week residency with the Cincinnati Children's Choir directed by Robyn Lana. The advanced ensemble premiered two more commissioned pieces in great fashion, one of which, the bouncy and fun "Rain" (SSA/piano) will be published by Roger Dean and the other, a very lyrical piece called "Paint the Stars" (SSA/piano flute) which I will publish personally. The truly delightful texts were by members of the choir and I have recordings of the pieces but they are not yet posted on my website (please inquire).Again, if you'd like a free perusal score of these, let me know. These pieces would generally be appropriate for mid to advanced treble choirs up through HS or early college level age women's choirs.

For those of you with mixed HS through college/professional choirs I'd like to suggest a few extended works of mine. These were commissioned pieces with very successful premieres and a few performances after that. But because of their length most every publisher has shied away from putting them into print, thus the need for me to personally advocate for them to receive further performances. In general I think the texts I discovered to set are amazing, and the imagery and content of these texts really inspired my writing. Let me know if you would like to see perusal scores, and most of them already have some sample pages/recordings up on my website at www.paulcarey.net - I have created hyperlinks for most of these pieces:

"El Limonar Florido" (The Lemon Grove in Blossom) SATB/solo violin/solo cello. 4 movements, about 17 minutes. Gorgeous Spanish texts by Antonio Machado. Choral parts not difficult. This piece received two very nice performances this past season- one from Grinnell College directed by John Rommereim and the other from Diana Saez' Coral Cantigas in Washington, D.C.

"Missa Brevis Incheon" SATB div a cappella. A bravura 16 minute work commissioned by Hak-won Yoon and the Incheon City Chorale and premiered by them in Seoul in 2009. Here's a challenge for a university or professional choir.

"Endless Worlds" SATB div a cappella. Wonderful texts about music and nature by Tagore. This was commissioned by an ambitious high school choir and they pulled it off. About 15minutes.

"Into this World" (Four Choral Seasons) SATB/piano. Four texts suggesting the seasons of nature and of our lives. A really sweet, lyrical 16 minute piece. The texts are by Elinor Wylie, Robert Louis Stevenson, Rainer Marie Rilke, and Natalie Goldberg

"1944" SATB/string orchestra, or strings one to a part. Highly imaginative WWII text by Hilda Doolittle (HD). The text actually suggested tying in elements of the Bach Christmas Oratorio. I admit it's a slightly odd piece with the war and slight Christmas element, but that's just the way it turned out!

"The Bethlehem Star" SATB divisi a cappella. This was a Christmas work commission from Nancy Menk and the South Bend Chamber Singers. About 18 minutes with great texts by Gerard Manley Hopkins.

"Winter's Night Carol" SATB(SA)/brass quintet. Thus was a Christmas work commission by an adult choir who had a children's choir associated with them, so there is a children's choir element but it can be easily taken by some of the women of an SATB choir. A very nice recent performance by Illinois Wesleyan University. Nine minutes long with text by Thomas Merton.

Three shorter recent pieces:

Christmas Bells" SATB/organ/brass/perc/handbells. Commissioned by Northern Arizona University for their 2010 Holiday concerts- this festive piece was a big hit last December.

"Voices of Earth" SATB/piano. Not difficult and very lyrical, commissioned by Briar Cliff University as part of their ”Care for Creation” initiative this past year.

"Prairie Songs" SATB/piano. 5 minutes and no divisi. Sweet Americana text by Carl Sandburg. Fun elements of Scott Joplin, Ives, and Copland in the mix.

There you have it- a whole bunch of pieces with great texts and the best music I could think of in setting them, and of course, almost no chance of conventional publication due to their length or difficulty level, or other elements(sigh). Let me know if you'd like to consider any of these pieces for performance!

Best wishes,

Paul

PS I'm leading an amazing 24 voice women's choir at the North Carolina Governor's School in Raleigh right now, and will be taking a few days off to present two interest sessions at next week's Nebraska ACDA summer session thanks to an invitation from Matt Harden. Sig Johnson is including my "Thou art the Sky" in the directors' choir so it will also be good to see Sig again!

Nebraska ACDA 2011 Summer Conference

2011-07-19T09:58:00.004-05:00

I was honored to be a presenting clinician at the 2011 Nebraska ACDA summer conference at Doan College this past week. The invitation came from Matt Harden, a great friend and professor at U of Nebraska Omaha. I presented two sessions; one was a talk which also included a demonstration choir of 16 high school students about the student-centered progressive teaching methods at North Carolina Governor’s School, my six week intensive summer gig in Raleigh, NC where I work with gifted HS choral musicians. The second session I presented was on the potential for greater collaborations directly between not-dead composers and not-dead directors- in other words, forming direct links between these creative artists without the dumbing down that happens when the self-serving filters of mega-publishers and mega-retailers get in the way.

Both sessions were big hits and I will try to find time to elaborate upon my interest session presentations and the reactions to them soon, but for now I would like to talk about the conference. By the way, I will present the session I mentioned first at the North Central ACDA regional conference in Madison, WI in February 2012. Thanks to Aimee Beckman-Collier, Rhonda Fuehlberth, and Mary Kay Geston for the invitation to present there- I’m really excited about it!

At the Nebraska conference there was a sense of camaraderie and fun amongst all attending. The theme was a sort of Vegas “Lucky Sevens” idea and this presented itself with all sorts of wonderfully wacky table decorations and also door prizes for virtually everyone by the time we were done. The sense of play in Nebraska was apparent and quite sweet!

In addition to this fun, there was an amazing array of talent, both local and brought in- I was truly amazed at Nebraska ACDA’s ability to bring in the following folks:

Sigrid Johnson led the directors’ choir, which learned a large amount of music in 2 and ½ days and performed a great concert on the final day (which included my Roger Dean SATB/piano publication “Thou art the Sky”).

Bret Amundson, an amazingly talented young man whose training has been very much influenced by Axel Theimer, and whose sessions on vocal health and vocal awareness were brilliant. Bret and I became good friends almost immediately- here is a young man with a great future, and he is also very humble as well.

Vijay Singh led a 16 voice HS honors vocal jazz choir, which put on a very impressive concert on the next to last night

The chamber choir “Voices of Prometheus” led by Paul Crabbe from Missouri sang a delightful a cappella program one evening which included some amazing Weelkes, Mathew Harris, and much more

Gretchen Harrison from Kansas presented a great two-part session on commitment, goals, etc

Aimee Beckman-Collier, current president of NC ACDA, in a session on delving deep into a piece by Brahms in a really creative way. It was obvious that Aimee is one of those educators with a whirlwind of exciting ideas, enthusiasm, support for her students, etc. She also gave an address to the directors at the final luncheon about the2012 NC ACDA conference which will be a totally new way of presenting an ACDA conference in that every element will tie into a main theme of high value to all attendees.

Add in reading sessions and other events and Nebraska ACDA packed more content of high value into three and half days than I can ever remember anyone else doing. Congratulations to Dr. Matt Harden and the entire Nebraska ACDA organization. I was truly honored that I was a part of this.

Gotta say, Sig Johnson is one heckuva great director/musician/mensch. Every time I see her she is inspiring singers to greatness and challenging them to go beyond the humdrum. And she does this all with such grace. I am so happy to call her a friend. She has touched the lives of tens of thousands of people over the span of her career, which I hope will keep going for a long, long time!

So here are some of my old and especially new friends from this adventure in Nebraska: the dedicated beyond belief Matt Harden, the wise beyond his years CJ Harden, the totally gracious and smooth Phil Hesterman, the jazz groove master Fred Ritter, the thoughtful Rhonda Fuehlberth, the ever-smiling Paul Crabbe, the smooth operator and baritone voiced Vijay Singh, the very handsome and talented Gregg Zielke, the ridiculously talented for his age Bret Amundson, the ever-smiling Sig Johnson, the truly inquisitive and dedicated educator Aimee Beckman-Collier, the singer I want to watch because of her smile and enthusiasm Tina Schwahn, fellow U of Illinois alum Kat Doebel, the young director to keep your eye on Stacie Blackmore, and many more folks. The friendly and very capable student interns who kept everything operating so smoothly were amazing. Nebraska ACDA- you are awesome. Thanks for inviting me to be a part of your great summer conference!

A Great Week One for the N Carolina Governor's School Choir

2011-06-27T15:48:00.002-05:00

Wrapping up Week One (June 12- 18) of N. Carolina Governor’s School Women’s Choir Activities

It was a very busy week here in Raleigh as we started off this year's six week session of NC Governor’s School by welcoming the 300 students on Sunday and beginning classes on Monday, June 13th.

During the first week here is what my group of 24 brilliant young musicians accomplished:

They’ve gotten to know each other (and me and my great assistant Beth Philomen) so well in one week that we already feel like a close-knit family (that’s functional family, not the other type!).

They sight-read a lot of the scores we are singing this summer, with very little help from me, and virtually without any help from the piano (there is usually no one sitting at the piano).

They worked on tuning, vowels, using their ears a lot, and trying to build a sound for this choir. We aren’t using the b word (blend)-- I would rather let them sing beautifully with the vibrant color of each voice contributing to the ensemble. If they need to be “blended” then that’s a job for Beth or me when we are conducting.

They read and discussed in depth Randy Paufnik’s excellent address from a few years ago to students/parents of the Boston Conservatory. This is a great speech in which he informs them that as musicians they can heal the world and that music is not a luxury. In addition to a great discussion, the students here also listened to, and mapped on the whiteboard, one of the pieces mentioned in the address- Oliver Messian’s “Quartet for the End of Time”. This piece was composed by Messian while he was in a Nazi concentration camp, and where it was also first performed. At a future date I will talk in more length about what we did with this listening exercise.

They were extremely active, engaged learners when we spent ten hours over three days working with brilliant Alexander Technique instructor Shawn Copeland. Shawn taught them how their body is constructed, ably assisted by his skeleton friend George, from their feet all the way up through the tops of their heads. Shawn corrected many false assumptions we all have about how our bodies work and there were many, many “a-ha” moments. Shawn also worked one on one with the students on their posture, balance, etc. He also introduced some great partner games that not only taught Alexander learning points, but helped create personal bonds within the choir.

They were also highly attentive to a 75 minute lecture with some Q and A time with guest Leda Scearce, a professional voice care therapist from the Duke Voice Care Center. Leda taught them what they need to know to take care of their voice this summer and all through their future as singers. This was very valuable advice for young “vocal athletes”, which is what Leda considers them to be.

They also hit the practice rooms and chose songs to sing for a Broadway night we will do soon, which is an added-on optional opportunity for them to sing publicly.

With a suggestion by me of a worthy service project, they immediately grabbed the bull by the horns and formed a student led committee to make the project a success. The project will be to raise money for a very new grassroots food program for high school students in the mountains of Haiti (not in the more attention garnering large city of Port-au-Prince).

Placed in four groups, they also organized skits of a fun poem, which is an exercise I use to get singers to be more inside their texts and to not just sing notes. This is a way to get singers to realize that they should embrace that they can be amazing storytellers with their eyes, faces, bodies, and not just through static singing in the conventional style.

On Friday afternoon, as a reward for all their amazing effort, I tossed an Otis Redding CD on the sound system, cranked up the volume and invited them to dance. I left the room and let them blow off steam and have a good ole time. When I came back twenty-five minutes later they were all dancing, all twenty- four of them- no one decided to sit the moment out. And to many of them, the Otis Dance party was the highlight of the week- and why not, it was another fun bonding moment for the twenty-four of them.

Finally on Saturday, they threw me a birthday party in the morning- cake and candles, a very nice card, and a very sweet paper chain where they had each written something special on one of the chains.

So, the bottom line is this- as a director you can be mean, nitpick about tiny details, never support your choir’s psyche, never get to know them as real people, and so on and create an impersonal and highly negative energy in your rehearsals—or, you can see the value of team building with positive energy from day one of whatever musical group you have begun to work with. What happened the first week was magical, and we were highly fortunate that all my plans (with great assistance from Beth) went very well. The result is a huge platform that we can continue to build upon for the next five weeks. Yes, we need to woodshed more notes, but we have trust and a bond in the room and so much more. Wow, what amazing kids!

Great Insights on Programming from Richard Sparks

2011-06-06T15:25:00.009-05:00

One of the best blogs about the choral world is written by esteemed conductor Richard Sparks, which you can find here. Richard's blog is way different than mine, certainly more serious than some of the goofy things I post at times, and that's great.

Recently I rediscovered some of Richard's blogs on programming, which you can find grouped together by clicking here. There is some great reading for you there, and here are a few choice excerpts culled from various of the blog entries to pique your interest:

This is a reminder to always look for context when you perform a work--who was it written for? for what kind of space (church, theatre, concert hall)? what size and kind of ensemble? what purpose (liturgical, court, home)? These are always questions that can inform your performance.

With most of my programs, I start with a work or works I really want to do, then start building around it. For me, it's all about how the pieces chosen work together: they can contrast nicely, or several works can complement each other. In that sense, I want the audience to either feel the connections I've made or, in going from one set to another, to move to something that feels very fresh. For that reason, once I come up with a work or two that will "anchor" the program, then it's often a matter of figuring out what else will work well with it

All of us need to continually expand our knowledge of repertoire. This will also be shaped by the ensembles you conduct: the choral repertoire is broad and has so many sub-genres: treble, male, mixed, sacred, secular, for large ensemble, for small ensemble, etc., plus all levels from the most inexperienced choir to advanced repertoire only a professional choir could attempt

One of the glories of the choral medium is that there is such a wealth of repertoire to explore. We’ll never run out of it, and that’s one of the joys of this job. It should never be dull.

So, last time I talked about the importance of thinking of repertoire in programming from the standpoint of the needs of the chorus and individual singers to maximize their growth. But what about the needs of the audience? Or of the institution that supports you if you’re not an independent choir (or your board, if it is)? You can’t forget about those needs (or at least you shouldn’t if you want to keep your job!), but the challenge is to balance those with what the choir needs to do.

My experiences with choirs at different levels tells me that doing challenging music is more often the limitation of the conductor/teacher—I’ve heard children’s choirs doing some amazing music, for example. They don’t know that mixed meters are difficult. If it’s presented to them well and matter-of-factly, they just do it.

Richard Sparks is Professor of Music at the University of North Texas, where he conducts the Chamber Choir and Collegium Singers, and teaches a variety of academic courses. He is also Artistic Director and Conductor of Pro Coro Canada in Edmonton, Alberta--a professional chamber choir; and a free-lance conductor/clinician working in the US, Canada, and Europe. He spent considerable time working with the Swedish Radio Choir in 2007 and 2008. He is Conductor Emeritus of Choral Arts in Seattle, WA (which he founded and conducted from 1993-2006) and was Director of Choral Activities at Pacific Lutheran University from 1983-2001.

The Lemon Grove in Blossom (settings of poetry by Antonio Machado)

2011-05-26T08:11:00.020-05:00

My setting of Antonio Machado's poetry, titled El Limonar Florido (The Lemon Grove in Blossom), was performed twice this year. In the fall John Rommereim led the Grinnell College Singers in a wonderful performance I was able to attend, and just a few weeks ago Diana Saez' great group Cantigas performed it in Washington, D.C. I hope more people will discover this seventeen minute, four movement piece as I feel the poetry is truly beautiful and eloquent, and I am very pleased with my setting which is scored for SATB/solo violin and cello. All the choirs who have sung this piece, plus the audiences, have loved it. The choral parts are average difficulty and here and there present reasonable challenges in various areas of choral singing.

Click this link to go to my webpage for the piece- which includes sound files from a very lovely lyrical performance by Calvin College a few years ago, led by Dr. Joel Navarro.

This was a commission from John Delorey for the WPI Glee Club’s 135th anniversary. After the wonderful premiere performance in Worcester, MA the group sang it on tour in Spain in the cities of Madrid, Barcelona, and Toledo. I am told by John that the piece received immediate standing ovations in Spain, something which I was very pleased to hear, as I was concerned if Spanish audiences would like what I had done with the dreamscape texts of their most beloved poet of the early twentieth century.

One of the most fun parts of the piece occurs in the third movement where I try to create the feeling of Machado's interrupted dream. To do so, I wrote in little percussion parts and oddly intrusive things like whistles and the clicks of toy cricket clickers. When I arrived in Worcester close to the premiere I could see that this was great fun to rehearse, but the overall sound was not what I expected -- it was better! It's not too hard to hear straight choral sound in your head, but this big jumble of singing and odd noises was something I couldn't really imagine. Hearing it in real time with the enthusiastic, willing-to-try-new-things young performers was great fun.

Program Notes from the premiere:

The texts for this composition are all early works of the Spanish poet Antonio Machado (1875-1939), and most of them reflect his interest in dreamscapes. They also are quite representative of his style of observation: an object, or especially a series of objects, is simply announced, and then Machado makes or implies an interpretation of their meaning after the fact. Many of these objects are things of simple natural beauty -- a rainbow, a tree, a flock of birds -- yet they seem to also represent some deeper resonance for Machado, often colored by his lifelong melancholy over the death of his wife at an early age. I have used one of his simple observed dreamscape objects, “el limonar florido…” as the title for the whole piece simply because I think it is a wonderful image and because the words have such a beautiful liquid sound.

Insights into Machado by translator Willis Barnstone:

“ Machado sings in all his poems…often in his landscapes, as in a Chinese Taoist painting, the author seems to disappear because scene is all... behind the vision the poet is still there… walking with open eyes filled with memories of poplars by the river, a dry elm waiting for resurrection, and the Espino hill on which he wheels his dying wife. “

Movement I
The music opens with a joyous dance, “the hand in dreaming of being a star sower.” From the point where the poem speaks of “an enormous lyre” the music contracts, by way of polytonal lines in contrary motion leading to unisons, to signify the “few true words.”

Movement II
The “tranquil afternoon” is signified by the repetitive cello line, over which the violin plays a very plaintive, meandering melody. The voices speak wistfully of having “had some joys,” and the cello brings the movement to an end by taking the melody first heard in the violin.

Movement III
The dream world, “the torn cloud, the rainbow,” is introduced by the tambourine and then taken up by the violin and cello, who play at never agreeing on which measures the music’s hemiolas should occupy. But then the dreamer is woken -- noise and distraction (cricket clickers, drums, and mysterious whistles) confound “the magic crystal glass“ of the dream. The poet recaptures some of his beautiful dreamscape, “the lemon grove in blossom, … the sun, water, rainbow,” but the fragments of dream then drift away with the tambourine “like a soap bubble in the wind.”

Movement IV
A “soul light, holy light, beacon” overhead, a man below stumbling on a pilgrimage -- represented in the music by a dirge-like melody in the voices alternating with two string chords with an unsettling dissonance. Who is the man and where is he going? Machado leaves that to the reader to decide. Perhaps it is Machado himself, and he then once again dreams, turning away from the serious dirge to a rather drolly playful conversation with God, initiated musically by the cello.

TEXTS
translations by Willis Barnstone, used by permission

I. Tal vez la mano, en sueño
del sembrador de estrellas,
hizo sonar la música olvidada
como una nota de la lira immense,
y la ola humilde a nuestros labios vino
de unas pocas palabras verdaderas.

Perhaps the hand in dreaming
of being a star sower
made forgotten music echo
like a note from an enormous lyre,
and to our lips a tiny wave
came with a few true words.

II. Tarde tranguila, casi
con placidez de alma,
para ser joven, para haberlo sido
cuando Dios quiso, para
tener algunas alegrías…lejos,
y poder dulcemente recordarlas.

Tranquil afternoon, almost
with placidity of soul,
to be young, to have been so
when God willed it, to
have had some joys…far away,
and be able tenderly to recall them.

III. Desgarrada la nube; el arco iris
brillando ya en el cielo,
y en un fanal de lluvia
y sol el campo envuelto.
Desperte. ¿Quien enturbia
los magicos cristales de mi súeno?
Mi corazón latía
atónito y disperse.
…¡El limonar florido,
el cipresal del huerto,
el prado, verde, el sol, el agua, el iris!...
¡el agua en tus cabellos!...
Y todo en las memoria se perdia
como una pompa de jabón al viento.

The torn cloud, the rainbow
now gleaming in the sky,
and the fields enveloped
in a beacon of rain and sun.
I woke. Who is confounding
the magic crystal glass of my dream?
My heart was beating
aghast and bewildered.
The lemon grove in blossom,
cypresses in the orchard,
the green meadow, the sun, water, rainbow,
the water in your hair!
And all in my memory was lost
like a soap bubble in the wind.

IV. Luz de alma, luz divina,
Faro, antorcha, estrella, sol…
un hombre a tientas camina;
lleva a la espalda un farol.
Amoche soñé que oía
a Dios, gritándome: ¡Alerta!
Luego era Dios quien dormia,
y yo gritaba: ¡Despierta!

Soul light, holy light,
beacon, torch, sun, star.
A man stumbles on a road,
a lantern on his shoulder.
Last night I dreamt I heard
God shouting at me: Take care!
Later, God was sleeping
and I shouted: Awake!

John Adams' Commencement Address at Juilliard

2011-05-25T08:30:00.004-05:00

Composer John Adams recently gave a brilliant commencement address to the graduating class of Juilliard. Brilliant in my mind because he asked them to continue challenging themselves over their careers, to reinvent themselves now and then, and to always look for fresh approaches and discoveries.

He also addressed the amount of dedication it takes to achieve in the arts, something I think the general public has no idea about. Does the "average" person on the street have any idea how many hours professional musicians practice? they would be shocked to know! Or consider the thousand of hours they already put into the art by the time they were even old enough for college. Along with those hours comes many an hour of doubt and soul-searching.

Well, now I am almost starting to rewrite Adam's speech... so instead here is the speech itself, via nonesuch records:

http://www.nonesuch.com/journal/john-adams-address-the-juilliard-school-106th-commencement-ceremony-2011-05-23

Ethan Sperry interview- part two

2011-05-16T09:32:00.005-05:00

Today we continue the interview of Ethan Sperry, Director of Choral Activities at Portland State University and newly appointed Artistic Director of the Oregon Repertory Singers. Here Ethan talks about his interest in world music and his very active role in bringing it to the U.S. choral world via his series at earthsongs.

PC: You've become known for your brilliant folk music series at earthsongs. Can you describe how that series came about? And can you talk about your interest both in Haitian music and in Indian music- including Bollywood?

ES: I’ve been interested in Indian music and culture for a long time, then I started working at Miami University and there was an inspirational Indian musician named Srinivas Krishnan. Srini is an engineer from Chennai, India who had come to get his masters in Engineering at Miami in the 1980’s and then stayed in the area to work for Proctor and Gamble. In addition to his scientific skills, he is a phenomenal tabla player, vocalist, and entrepreneur.

When I arrived at Miami in 2000, I heard his Global Rhythms ensemble, which at that time was three flutes, a trombone, a cello, a keyboard, and two percussionists (all Miami students) playing an Indian raga while he accompanied on the tabla. Srini doesn’t read Western music notation, so had taught the students the raga melody by ear. The performance was hair-raising and I was inspired by the idea of performing the music of India on Western instruments. I asked Srini if he had ever involved voices in the ensemble, and he said he had always wanted to, but no one had been interested.

We started planning, and the next Fall the Miami University Collegiate Chorale joined Global Rhythms for four songs: a spiritual, a Romanian piece by Pascanu, a Cirque du Soleil piece, and a Tarana by Ravi Shankar which was my first arrangement of an Indian piece. The arrangement was scored for unison choir and over a dozen instruments. The Collegiate Chorale has performed in the Global Rhythms concert at Miami every Fall since 2001.

The summer after that I got a grant from Miami to travel to Mumbai (Bombay) and Chennai for three weeks to study Indian music. After some study of Indian music theory (mostly Carnatic) and attending a lot of concerts, including many children’s concerts, which really helped me grasp how the theory was put into practice, I decided to try a purely choral arrangement. However, India has no choral tradition and no large ensemble tradition. The music is all improvised and large groups don’t improvise well.

So, I decided to fuse two ideas together. I got my start as an arranger singing a cappella in college. In this style we give all the instrumental parts to the voices and use the voice to try and imitate their sounds. I decided to try this same idea on an Indian raga. I chose the raga Ramkali because it strays so far from Western scales. I decided to improvise on the raga as if I were singing the piece and write down my best ideas. Then I did the same thing for the vocal parts, trying to use syllables that would make them sound like the Indian percussion and drone instruments that usually accompany a singer.

Ramkali was premiered by the Miami University Men’s Glee Club at the 2004 ACDA Central Division Conference and several people, including Paul Rardin (who was at Michigan at the time) asked for manuscript copies after that performance. Paul brought the piece to Ron Jeffers at earthsongs and he asked to publish it and to begin a series in this style which I named Global Rhythms in honor of Srini and my collaboration.

Ron also asked me to produce an SATB version of Ramkali, but I resisted – I really think it’s a male chorus piece and many pieces that are reworked from TTBB to SATB (most notably Franz Biebl’s Ave Maria) suffer from being altered. I suggested that I write another raga in a similar style for SATB chorus and he liked that idea, so I wrote Desh in 2005. I don’t write these pieces quickly, but the series now includes Jai Bhavani (SA - 2007), Dwijavanthi (SATB - 2008), Pallanda (TTBB or SSAA -2009), and Mantra (SATB - 2011).

HAITI

In 2003 I was listening to the Putamayo World Music Hour on NPR and I heard this incredible piece of Haitian music called Peze Café being performed by a choir with drums. I used Putamayo’s website to order the CD and found out that it was a Swedish choir called Amanda that had been singing. The booklet gave me enough information to use google and eventually order the sheet music for the piece from a Swedish website. I also ordered every other piece I could Sten Kallman who had arranged that piece. The sheet music used Western music notation but there were very few performance notes and what notes there were were in Swedish. I got some friends to help translate the notes, and used the CD as a performance guide, and on we went. My students immediately fell in love with his arrangements and a few years later I invited him to come work with us for a week and perform two of his arrangements with us at the 2010 ACDA Central Division Conference in Cincinnati. He also agreed to let me re-publish some of his arrangements as part of my series with earthsongs, this time with much more extensive performance notes that are all in English.

BOLLYWOOD

While I was in India in 2002 I also became infatuated with Bollywood music. And I had some good luck. Friends of Srini’s introduced me to a number of film composers including A. R. Rahman whose music is truly exceptional. From 2002-2006 I produced about a dozen arrangements of Rahman songs for choir and a very large Global Rhythms ensemble. He came to the US in 2006 and performed them with us in Detroit, Dayton, and at the Hollywood Bowl on my 35th birthday which still stands as one of the highlights of my musical life. Rahman also invited me to conduct some of his music at The Filmfare Awards (the Indian Oscars) in 2008 – another highlight.

Over time I was able to produce a few arrangements of his songs for choir and percussion, and Ron agreed to publish these on my series as well. Of these, I am most proud of Zikr. Rahman converted from Hinduism to Islam in his twenties (A. R. stands for Allah Rakha or servant of Allah), and despite having written almost 1000 songs, Zikr is his only statement of faith in music. The media gives a lot of air time to a relatively small group of Muslims who are terrorists, and almost no attention to the millions of Muslims (138 million in India alone) who are not. I hope this song will help some people understand that there’s much more to Islam that Al Qaeda.

Choral Interviews - pt. 5: Ethan Sperry

2011-05-12T08:45:00.000-05:00

I'm in Cincinnati working with the Cincinnati Children's Choir this week and having a great time. Their concerts Saturday will include two commission premieres by me, plus two other pieces I wrote recently. Being here reminds me of the last time I was here attending the 2010 ACDA Central Division Conference. One of the greatest performances that week was by Ethan Sperry's choir from Miami University (that's Miami of Ohio, folks). I got to know Ethan a bit during a long conversation with him and Mike Scheibe and I realized I had to know more about this fascinating and hard driving musician. So here, following a short bio, is a two part interview with Ethan:

Ethan Sperry is Director of Choral Activities at Portland State University, where he conducts the world-renowned Chamber Choir and University Choir and leads undergraduate and graduate programs in conducting. Beginning in the Fall of 2011, he will also be the Artistic Director and Conductor of the Oregon Repertory Singers.

Sperry also serves as the National Repertoire and Standards Chair for Male Choruses for the American Choral Directors Association and the Vice-President of the Intercollegiate Men’s Choruses. From 2000-2010, Dr. Sperry was on the faculty at Miami University in Ohio where he conducted the Men’s Glee Club, Collegiate Chorale, and Global Rhythms Ensembles.

A prolific arranger of World Music for choirs, Dr. Sperry is the editor of the Global Rhythms series for earthsongs music, one of the best-selling choral series in the country.

PC: Judging by the joyous interaction I saw between you and your singers that I saw in Cincinnati at the ACDA Central Division Conference in 2010, how hard was it to leave Miami University and start a new position at Portland State this year?

What do you think was the key element in that special relationship you had with your singers at Miami?

ES: It was very hard to leave my job at Miami University, especially because of how close I was to the students in the choirs. We had formed meaningful bonds and shared some truly special experiences.

However, turnover is inevitable in the academic setting. In my ten years at Miami I had watched hundreds of students I was close to graduate and move on. Last year it became my turn. Taking this attitude towards my leaving was actually suggested to me by some of the students, and it helped me adopt the best possible perspective on the situation. And of course we still stay in touch.

But I’ve been lucky I guess – I seem to form this kind of relationship with most of singers I work with. But since I was at Miami for ten years, seven years longer than I have held any other teaching position, the bonds ran much deeper than I was used to, and yes it was very difficult to decide to say goodbye.

And now that I just read the great piece by Weston Noble on your blog, I’m going to use his word, VULNERABILITY to answer your question. I learned from my father (who is also a musician) that great music is great because it captures some essential human feeling or experience and brings it to life. Our goal as musicians is to make a personal connection with that spark in the music and share it with others. You have to be willing to be vulnerable to do this.

As a choral conductor, I spend a great percentage of my rehearsal time on this issue: exploring what the text and music or a piece is trying to say and trying to connect it to our own experiences. I share my thoughts and actively solicit the singers’ thoughts as well. That requires them to be vulnerable too. In my opinion, there is no way NOT to feel close to people once you are that open with them.

PC: Oregon and Washington have such amazing choral programs, all the way from children’s choirs through the university choirs. Now that you have been there for a while, to what do you attribute this to?

ES: The choir directors I’ve met in Oregon and Washington really know each other and like each other. They all want their programs to be the best, but that does NOT translate into them wanting their colleagues to fail. I find this especially surprising at the high school level. Both Oregon and Washington have state championships for choirs – one choir each year is named #1, and I find that their colleagues congratulate the winner and are happy for them. Then they go home and work harder to try and win the next year.

I think this has happened because there are three majors events in Oregon where these choir directors spend significant time together, get to know each other, and really learn from each other and from the best choir directors in the world. One is the Oregon Bach Festival which I think needs no introduction. The second is the Liederkranz Club, a social club of choir directors who go to a beautiful retreat on the Columbia River Gorge each November and invite famous clinicians to come and hang out with them. Everyone you can think of from Robert Shaw to Eric Ericsson have been guests at Liederkranz over the years. The third is Rodney Eichenberger’s Haystack Rock summer conference where choir directors spend a week at Canon Beach sight-reading new releases and working on their conducting.

[PC: I'll add a fourth: Chor Anno, the brainchild of Howard Meharg]

I also want to give some credit to Bruce Browne, my predecessor at Portland State University, who was Director of Choral Activities there from 1978-2006. Bruce tackled the most difficult repertoire possible with the PSU Chamber Choir and was very aggressive in seeking new challenging repertoire for choirs. He was a leader in introducing the music of Tormis, Rautavaara, and a host of other Scandinavian and Baltic composers to the United States. Many of the best high school directors in the Northwest studied with Bruce at PSU and seem to have absorbed a love of this music. It’s crazy to hear so many high schools not only learning but mastering Rautavaara’s Lorca Suite. Taking on this kind of repertoire really raises the bar on what a choir can do.

PC: What do you think are the best ways for an aspiring high school director to get into “authentic” folk music of the world and do it well, so that it respects the music and does it justice? How can they conquer the fear of doing it badly?

ES: One reason I love performing non-Western music is because I don’t find non-Western ideas in the music. I find basic human emotions and experiences that I have, I share, and I understand.

School administrators approach Diversity from the perspective that we need to learn about and highlight human DIFFERENCES. I absolutely hate this approach and think it is exacerbating racial and social problems in our country. When I sing music from another culture I feel how similar I am to people that other people (administrators) keep telling me I’m supposed to be very different from.

So, don’t be afraid of performing World Music, because it’s not as different as you think.

However, there are differences in vocal technique and style from culture to culture (as there are large differences in technique and style in various types of Western music) and we do want to do justice to all the pieces we sing.

The way to learn is by immersion, even just a little bit of immersion in the culture(s) you are interested in.

The best way to get an authentic performance is to travel to the place the music is from, meet some musicians, and hear some concerts. For most of us that’s not possible due to time or money or both. But we have recordings. And we live in America: there are communities from almost any foreign culture you can think of in almost every American city, even the small cities. The number of truly phenomenal Indian musicians I met in Dayton, Ohio was staggering to say nothing of Cincinnati.

And I’ve never been to Haiti, but I perform a lot of Haitian music. I know lots of Haitians who live in the United States, and I know Western musicians who have lived in Haiti for extended periods. I’ve been to concerts in Haitian communities, and I’ve invited Haitian percussionists to accompany my choirs and talk with my singers.

PC: You are one of our up and coming young conductors full of energy and vision. What changes do you envision in the US choral scene over the next ten or twenty years?

ES: I’m seeing, well hearing actually, American choirs making a much wider variety of sounds. I’m not referring to pieces that require expanded vocal techniques, I’m talking about choirs changing their sound to suit the piece they are performing. I think this is at the crux of great choral music-making, and I find it very inspiring. Britain has this amazing choral tradition where they all sing so cleanly and so perfectly and I think we have been trying to emulate that for a long time. In doing so we created some beautiful choirs, but I think we missed a lot of musicianship along the way. American choirs have been much more adventurous in programming, not only in championing modern music but in exploring the music of other cultures. I’m glad our concept of choral sound is becoming as flexible as our choice of repertoire.

PC: Can you tell us about a) the most influential a-ha moment for you as a student, and who the teacher was and/or the situation b) a similar moment when you felt you, now as a teacher, had made an amazing positive impact upon a student's life and view of music?

ES: I had a very powerful experience during my junior year of college while on spring tour with the Harvard Glee Club. We were in Solana Beach, California and were performing at a small church. Not a particularly special concert, not very nice acoustics, not the highlight of our tour. But for some reason, we sang differently that night. For some reason, we blended and tuned so well that I actually felt other people’s voices coming out of my mouth. I even felt myself singing several notes at once. I started looking around, and I could see it one everyone else’s face too, several guys had stopped singing and some were even crying. I don’t think any of us has ever forgotten that concert or that feeling. Before that concert I was pretty sure I was going to be a choir director, but after that concert there was no doubt in my mind.

I still don’t know what causes this phenomenon, but I’ve been able to replicate it. Not on demand, and not on purpose, but it’s happened to me twice more as a singer and in about a dozen concerts I’ve conducted. It’s a very powerful and reassuring feeling to know – even if for just an instant - that you’re not alone in the world.

PC: End of Part One- I will post part two in a few days: Ethan talks in depth about his experiences exploring world music and the development of his music series at earthsongs

Sharing Weston Noble's Speech to ACDA Tucson 2010

2011-04-25T08:56:00.002-05:00

I was at the 2010 ACDA Western Division Conference in sunny Tucson in 2010- a very nice break from Chicago winter weather. It was my first time attending a western division conference, as well as my first trip to Tucson, and it was a wonderful experience. The funky and historic Congress Hotel I stayed in was lots of fun. The entire conference was quite a success thanks to organizer Cheryl Anderson and many other folks (you can read what I blogged about it here and here).

Weston Noble gave the keystone address for the conference and it was brilliant. In fact, from the time I heard it I hoped that I could get in contact with him and ask if I could reproduce it here for folks who weren't lucky enough to be in Tucson that day.

Dr. Noble has graciously agreed to my request and what you will read now is his speech in full- I have done no editing whatsoever.

First a short bio, although it is hardly needed:

Now the Johnson Professor Emeritus of Music, Weston Noble had a 57 year tenure as a conductor and teacher at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. He received wide acclaim as conductor of the Nordic choir from 1948 to 2005, the Concert Band from 1948 to 1973, and as a guest conductor for over 900 music festivals across four continents.

Weston Noble holds five honorary doctorate degrees and was also a recipient of the ACDA Robert Shaw Award. In the fall of 2011 he will be Resident Director at Augustana College in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

ACDA WESTERN DIVISION SPEECH

TUCSON, ARIZONA

There came a moment in the middle of the song when he/she suddenly felt every heartbeat in the room & after that he/she never forgot he/she was part of something much bigger. – Brian Andreas

Bach – Air for G String 75 years ago

La Boheme 61 years ago

Riceville High School Band rehearsal 75 years ago

In Remembrance by Ames two weeks ago at the University of Tennessee with awesome silence

and my mother asking me if I would like to take piano lessons 82 years ago.

Unforgettable memories with such power we are transported into a world without words – our spirit world! Such moments filled with a transforming power, a power so strong that an electrical impulse causes two cell neurons to join awaken new places in our brain, never to be separated –creating a new pattern of thinking, a new pattern of life set forever.

We experience shades of emotions never felt before. Who we are deepens. Our palate of enrichment enlarges. Life becomes forever richer!

And wonder of wonders we are no longer just recipients, but we are also TEACHERS. Just As our brain patterns have been changed through our years, now we are an ingredient catalyst of for CHANGING LIVES of students through MUSIC on a daily basis!

We all aspire to be the best teachers possible. DVD interview [READ APPENDIX]

Howard Swan rehearsal – Cal State Fullerton. Common ingredient – VULNERABILITY – OPENNESS. [READ APPENDIX]

How do we bring this chief characteristic of good teaching into our rehearsals? First, may I preface this by sharing a very practical personal experience? A year ago I would not have dared to be this vulnerable as I am about to be. Enter a friend named Jabez, an Old Testament personality, who emerges only once in Scripture and briefly at that. He was noted for his expertise in prayer, addressing God with four basic ingredients. It is his second ingredient that is relevant here – that my sphere of influence might be increased today! We are all challenged by pride when success is enjoyed. This temptation is greatly reduced if we experience success in the context of an opportunity to increase our sphere of influence. I pray this daily.

Now, how do we bring vulnerability and openness into our rehearsals?

All of us can recall an exceptional rehearsal/concert. A note of gratitude, flattering to say the least, is received. We want to believe every word, even though these kind words cannot be true on a daily basis. Last summer, I experienced five consecutive rehearsal days and a concert with an alumni choir that will be forever memorable. I savor even yet the joy, the love, and the ensemble maturation. With trepidation, yet with the deep desire that my sphere of influence may be increased, I share this message written by the Alumni Choir accompanist, Joan Mork, a Luther student of the 50’s.

Thank you from the depths of our souls for another memorable Alumni week! Each of us comes with a different story to express through music. You, magically, help us find these stories…even baring our souls in ways we can hardly imagine – and then you affirm these stories and who we are! We all left feeling trusted and loved. The renewed energy and peace is such a gift.

The content of this note brings tears to my eyes even yet. It is truly beautiful. But this begs the question: how did this happen? Until a few years ago, I could not attempt an answer. Maybe I could not see the ‘woods for the trees’. One colleague termed it an unexplainable gift that cannot be dissected. Not satisfied, I wrote Joan and asked HOW her experiences came about. Her answer implied it had to be of the spirit with no soul words to explain it.

Still the question: How did this happen to Joan?

Several days ago I received an amazing email from Dr. Geoffrey Boers, one he had sent to his graduate students. I quote:

These thoughts are in response to a lecture: Neuroscientist Villayanur Ramachandran outlines the fascinating functions of mirror neurons. * Only recently discovered, these neurons allow us to learn complex social behaviors, some of which formed the foundations of human civilization as we know it.

I ran to the dictionary to find a definition of a neuron. I What I found it to be is that a neuron is any of the impulse-conducting cells that constitute the brain. The email went on to write, *Motor neurons tell my hand to pick up a fallen pencil and bring it back to my body. There are newly discovered mirror neurons as well, constituting about 20% of motor neurons. When we see someone else pick up a pencil, we experience it in a “virtual reality kind of way, we feel what it would be like, and in fact some of our nerves even fire. Someone who has lost a limb, for example, can still feel itches scratched and the relief of a massage, merely by observing another being touched--we feel physical sensations and experiences changes in our body as if we were doing the observed activity!!”

Mirror neurons encourage an empathetic response—a response which breaks down the barriers between people.

Dr. Boers: When we are conducting, we want to fire stimulate? mirror neurons so they can imitate and emulate what we as conductors are feeling physically and emotively. In other words, so that our singers can feel what we are experiencing physically and emotionally. Can we develop a set of conducting gestures that assist in firing a mirror neuron through our patterns, physical cues and other suggestions that can fire mirror responses in others?

Curiously, following Dr. Geoffrey Boer's email, Joan Mork shared a conversation with her husband, a member of the alumni choir by convenience, in which she asked how she had been guided to her feelings previously shared. I am very uncomfortable in sharing his response but hopefully expanding my sphere of influence: I am inspired by the way he lives his life. He brings his whole self to the podium. He is consistently honest, he laughs and cries, he hurts and loves, he explains, respects, and forgives, he demands and is humble, he is generous, he hears and listens, and there are moments when I feel like he is my biggest fan!

(Am I like this every day? No way. But daily, I can grow constantly with this goal in mind)

Now I understand. I HAD ACTIVATED MIRROR NEURONS IN JOAN AND CONVERSELY THE CHOIR. TOGETHER THEY HAD EXPERIENCED WHAT I FELT PHYSICALLY AND EMOTIONALLY. THE BARRIER BETWEEN THE CHOIR AND ME WAS GONE! MY SOURCE OF ENERGY, MY VULNERABILITY HAD IGNITED THEIR MIRROR NEURONS. AND THEY BEGAN TO IDENTIFY WITH WHAT I FELT PHYSICALLY AND EMOTIONALLY! I WAS FREE TO REHEARSE, TO BE OPEN AND VULNERABLE IN EVERY WAY. I ALLOWED THE CHOIR TO SEE ME NOT ONLY EXTERNALLY, BUT INTERNALLY AS WELL. THIS, IN TURN, ALLOWED THEM INDIVIDUALLY TO FIND THEIR STORY TO EXPRESS THROUGH MUSIC... EVEN BARING THEIR SOULS IN WAYS THEY COULD HARDLY IMAGINE. ‘WOULD THEY ALL LEFT FEELING TRUSTED AND LOVED. THE RENEWED ENERGY AND PEACE WOULD BE SUCH A GIFT.’

Prison Story [READ APPENDIX]

But this begs the question: how had I become that vulnerable to fire those mirror neurons?

Back to Howard Swan. He, in asking his singers if they had shared themselves with someone else, was opening the door to the shadow side of each individual. Any shadow element? Fear or dark side to ourselves that inhibits vulnerability can be an obstruction to the flow of the power of music. It that is becomes the opposite of openness; a challenge to the freedom of inhibits the ability to stimulate mirror neurons. A study conducted several years ago shows the average person thinks negatively NINETY-FIVE PERCENT of the time! NEGATIVISM and JUDGEMENTALISM do not belong in a rehearsal hoping to release mirror neurons! Conversely, vulnerability frees CREATIVITY and enhances FREEDOM, RESPECT, and LOVE. Vulnerability opens us to embrace SENSITIVITY, BEAUTY, and DEPTH as music is encountered!

VULNERABILITY IS A GROWTH PROCESS, DEGREE BY DEGREE. It is a life-long pursuit. No wonder it is the chief characteristic of an outstanding choir director. EVERY AREA of one's life becomes the beneficiary!

Now, listen to Howard Swan’s words of wisdom following the choir’s response to his question of vulnerability: All of you should have raised your hands when asked if you had shared yourselves with someone else. Recall those moments when you, as a singer, were experiencing those innermost feelings brought forth by the music whether in concert or rehearsal. You were giving your all – totally open. But you had the freedom to do this in that the person on each side of you became your ‘Linus Blanket’! [READ APPENDIX- STORY OF THREE SQUEEZES] He was also saying: "Without vulnerability, you can never truly pursue the beauty of Brahms."

Many of you are aware of the three methods of teaching: cognitive, affective, and kinesthetic. Affective employs a great use of IMAGINATION, imagery as to the intent of the composer. As you ask questions utilizing the student and his/her feelings for this moment of the music, you are enhancing the presence of collective physical and emotional responses. The firing of mirror neurons is greatly enhanced!

I VIVIDLY REMEMBER NOTICING GREAT INSTRUMENTAL AND CHORAL CONDUCTORS BEING NON-TRADITIONAL IN THEIR CONDUCTING PATTERNS. WHY WAS/IS THIS SO? WERE THERE CONDUCTING GESTURES FURTHER ENABLING THE RELEASE OF MIRROR NEURONS, AS OPPOSED TO THE MORE TRADITIONAL BEAT PATTERN?WHAT WAS PARAMOUNT WAS THE POWER OF COMMUNICATION, THE BEAT PATTERN BEING SECONDARY. NEVER NEGATE THE POWER OF THE FACE. YOUR FACE, ESPECIALLY YOUR EYES MUST BE PART OF GESTURE. EYES NEVER LIE!

In conclusion, every person in this room changes lives. At our best, and sometimes at our worst, we connect with our students through activated mirror neurons. Does your life consist in activating mirror neurons both ON and OFF the podium? Is your life one of spreading your sphere of influence?

May your touches, hugs, smiles, and affirmations be a moment of freeing awakening a MIRROR NEURON of a colleague at this convention. I predict the Tucson sky will be flooded illuminated and charged with all the freedom of our mirror neurons!

APPENDIX No. 1
DVD Interview

My interviewer was very perceptive. His questions were very thoughtful, and I found myself anticipating each one. Then, this question: "Weston, what is the chief characteristic of an outstanding choir director?" Somewhat flustered, I poked here and there, but without a definitive answer. He smiled and said: "Weston, are you trying to say VULNERABILITY?" I felt a tingle go from my head to my feet; I knew he was right even though I was not certain why.

APPENDIX No. 2
Howard Swan rehearsal

I was attending a rehearsal of the Cal State Fullerton choir, conducted by the vulnerable Howard Swan. In the middle of the Brahms, he suddenly stopped and paused this question to members of the choir: "How many of you have ever shared yourself with someone else?" From a choir of seventy five members, roughly twenty eight members raised his or her hand. "How many of you have shared yourself twice with someone else?" The number of hands dropped to roughly twelve (I was one of them, but not visually) "How many of you have shared yourself three times? If you have, it is a miracle" (Again, I was one of them, but not visually)
The common ingredient of the two above stories is VULNERABILITY-OPENNESS!

APPENDIX No. 3
Prison Story

In January, I participated in a project called Arts in Prison. This program was started by the vulnerable Robert Shaw, and recently revived by Charles Bruffy, conductor of the Kansas City and Phoenix and Chorales. Two hundred and fifty singers from the Kansas City area volunteered to be members of an ad hoc choir (at the cost of forty five dollars per singer), the purpose of which was to share a program of choral music with members of the nearby prison choir. The prisoners' chorus meets weekly and is conducted by a volunteer.

A three hour rehearsal preceded the joint concert, held in a beautiful concert hall in Kansas City. The prisoners listened enthusiastically to our music from the third balcony under the supervision of the guards. Then, they came to the stage and shared their music with us. They were surprisingly good! Our standing ovation was prolonged and sincere. Tears were evident in both choirs.

In each of our hearts, there was a total absence of any judgmentalism of the prisoner's past life experiences. It was enshrouded by the love of sharing beautiful music with one another.

As a conclusion of the joint concert, the prisoners came to the stage for a photo op. I found myself in their presence with no guards on the stage. I took this opportunity to shake hands and congratulate each and every member of the choir. One prisoner sought me out afterward and said with tears in his eyes, "you can never know the meaning of receiving such a standing ovation when you have been told all of your life you amount to nothing"

APPENDIX No. 4
Story of Three Squeezes

A Nordic member, when giving his devotions prior to a Nordic Choir concert on tour, shared the meaning of his squeezing the hand (s) of the person next to him during a concert. This would occur at a moment of exceptional beauty within a selection or his being moved by the singer(s)' performance next to him. But the greatest three squeezes would simply mean: I love you!

APPENDIX No. 5
Future lecture:

The following is a proposal from Dr. Boers for future collaboration.
This session will focus on the evolutionary nature of conducting pattern and gesture, and will consider changes to technique and process based upon recent research in brain science, particularly our understanding of mirror neurons...... Session leaders Geoffrey Boers and Weston Noble will explore gestures and rehearsal style that will encourage this type of brain action to become a consistent experience in rehearsal and performance, so that transcendent experience becomes a part of our technique, and ultimately, transformational for the choir.

[Indeed this lecture was created and shared as an interest session at ACDA 2011 in Chicago with Drs. Noble and Boers in front of a few hundred attendees- PC]

Coming Monday, May 2nd-- a two part interview with Ethan Sperry, Director of Choral Activities at Portland State University, and newly announced Artistic Director and Conductor of the Oregon Repertory Singers, Oregon’s most distinguished adult chorus. Ethan also is editor of the amazing Global Rhythms series at earthsongs.

St. Mary's College Choir concert directed by Nancy Menk

2011-04-19T09:56:00.002-05:00

One of my biggest supporters has always been Dr. Nancy Menk, director of choral organizations at the famous St. Mary's College in South Bend, Indiana. Nancy has commissioned works from me both for her college choir and her mixed choir, the South Bend Chamber Singers. I have always been a great admirer of her musical wisdom, and her amazing dedication to her craft and to the people she leads.

Recently the St. Mary's College Women's Choir went on a tour of China. This wasn't your usual tour- Nancy did the research and work to make it special. They traveled to Nanjing and did collaborative work with the Nanjing University women's choir there. They rehearsed together, presented concerts together, and shared world views with each other. You can read the blog the students wrote about this experience by clicking here. It's fun reading.

Wow- now that's a curtain call glow. Nancy is there holding the big bouquet of flowers

When the tour came to an end they gave a homecoming concert back at St. Mary's. Nancy worried that the choir would be jet lagged but I told her, I'm sure the adrenaline of a performance will see them through.

So Aidan (my fun-loving seven year old) and I took a mini road trip to Indiana. Aidan is all about road trips, even choir concert road trips with Dad, which you can read about (it is hilarious) here. I had two motivations for going- the first was the fact that the choir had taken my piece "Winter Solstice" for SSA/harp or piano, published by Roger Dean, on tour to China with them and they had added a solo dancer to the performance. I was quite intrigued by this presentation idea, and I was really looking forward to getting a chance to see this performance live. The second motivation was the fact that my new arrangement of the school song,"The Bells of St. Marys" (yes, that song, which you may know through the old Bing Crosby movie) would be performed at the end of the concert and I had yet to hear the new arrangement. In regard to this, I was very honored that Nancy entrusted me to write this piece. She wanted a new arrangement with piano, as they already had an a cappella version they had been doing for years. I felt this was a big task-- I needed to get this arrangement just right to do a famous school song honor. So I was looking forward, with crossed fingers, to finally hearing this sung by real people, not just as a Finale file playback.

So Aidan and I got to St. Mary's in plenty of time and we settled into our seats in the beautiful Loretto Chapel. Nancy and the singers entered and were greeted by very enthusiastic applause- it was obvious that the folks of St. Mary's were proud of them and glad to welcome them back.

The concert wound through some very nice repertoire by mostly living composers, including a very interesting Missa Brevis by Anna Cederberg, a Lux Aeterna by Michelle Roueche, and pieces by Ola Gjeillo and David Brunner. The Cederberg seemed to be the most interesting-- I sensed a nicely original "voice" and I would like to delve into this piece some more.

Then, after three very fresh and delightful Chinese folk songs the choir arrived at Winter Solstice. I settled into my seat just feeling very happy and curious about what would happen. The solo dancer, Jinqui Guan, a St. Mary's senior who is from China and will attend grad school at Harvard in the fall, took her place. The music started and the dancing was so beautiful and natural. Everything she did fit the poetry and my music so magically, that I found myself paying so much attention to the dancing that I was almost ignoring the music. But when I did refocus on the singing what I noticed was the most amazing phrase arc/line- Nancy and the choir had sung this piece enough times that they knew exactly how to nuance every phrase to its maximum expressiveness. I was just so happy to hear a piece of mine sung so artistically and in such a manner as to reflect, through beautiful phrasing, the beauty of the Southwest U.S. nature/winter solstice texts. I was moved deeply by the performance and even Aidan seemed really drawn in (you can't expect a seven year old to totally get all these things of course- he is pretty artistic but he's also about Pokemon and Yu-gi-o card games too).

The concert then finished up and I just had to thank everyone involved. I told Nancy that I thought it was the best St. Marys College Choir concert I had ever heard. I profusely thanked Miss Guan (it turns out she has training in traditional Chines dance, as well a ballet and modern), and also their amazing new pianist Allison Secaur. Allison rocked the entire night- whether it was subtlely nuanced music like Winter Solstice or great gobs of notes like in Stephen Paulus' "I cannot Dance, O Lord", which was also on the program. I hope Nancy can keep Allison in this position for a long time, she is one of the finest choral accompanists I have ever heard.

The singers were all happy-- I know they were tired but it was obvious that they were so proud of what they had accomplished in their travels to China and proud of their homecoming concert at St. Mary's. I was also really pleased that the dean and the president of the school were there wearing proud smiles and came and chatted with me. It's so wonderful to see their support of what Nancy has been doing at St. Mary's for the last twenty-six years. And I as well am proud to call Nancy a good friend and very proud of how she has shaped so many of the lives of her students. She has also been a true leader in the advance of women's choral music in the US over the last twenty-five years. She's been there from the start when this movement to elevate women's choral music to a high level of artistry began. And, as a composer, I truly appreciate how she and others like her have encouraged gifted composers to set quality poetry for this voicing.

Here is a video an audience member posted to youtube of the Winter Solstice performance- yes, I know a gentleman's head is partly in the frame! I believe the college will have an official video out soon.

Thanks for reading,

Paul

PS The "Bells of St. Mary's" arrangement was sung beautifully as well. Aaron Copland let me borrow a few very American harmonic ideas (think "Our Town") that help express emotions of love, fellowship and reminiscence. I am very happy with what I wrote for them- something that hopefully will touch the hearts of singers and alums.

Nice video to my arr. of the folk song Loosin Yelav

2011-04-15T22:58:00.030-05:00

In 2008 I was the guest conductor for the District One Pennsylvania High School Honors Choir. This is basically the top "area" of Pennsylvania as it encompasses the high-achieving schools of suburban Pittsburgh.

When you appear as a guest conductor/composer people want you to conduct some of your own music. The piece I chose of my own was my arrangement of the Armenian folk song Loosin Yelav, published by Santa Barbara, which was originally commissioned as an SA/piano piece by Mary Alice Stollak for the Michigan State University Children's Choir. In Pittsburgh we did the SATB version, which also includes a solo violin part, which was played by a high school student.

The rehearsals and the concert were a blast. The kids were really great and were very dedicated to the work, and the organizers provided us with an amazing pianist named James Burns. I was also blessed with a lot of support from host director Lorraine Milovac, who teaches at Upper St. Clair High School and also the University of Pittsburgh. FYI, the piece we had the most fun with was Rene Clausen's Jabberwocky, which to me is a perfect HS honors choir piece. It is so full of imagination AND has so many challenges for an aspiring high school choir- challenges in regard to tone color, storytelling & expression, tuning, rhythm, placement of consonants, you name it, the piece has so many avenues for artistically based teaching moments.

The dads of one of the singers has created two videos to accompany the recording the organizers made. One of them is Jabberwocky (which I might post later- you can find it on Youtube) and Loosin Yelav.

Loosin Yelav (The Moon ha Risen...) is a folk song praising the rising rosy moon. It moves back and forth from a contemplative tone to more dance like moods. It was set famously by Luciano Berio back in the 1960's for soprano solo and it was that Berio setting that Mary Alice Stollak used to sing as a concert soloist. After many years, she thought I might be the composer best suited to setting this for choir. In retrospect I am glad she asked for this piece- I would never have thought of setting an Armenian folk song!

Anyway, here is the video created by "BWCDAD".

I'm not sure the translation on the screen is the greatest (I think we did a very nice job on that for the Santa Barbara publication of the piece), but I do believe that the images of Armenia are fantastic- what amazingly unique images of a people and a country!

So thanks "BWCDAD" for creating this video!

Btw, I just discovered a youtube performance of the SA/piano version by the Indianapolis Children
s Choir- veyr nice singing and interpretation!

Choral Interviews- part 4: Mary Alice Stollak

2011-04-14T23:00:00.000-05:00

Mary Alice Stollak is a double Grammy Award winner ("Best Choral Performance" and "Best Classical Album") for preparing the Michigan State University Children's Choir for the acclaimed Naxos recording of William Bolcom’s "Songs of Innocence and of Experience". She is also a recipient of the Maynard Klein Award for lifetime achievement given by ACDA-Michigan.

While residing as founding artistic director, over thirty new treble choir works were commissioned and premiered by the Michigan State University Children's Choir under Stollak’s leadership. Santa Barbara Music Publishing Company publishes the Mary Alice Stollak Choral Series, a set of treble choral publications that presents works by national and international composers in a variety of musical styles.

Stollak has appeared as festival guest conductor and workshop presenter in twenty-two states as well as Argentina, Canada, Germany, and Italy. Stollak served as the choral director for the National High School Music Institute (NHSMI) at Northwestern University for twenty years and for the Haslett (MI) Middle and High Schools for ten years. She also served as Director of Choral Activities at the University of Michigan-Flint. Her choirs have performed at numerous ACDA conventions at the state, division and national levels.

PC: In watching you conduct I have always admired your sense of phrasing and use of rubato. How did this beautiful sense of phrasing come to you? Was it the influence of a teacher, or years of experience, a combination?

MAS: Before I try to describe how or why I do things in the manner you just described, I would like to share the following quotes. First, from Rabbi David Wolpe's "The Power of Presence":

“What we learn from a great teacher cannot be put into a book, because it is in a look, an inflection, a quirk of personality or a tossed off comment. The greatest human lessons are found in the power of presence.”

And from the book, “Choke” by Sian Beilock:

"As we get better at performing a skill, our conscious memory for how we do it gets worse and worse." - University of Chicago sports and motor learning expert."

In other words, I’m not sure why, as a performer or conductor, the beauty of line is almost everything to me as a musician, nor is it easy for me to describe what I do…I just seem to do it. There are a few possible experiences, however, that have made a difference in how I interpret music, some of which may be found in your question about my life before the MSUCC.

Choral music, for me, was an extension of performing art song. I gave bi-yearly recitals at MSU between the late 60’s until the mid-80’s and spent countless hours searching for literature by listening to the best recordings of singers that I greatly respected. I specifically listened to art song recordings…Renata Tebaldi, Victoria De Los Angelus, Janet Baker, Elly Ameling, Joan Morris, and Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, to name a few. I LOVED how these singers treated phrases, how each could hang on a word for just the perfect length of time to give it meaning, how they gave the impression that what occurred between the notes was as important as the notes themselves. (Some day listen to Lieberson singing the Bach Cantata BWV 82, “Ich Habe Genung”…it’s breathtaking.) It is that communication between singer and listener…that belief that each phrase has power and that it touches the hearts of the singer as well as the listener. This became my mantra in each and every rehearsal. We used every analogy possible to be sure that what we did had meaning and that the text and the line was not done-in by being notey.

In Howard Swan’s book “Conscience of the Profession” there is a wonderful chapter about the need to talk about beauty throughout each of our rehearsals. I was teaching at Haslett High School at the time. What an eye opener for me! Because of this, the concept of beauty was foremost in everything that we did, including the warm-up. Too often, warm-ups are perfunctory. I strove to make each warm-up simple. While warming-up, I remind my singers that they are young artists…they would beam when I’d tell them that…and even within the warm-up their goal is to produce an artistically pleasing sound. This gets them to concentrate more and to see the warm-up as something less tedious that prepares them for the beautiful (not just accurate) tone that is needed to help in interpreting the music.

PC: We mostly know you from your amazing work leading the MSU Children’s Choir, yet you taught many years before that outside the children's choir realm. Can you tell us more about those years of your career?

MAS: After graduating from Indiana University, I was mostly a solo performer, singing a lot of oratorio and symphony works for mezzo-soprano and orchesta. My first love, however, was the art song. After our three children were all in school, I taught at Haslett Middle School & High School, (which then had only 450 kids in the high school) and built that program from a half-time position to a full time choral program. In my ten years there, we sang for two Central Division ACDA Conventions. From there, I taught at the University of Michigan-Flint where I was Associate Professor of Music. While there, I instituted the annual Black History Month concerts as part of the university’s outreach mission, as well as focusing on 20th century choral music, and performing music by women composers. For about 20 years, I spent five weeks each summer as the choral conductor for the National High School Music Institute at Northwestern University. It’s been a great ride!

PC: What motivated you to found the MSU Children’s choir? Can you tell us about its early stages?

MAS: I will always be thankful to Jim Forger, Dean of the MSU College of Music for asking me to direct a children’s choir in the newly formed MSU Community Music School. I had no idea at that time, that young children were capable of creating such artistry! We started in 1993 with a very small choir of about 22 children who were in the early elementary grades. Each semester, the number of children joining the choir grew and with each performance, their parents and others in the community became increasingly and amazingly supportive of this organization. Fast forward to 1998—five years from our founding, our 70 voice choir sang in performance at the ACDA Central Division Convention. I guess that even when it was just a neophyte group, I tried to instill in our singers a love of excellence for its own sake, that they love making music for its aesthetic experience, their ability to touch others through beauty, and even the simple joy of doing it right. I always searched for quality literature, and let me just say what a pleasure it has been to perform music by composers such as you, that write with such sensitivity…it made the children’s experience so much more meaningful! Back to the support of the children’s parents…in my 16 years with the choir, we commissioned 30 works, one of which was “Angels Voices” by John Burge, a five movement work for choir and full orchestra that later went on to win the Association of Canadian Choral Conductors’ 2006 Outstanding New Choral Composition. This was all made possible by the support of our choir families!

PC: The choir appeared at the Sixth World Symposium on Choral Music as the Official Representative of the United States. Can you tell us about that experience both from your viewpoint and also what the kids in the choir experienced?

MAS: This was the turning point in the choir’s history up until that time, and needless to say, we were all excited to sing in such a wonderful venue and experience such a warm and exuberant audience! However, there was one experience that touched our singers and that allowed all of us to take home an unexpected memory that the singers still mention, when I meet with them—and who are all now adults. We were chosen to sing the premiere of the Moses Hogan piece, “Music Down in My Soul.” The day before the performance, we were given the opportunity to work with Moses Hogan on his piece. He engaged the singers with great fervor, with empathy, with passion and with humor. His focus was mainly on the text and how to make it more meaningful within the gospel tradition. What a stirring experience for all of us! This was August of 2002. You can’t imagine the visceral reaction of our children when only 6 months later, after learning about it, I ended a rehearsal by telling the children of Moses Hogan’s untimely death in February of 2003 at the age of 45. We extended our rehearsal time, and with tears in all of our eyes, especially in the slow, lilting section of this piece, we began singing. With many hugs at the end, we celebrated our wonderful experience with him that we were blessed to have been given.

PC: At your farewell concert leading the MSU Children's Choir, among other works you performed Robert Jager's "I dream of peace,"music about the civil wars in the Yugoslavian/Bosnian area in the 1990s as seen through the eyes of children. Can you tell us more about this piece and what about it that resonates within you?

MAS: The first time I conducted this piece was for the 1999 ACDA National Convention in Chicago, at an interest session on commissioning new works for children’s choirs. In our frequent discussions about the meaning of the texts, there is always an “ah-hah” moment when individual choir members connect with the emotional imagery that was before them. The text of this work is compelling, and at an all-day rehearsal that we had that fall, I asked children to volunteer to read out loud one page of the book, published by UNICEF and to comment on the drawings, with discussion with the rest of the choir members. This brought the children closer to those that wrote the poetry and enriched their understanding of the texts. We premiered the three pieces of the “Terezin Lieder” by Marjan Helms, with texts from “I Never Saw Another Butterfly.” Ten years later we premiered her “Voices of a Vanished World”, which is a two-hour work which explores the emotional and spiritual implications of the Holocaust, particularly as witnessed through the eyes of children. This two hour work draws on the melodic contours and instrumental colors of Yiddish folk music, as well as Jewish liturgical chant. And how does one prepare a children’s choir for the horrifying nature of “911”? Yet, we performed the John Adams, “On the Transmigration of Souls” with Mr. Adams conducting the Detroit Symphony.

So…in this case, it’s really about the gravitas of the subject, about the words and the feelings that they evoke. Bill Payne says it more eloquently than I can…he’s a rock-n’-roll musician-lyricist, who has two Grammy nominations and has worked with many entertainers from Garth Brooks and Bonnie Raitt to Taj Mahal.

"The weight of words and their importance are in abundant evidence in poetry, creating a music in the way the words fall upon our ears (the cadence), and painting images in our mind supplemented from experiences drawn from our lives. Our understanding of poetry often reveals itself much later; we are simply drawn into the flow of words, attaching meaning where we can. The intimate act between writer and reader is the bestowed gift of shared response.”

PC: You and the choir were blessed to have a very skilled, very sensitive pianist in Judy Kabodian. Can you tell us what Judy brought to the group both in rehearsal and performance?

MAS: Some of us are lucky enough to have very attentive and supportive guardian angels. The nuns who taught me for twelve years in Milwaukee Catholic schools always made us keenly aware of this fact. So for you to use the word “blessed” is exactly right. Judy was not only our pianist, she was a collaborator…it was ALWAYS chamber music when we worked TOGETHER. Judy brought grace to every rehearsal and performance. Judy brought love, and devotion that was a model for the children, and for me. I’ve had the privilege of working with more than several great musicians in my life. None, however, brought to the musical banquet such great personal pleasure. She helped to make the music more harmonious, our musical experiences richer, and the laughter we shared before, during, and after almost every rehearsal and performance brought great joy to my life. I was blessed…very blessed!

PC: Can you tell us about the experience which led to you winning two Grammy Awards?

MAS: We loved working with William Bolcom and Leonard Slatkin, the University of Michigan forces and observing the fabulous solo musicians on the performance and recording of the Bolcom “Songs of Innocence and of Experience.” What a terrific experience for our children, on many levels. There was an unintended experience that bears mentioning. In a thank you letter that I wrote to William Bolcom I mentioned that we were performing a piece by Imant Raminsh that uses a Shoshone Indian text in which a loved one is described as…“ my heart’s friend.” I went on to say that…”at one point in the rehearsal a few of our choristers observed you and Ms. Morris holding hands. They mentioned that to me during our next rehearsal and I explained that you were married to Joan Morris. They let out a collective sigh. You shared with them your wonderful music, and you also, through your example, showed that even with your busy professional lives, you exemplified the text of this Raminsh piece. These are important lessons for our children.” Mr. Bolcom wrote me that he was very touched by the children’s observation and their response, and we went on to do another performance with Bolcom and Morris about the history of culinary songs!!!!

PC: You've been retired a couple of years now from the MSU Children's Choir as well as retired from the many summers in which you led the Northwestern University Summer Institute choir (a select high school mixed choir)-- what are you doing to keep busy? And are you doing any guest conducting?

MAS: I have been spending many hours, almost every day when the Michigan weather permits, in our front gardens. I’ll be preparing our home and garden for a charity garden tour this summer…always a performance, huh? I am constantly knitting and trying out new recipes for cookies, cakes, and comfort food for my beloved husband, Gary. He attended not only almost every performance but almost every rehearsal of the children’s choir wherever we performed. I wish all conductors are blessed to have not only a supportive partner but one who loves the learning process and the music as much as we do.

I’m also eagerly looking forward to conducting the children’s honor choir for the 50th Anniversary of Minnesota ACDA. I LOVE conducting in Minnesota!!!! I’m also doing some work for the Michigan Chapter of Chorister’s Guild, and with a Federation of Music Clubs Festival Choir.

I am eagerly looking forward to the release, on the Naxos label, of “Songs for Lada” by Alla Borsova which should be out by this summer. Slatkin is conducting the DSO on that CD. That performance was my “swan song,” and what a marvelous work it was!!! It called back to my Eastern European roots and I can’t wait to hear it. Oy, oy, oy…how did we ever learn 40 solid minutes of Belorussian and four parts? I guess I’ll find out!

From Paul Caldwell: Letting teens know "It Gets Better"

2011-04-11T14:20:00.021-05:00

Composer/conductor Paul Caldwell (of Caldwell & Ivory fame) pointed me to his recent video contribution to the "It Gets Better" website. If you don't know about "It Gets Better" here is info from the website directly-- they tell the story way better than I can...

About the It Gets Better Project

Growing up isn’t easy. Many young people face daily tormenting and bullying, leading them to feel like they have nowhere to turn. This is especially true for LGBT kids and teens, who often hide their sexuality for fear of bullying. Without other openly gay adults and mentors in their lives, they can't imagine what their future may hold. In many instances, gay and lesbian adolescents are taunted — even tortured — simply for being themselves.

Justin Aaberg. Billy Lucas. Cody Barker. Asher Brown. Seth Walsh. Raymond Chase. Tyler Clementi. They were tragic examples of youth who could not believe that it does actually get better.

While many of these teens couldn’t see a positive future for themselves, we can. The It Gets Better Project was created to show young LGBT people the levels of happiness, potential, and positivity their lives will reach – if they can just get through their teen years. The It Gets Better Project wants to remind teenagers in the LGBT community that they are not alone — and it WILL get better.

What is the It Gets Better Project?

In September 2010, syndicated columnist and author Dan Savage created a YouTube video with his partner Terry to inspire hope for young people facing harassment. In response to a number of students taking their own lives after being bullied in school, they wanted to create a personal way for supporters everywhere to tell LGBT youth that, yes, it does indeed get better.

Two months later, the It Gets Better Project (TM) has turned into a worldwide movement, inspiring over 10,000 user-created videos viewed over 35 million times. To date, the project has received submissions from celebrities, organizations, activists, politicians and media personalities, including President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Adam Lambert, Anne Hathaway, Colin Farrell, Matthew Morrison of "Glee", Joe Jonas, Joel Madden, Ke$ha, Sarah Silverman, Tim Gunn, Ellen DeGeneres, Suze Orman, the staffs of The Gap, Google, Facebook, Pixar, the Broadway community, and many more. For us, every video changes a life. It doesn’t matter who makes it.

Here is the e-mail which Paul has sent to me and a whole bunch of other folks:

Dear Friends,

As many of you know, Sean Ivory and I have spent our entire careers using music to tell stories that really matter to us, stories of Holocaust victims, South Africans, Rwandans and many others.

But this year, a series of suicides among gay teens made me realize it's time to tell the story that is my own. I work with kids. I must do everything I can to ensure that no kid who sings with me - or who sings music that I compose - feels so isolated and alone that he/she thinks suicide is the only option.

Toward that end, I posted a video on the It Gets Better website late last week. Depending on site traffic at any given time, the website can function oddly. If it gives you trouble, there's an alternate portal, a You Tube channel where the folks at It Gets Better have added their favorite videos. Mine was posted there over the weekend.

Posted below is Paul's contribution which is so compelling it its beauty and because of Paul's willingness to allow himself to be vulnerable. Bravo, Paul.

Please tell other people about this project. You might really be able to help a young person in need.

Caldwell goes on to say: It does get better. Please spread that word in every way you can. Post it and forward it - far and wide. Let's make sure that no kid who sings in any chorus walks away from that experience thinking that suicide is a reasonable option.

Thanks again for all you do to make our world a more beautiful place.

Anúna founder Michael McGlynn's blog about ACDA 2011

2011-04-11T08:57:00.012-05:00

One of the highlights for me at the 2011 ACDA National Conference was getting to meet Michael McGlynn, the founder and artistic director of the Irish choir Anúna. I talked about this in this blog entry.

Michael has a brilliant mind and a delightful personality and was especially interested in discussing the shifts in composer/publisher dynamics in the US choral field. I'm going to discuss this in detail soon. There was some very active discussion among many of the leading composers present at the conference in regard to their desire to stop being dependent on traditional publishers. Michael stressed a number of times that we U.S. composers need to keep this enthusiasm for growing independence going, and not let it falter.

Here is Michael's wonderfully written blog on his experience visiting ACDA. Read some of his other entries- there is some very interesting reading here.

Just for fun!

2011-04-09T00:20:00.014-05:00

Hi all,

In preparation for the 2011 ACDA National Conference I wrote a fun and slightly goofy blog as a lure for people to get over their hesitation and come to Chicago. Part of my motivation to get to work on this was also the fact that people were starting to talk about coming to "Chi-town" - this sparked me into action, as this "Chi-town" appellation might be something you might hear on a bad TV series but not a name for the city that someone in Chicago would ever utter.

So what you got from me was the unofficial, and quite loopy guide to Chicago, Paul Carey style, and here is what it looked like.

Google Analytics tells me this blog about Chicago was read by a whole lot of people, which is cool. But what is funny to me is that nobody challenged the rather ludicrous item I tossed in there (yes, I was amusing myself by messing with you), just to see if anyone was really playing attention on a critical level. Here's the text:

"If you go east, I would suggest swim trunks and a snorkel. However, if you stop short of falling into the chilly waters of Lake Michigan, you will find a great running and bike trail right near the lake which stretches many miles- also safe day and night. Just be careful crossing Lake Shore Drive to get there. By the way, if you head east straight over from Symphony Center, before you hit LSD (that's Lake Shore Drive, not a drug) you will come across Buckingham Fountain, a really cool large fountain which will probably not be turned on yet (sorry, come back in May or June!). It was a gift to the city from Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks back when they were flush with large amounts of Franklins."

Did you catch it now? The ridiculous statement about Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks was a plant of false info- like I said, just my devilish, late night at the keyboard way of messing with y'all.

Here is the real background re: Chicago's Buckingham Fountain. And I quote Wikipedia, the ultimate source of truth in our world in 2011;

The fountain is considered to be Chicago's front door, since it resides in Grant Park, the city's front yard. It is located near Columbus Drive and Congress Parkway. The fountain itself represents Lake Michigan, with each sea horse symbolizing the states of Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan and Indiana, which border the lake. The fountain was designed by beaux arts architect Edward H. Bennett. The statues were created by the French sculptor Marcel F. Loyau. The design of the fountain was inspired by the Bassin de Latome and modeled after Latona Fountain at Versailles.

The fountain was donated to the city by Kate Buckingham in memory of her brother, Clarence Buckingham and was constructed at a cost of $750,000. The fountain official name is the Clarence Buckingham Memorial Fountain. Kate Buckingham also established the Buckingham Fountain Endowment Fund with an initial investment of $300,000 to pay for maintenance of the fountain.[1] Buckingham Fountain was dedicated on August 26, 1927.

Final thoughts on the ACDA 2011 National Conference

2011-04-08T23:00:00.000-05:00

Here are some final thoughts on what was, to me, an extremely well-organized, highly ambitious, and well-received national conference.

Attendance was high- I believe final attendance topped ACDA's hopes by 400 or more.

There seemed to be a great positive energy all around. People were having a great time and you didn't hear anyone complaining about things.

The exhibitors seemed to have large amounts of merchandise stocked for the conference, especially compared to the very conservative approach they seemed to have at last year's division conferences. I think the exhibitors are feeling that we are coming out of this painful recession.

By far my favorite trend was the high number of younger people attending and their amazing enthusiasm. This is what I have been hoping to see- a youth movement blossoming within ACDA and a very bright, innovative future ahead for us all. I also have noticed how many university ACDA chapters seem to be really growing by leaps and bounds and how many students from these chapters were attending.

There were amazing performances by many choirs. I suppose I would single out, in no particular order; Anima, Brethren, Kamer, North Central High School from Indianapolis, University of St. Thomas, Millikin University, University of Kentucky men, Lawrence Conservatory Cantala-- with many other choirs being wonderful as well.

Interest sessions were hugely valuable and the session rooms were packed. ACDA R and S reading sessions were really well-organized and offered a lot of great material-- I didn't see any of the ho-hum deadwood that somehow happens to wind up on some reading session lists.

Th final Saturday was festive in the most interesting (and to some extent bizarre) way. ACDA folks were surrounded by Chicagoans clad in crazy Irish getups for the St. Paddy's Day parade and the Hilton lobbies were full of these folks. There was this festive fun in the streets sort of attached to our great ACDA music during the day, and then the electric performance of Elijah that evening. The CSO chorus and Markus Eiche as Elijah were spectacular.

Things that clicked for me personally:

I was greeted by many folks who said- Hey,I read your blog!". Some of them were "famous" choral directors and I was a bit shocked that folks of their stature paid any attention to these scribbles of mine. It felt weird and good at the same time.

I was also so happy to finally meet face to face a lot of conductors who have performed my music but with whom I have only had an email or FaceBook relationship with up until this conference. Getting to meet these people the old-fashioned way was really rewarding and fun.

Congratulations to Tim Sharp, Jo-Michael Scheibe, and all the fine people who helped them make this happen. We are in your debt for all the wonderful work you did. Bravo!

Coming Up: Meet Jerome the orange, and a discussion of the power of humor

Kevin Spacey's lecture on why we need to continue to support the arts

2011-04-07T11:13:00.009-05:00

A ferw days ago, actor Kevin Spacey appeared at the Kennedy Center delivering a forty minute speech for the Nancy Hanks Center on the Arts and Public Policy. I hope the video of the entire speech will become available soon, and I will post that when it happens. Spacey's references to the influence of the language of both the Bible and Shakespeare on Abraham Lincoln's great speeches very much resonated with me. Sherri, Aidan, and I were at the Lincoln Birthplace National Park in Kentucky just a few days ago, where the very worn Bible that Lincoln read as a child was one of the items on display.

In the meantime here is a link to a great blog which gives highlights of Spacey's speech

And here is a nice seven minute video interview of Spacey about his speech from Hardball with Chris Matthews:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/42441573#42441573

As artists/educators I guess we have to constantly fight for the arts- kind of sad, but it's just the way it is in today's society. It seems like we can't ever let down our guard.

Let's keep hanging in there,

Paul

Day Four of ACDA: Mendelssohn's Elijah

2011-04-05T08:47:00.022-05:00

The final concert for gold track folks at the 2011 ACDA National Conference in Chicago was a presentation of Mendelssohn's Elijah performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Chorus, professional soloists, and guest conductor Helmut Rilling.

As orchestra hall filled up there was a sea of happy faces- everyone had enjoyed this conference immensely, we had experienced a wacky energy filled day of milling through Chicago on the day of the St. Patrick's Day Parade (a very big deal in downtown Chicago), and were really looking forward to this concert.

The CSO chorus was in exceptional form, the best I have heard from them in years. The chorus had been generally ignored for years by former music director Daniel Barenboim, but new director Ricardo Muti intends to make them a crown jewel again, which all the singers plus chorus master Duiane Wolfe deserve. The soloists were excellent, especially the Elijah, Markus Eiche. Eiche brought great energy and depth to the role, even though he did seem fatigued by the end- this is not surprising at all, the man sang the role three times during the week (twice for ACDA, once for the general public). When you think of a week filled with rehearsals plus three performances of this role, he must have been truly exhausted by the end of Saturday evening. The orchestra was in fine form, though a few people nitpicked about them- to me the only complaint I had was some muddiness in the woodwinds and a few other random things. Hey people, this is live music, it hasn't been auto-tuned to perfection in a studio!

Markus Eiche

I was especially pleased with our own audience. Throughout the entire concert I think I truly heard zero cellphones, zero coughs, zero talking- pure silence on our part. This was refreshing, as earlier in the week there was a lot of talking and walking in and out during concerts- especially at the Auditorium Theater.

Helmut Rilling conducted the entire score from memory and the performance was highly artistic. The chorus looked especially focused and proud of itself both dung the performance and during the many curtain calls, when Rilling made sure that the chorus got just as much attention as the soloists. Young boy soprano Henry Griffin also received great applause and affection for his role as the boy looking for storm clouds and relief from drought. It was a delight to hear him sing.

By the way, Alan Artner's short review for the Chicago Tribune can be found here.

With the final concert over most of the crowd wound back toward the Hilton for a final round of refreshments and talk. I was very pleased to be accosted by my friend Hak-Won Yoon (conductor of the professional choir Incheon city Chorale of South Korea) who gave me the biggest smile and hug and then walked back toward the Hilton with me. Hak-won and Mrs. Yoon had been at the conference all week but we had missed finding each other. So we finally got a chance to have a little chat. Some of us composer dudes sat around and chatted with our buddy Steven Sametz and then it was time to say buh-bye to Chicago ACDA 2011. It was a great conference, and I will have some final thoughts in my next blog.

Bonus: Here is my own funny little Elijah story. I have two sons, Shannon is 27 and Aidan is 7. The older son was a professional boy soprano back when he was, of course, younger. One of the roles he sang was the boy in Elijah. The first time he sang this role, I of course was more nervous than he was. So I was sitting in the audience and his solo section was coming up. Here I am the Dad crossing my fingers and sending him as much positive energy as I could. So Shannon opens his mouth and sings purely and beautifully, but he sings the words from the second entrance (the note are the same, but the words are different in these two spots). I do a double take and think- well it sounded great- the words were just a little off. Then comes the second entrance- and he sings it correctly. And then he went on and finished up his fifteen minutes of Elijah fame beautifully. I wondered if anyone else had noticed the little gaffe and later I asked Shannon (after of course congratulating him big time) what he though of it all. He sad he realized it just as it happened and then spent the next few bars of music (when he wasn't singing) trying to decide if he should sing the first entrance words on the second time around to "even things out"- which he decided against-- why double the mistake, just sing the second entrance words correctly where they belong (pretty smart on the spot decision-making for an eleven year old).

Later when we got home, I was leafing through the program and discovered that whoever prepared the program had typed the second entrance words twice and left out the first entrance words. Perhaps the Elijah we know from various folk tales over the centuries as being a bit of trickster, had been up to something. To anyone in the audience Shannon had sung exactly what the program book was telling them they should hear! We decided this was very curious and very funny, and it's been a great story to tell.

Next blog: Some final thoughts on the conference

Day Four:2011 ACDA National Conference

2011-03-24T20:22:00.060-05:00

The final day of the ACDA conference in Chicago was absolutely amazing. The day was filled with great performances, topped off in the evening by the gold track presentation of Mendelssohn's Elijah by the Chicago Symphony orchestra and chorus, professional soloists, and guest conductor Helmut Rilling.

But first for me was an 8 AM multicultural reading session which held my Hanukkah piece "Unending Flame" published by Santa Barbara. A few weeks ahead of time Clayton Parr of DePaul University here was able to secure a young, talented clarinetist for me so we could show this piece off right- it's for SABar (originally SA, commissioned by MSU Children's Choir founding director Mary Alice Stollak), solo clarinet and piano (orch version available as well). The clarinet is important because the piece travels from a slow introductory section (with text about the more serious side of Hanukkah, by the way the text is by the very talented Sherri Lasko) and then moves into a fast section where the clarinet is very much in klezmer, latkes sizzling on the griddle mode.

So I got up early, took the El down, and got there right at the chime of 8 AM. The room was pretty filled for 8 AM on a Saturday morning and the session, led by national chair Sharon Gratto, was great. This was probably the most diverse music I have heard on a multicultural reading session, and included for the most part legitimate music, not dumbed-down Americanizations of ethnic pieces. Great job, Sharon! A number of composer/arrangers led their own pieces, and I led the reading of my piece- we had great fun and the piece, especially the ending, seemed to make people smile. What made my day was when Ethan Sperry came up to me and said "Now, I can no longer say that I hate every piece of Hanukkah music ever written". Thanks, Ethan, for that compliment. It means a lot to me coming from someone who "knows from" multicultural.

I then finally met up with Diana Saez who was about to conduct my piece El Limonar Florido, a major piece in Spanish which she would be conducing with her group Coral Cantigas based in Washington DC. We went over a few musical things about the piece and had a chance to get to know each other. Diana is a really sweet person.

Later on in Orchestra Hall was a great concert session, in fact, the top one I attended in regard to uniformly excellent music making by everyone on the session. The groups singing were the University of Kentucky Mens' Chorus, the Lawrence Conservatory Women's Choir,The Young New Yorkers Chorus and the Brigham Young University Singers.

U of K led off and this is, to me, the absolute premiere men's large chorus in the country and has been for quite awhile. They led off with a great yarn of a piece, text by Melville as set by Peter Schikele, who you may know as PDQ Bach. Of course Schikele is a fine composer in his own right and the chorus sang this piece with just the right amount of drama, movement, and energy. The program then wound through some Schubert, Rachmaninoff, a piece by Paul Nelson and then "Wedding Qawwali", an Indian song energetically arranged by the aforementioned Ethan Sperry. The audience loved this number and the applause was rocking the room. Then an even greater thrill- an arrangement of Ol' Man River by Russell Robinson which heavily featured a bass/baritone soloist, Reginald Smith, Jr. Reginald has a gorgeously developed gigantic instrument. This young man has a future in the opera world I am sure ( he is a recent Met Opera regional finalist). The piece was tenderly choreographed and the stage movement matched the ebb and flow of the music's dramatic unfolding. This was one of those moments when you thank God or Buddha or whomever that you have ears and a heart, and that you can witness the overpowering beauty of music. Young Mr. Smith's performance took our breath away, as did everything Jeff Johnson's choir did. Jeff showed us his textbook on how you pack a wallop of a program into twenty-five minutes. I thunk we all could have listened to them sing for two more hours, and the applause, the hoots and hollers, the whistles and standing ovation went on and on. Wow, U of K- you are amazing!

Reginald Smith, Jr.

Michael Kerschner

I kind of felt sorry that any choir would have to follow this performance, but the Young New Yorkers Chorus did a fine job. This is a group which is just ten years old, and is composed of 20- and 30-somethings led very ably by Michael Kerschner. Their repertoire leans toward the modern and they sang quite beautifully, though I felt their repertoire was a bit hit or miss, but that's just my opinion. The singing on the Vaughn Williams "See the Chariot at hand" was so velvety and gorgeous and full of line (gasp, it's okay to sing lines?) that I spent most of the tune with my eyes closed just enjoying being wrapped in the loveliness of the moment. I think RVW was a-smilin' over this peformance! Here's hoping that Michael can continue the evolution of this fine young adult choir.

Next up was a fantastic performance by the Lawrence Conservatory Women's Choir, "Cantala", directed by Philip Swan. Their program was full of great new music filled with moments of energy and moments of beauty. I had never head this ensemble before and I was really pleased to finally hear them. The program held, among other music, pieces by Brahms, Szymko, and Gwyneth Walker, but to me the highlight was a really creative, busily sibilant piece by Abbie Betinis- movement two "suffer no grief" from her "From Behind the Caravan". I would like to see this score and am curious how much of the everchanging tone colors are notated there and how much Philip added to the mix, but no matter how it happened, it was fresh and somehow seemed simple and complicated at the same time. Abbie Betinis is obviously a young composer to watch- she doesn't seem to have any interest in writing mundane music just for the sake of getting more pieces out there.

Philip's group represented what the best women's choirs out there are doing today. The leading choirs are presenting performances of quality texts in quality settings by strong composers who have done the work necessary to understand how to write effectively for the adult female voice. The tone was natural and vibrant in all sections and none of the hooty boy soprano sounds I complained about earlier in the week in performances by either treble choirs or the sopranos of mixed voice groups would ever come out of this group.

The final group of this amazing session was the BYU Singers led by Ron Staheli. Staheli took an old-fashioned approach to his session- this was a simple, elegant theme about (a cappella) singing and it basically was that- all SINGING, with the annoying percussion instrument (read: piano) retired to a corner of the stage and not a drum or colorful costume in sight. Yes, I have spent much of the last few blogs praising groups for their staging elements, but none of that works unless the singing is artistic to begin with, as it was here.

The two highlights to me were the Argento "Everyone Sang", and a sweetly lyrical piece titled "There is Sweet Music Here" (the Tennyson text most people know) set by L.J. White. The Argento was fabulous and is not an easy score. The White was totally unfamiliar to me and, as I found out, to everyone. I asked Ron later where it came from and he smiled and said that he just happened across it one day in the BYU music library by chance. Further research yielded little new knowledge about the piece or its composer. The piece is quite gorgeous and deserves to be discovered by more choirs, and how cool is it that Mr. L.J. White, whose dates seem to be either 1831- 1913 via Ron, or perhaps 1910-1949 according to the internet, gets some time in the spotlight in 2011 in front of so many choral people. I'm sure he would have never imagined it.

After this highly rewarding presentation by four choirs I met with Reg Unterseher, Michael McGlynn, Philip Copeland, Sydney Guillaume, and Nick Cummins for a chat. I already mentioned this meeting in a previous blog entry. Then it was time for the Mendelssohn Elijah, the last ACDA concert for gold track folks.

Up Next: the Elijah performance and my own quirky Elijah story

Day Three: 2011 ACDA National Conference

2011-03-24T10:16:00.047-05:00

Today is Friday, yesterday was Thursday, tomorrow is Saturday, fun, fun, fun, fun...

My Friday began with witnessing some strong concert sessions. The first was the Rex Putnam High School choir directed by John Baker, who is retiring this year after thirty-three years in the biz. Some really strong singing of repertoire outside the norm, not a single "ho-hum we know that American work" in the mix. Whoever inherits this choir will have big shoes to fill, but hopefully they will have their own great musical personality and simply continue a very strong tradition.

The choir that totally blew people away in the AM session was the Riverside City College Chamber Singers directed by John Byun. Their great singing was not a surprise to me, as I heard them a year ago at ACDA Tucson. What I did notice this year was that any tendency toward oversinging that I mentioned in my blog from a year ago was totally gone, bravo to Mr. Byun (read that review here). The singing was dead-on for every change in mood, displayed a nice variety of choral colors, an extraordinary dynamic range, and so on-- this was the whole package that people dream of when singing at such an important event. The audience was wowed by them, and they finished up with a Stacey Gibbs spiritual "Way over in Beulah Land" that Moses Hogan would have been happy to witness. I'm not a big Stacey Gibbs fan, but maybe I just haven't heard a choir sing his arrangements with this much understanding of the importance of beat weight that needs to be there in a spiritual, whether fast or slow. Byun is a talent to watch- keep in mind, this is a great choir at a junior college. I'm guessing there is a large turnover in this choir simply due to that fact, yet the performances they deliver are incredible.

(John Byun)

After the AM concert, Reg Unterseher and I corralled Anuna founder Michael McGlynn for a short lunch meeting. Michael only had 15- 20 minutes to spare in his schedule but he really did want to meet some American composers and talk about all sorts of things. We were having such fun and delving into great discussions about topics such as the exciting future of ACDA, the accelerating demise of the traditional publishers extremely antiquated business model and our personal take on the already in progress composer revolt against that business model(more on that in an upcoming post), and other items that the short meeting turned into a two hour marathon of great discussion. It was great to hear how Michael views the choral world from his home in Ireland, and the ways in which things there differ so much from here in the US. Michael is brilliant, funny, and sincere. I was honored to be able to lunch with him Friday and then hook up again Saturday afternoon for a session which also included Reg, Samford University and ChoralNet awesome guy Philip Copeland, Philip's ace grad student Nick Cummins, and composer Sidney Guillaume.

Sidney Guillaume, Philip Copeland, Michael McGlynn, me, Nick Cummins, Reg Unterseher

After that I swung by the exhibits and said hi to the Lorenz/Dean folks again, said a quick hi to Mike Scheibe and Tim Sharp who both seemed cool and calm and enjoying the fruits of their labors, and also ran into Joan Szymko again. Joan and I also went by the IMP (Independent Music Publishers) booth, the young upstart rebel composers who are breaking away from the traditional publishing scheme. The folks in the core of this co-op are Minnesota composers Abbie Betinis, Jocelyn Hagen, Linda Tutas Haugen, J, Edward Moore, and Tim Takach. They have also enlisted older, established composers like Joan and Wayland Rogers. The mood at their very busy booth was electric and I will talk more about this in a few days.

Form there I went to visit the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory reception at Earl Rivers' condo building on the lake-what a view! A whole bunch of cool people were there including Earl, Brett Scott, Robyn Lana, Glenda Crawford, Susan Medley (who I met a couple years ago when I wa guest conducting in Pittsburgh), the top staff from ChorusAmerica and a whole slew of other very talented nice people (egads, who have I slighted by not mentioning?). This was a lovely reception. I will be in Cincy in early May-- Robyn Lana commissioned me to write two pieces for the conservatory children's choir, and I actually set two poems written by young choir members. I'm really looking forward to meeting the choir and working with them, and especially looking forward to meeting my young text/music collaborators!

I then headed off to the Lorenz/Roger Dean reception which was a pretty swanky top drawer food and drinks event. There I met David Devenney for the first time and I told him how much I admire his conducting books, especially the work he has fdown with movement on the rehearsal room, something I an doing more and more at the North Carolina Governor's School (heck, I'm even booking the small dance studio for all our AM rehearsals there this summer!). Can't sing unless you know how to move, I say!

David Devenney with Scott Foss

So after all this being ooot and abooot it was a joy to happen across Paul LaPrade and Sarah Graham, and for us Illinoisians to retreat to a quiet dinner. This ninety minutes or so felt great- just to be with some close friends-- Paul and Sarah are two of mah favorite peeps! We also all have young childeren (hey with childeren, it's bewilderin'-- you don't know until the seed is nearly grown, just what you've sown)---so we talked about planting radishes (they're dependable, they're befriendable) and other parental stuff without worrying that we were boring non-parents at the table (since there weren't any!).

From there MSU grad Sarah and I mosied over to the Michigan State reception (I've been commissioned by the children's choir there a bunch of times, and Sandra Snow has premiered one or two of my pieces). The room was packed and I ran into Sandra Snow of course, and also Jonathan Palant, Cara Tasher, Meredith Bowen, and was especially happy to chat with Rick Bjella, who I was sorry to see leave Lawrence Conservatory a couple years ago to go to Texas Tech. Rick has always been a great source of advice and is a great guy. And then it was time to push off toward my Oak Park home and another fifteen hour day has gone by...!

Coming up: The final day, starting with an 8 AM (gulp) reading session I needed to be at, and amazing performances all through the day

Day Two: 2011 ACDA National Conference

2011-03-22T13:48:00.055-05:00

My Thursday was a bit wacky at the national conference. Whereas I used to go to every concert on the program, I now know that some choir types just aren't going to wow me (like high school choirs in general) and that I really do have a lot of people I need to connect with for various reasons. One of these is of course trying to meet people who have been so kind as to program and conduct my music but we so far have only had an e-mail or FaceBook relationship. It's important to get to know people face to face and show my appreciation for what they do in the musical world. So my Thursday was about meeting wonderful musicians from all over the country and not much about concerts.

First off, it was important to visit my main publisher the Roger Dean Company and my editor there Scott Foss. Roger Dean is presenting three new releases for me this year and they are all in stock ready to ship (hint hint). Roger Dean (the fancy subsidiary of Lorenz) has been my most supportive publisher by far, and Scott was in fine humor the whole conference, cracking jokes, often at my expense! The Lorenz booth was large and they were giving people perusal scores, not charging folks a dollar a copy like most other booths.

My pal Sarah Graham (Illinois State U) and Scott Foss

So, after admitting above to, in general, dissing high school conference performances, I am forced to eat crow. A choir about to perform handed out their concert material and it sure looked like the group was show choir based. I was thinking this could be scary. Were we about to have some Glee moments? Or jazz hands? But...wow, they blew me away on so many levels-- this was "The Counterpoints" from Indiana directed by Patricia Wiehe. The school has a high standard of performance success both as a show choir and concert choir school. And what I saw was a choir that took the best elements from show choir and transferred them to a great concert presentation. Oh yeah, they could sing up a storm too, and all very healthy production- no tired voices here.

The program wound through Debussy, Bach/Nystedt's Come Sweet Death with an understated choreography of simple arm and hand motions, Memly's Ave Maria, and a folk song from earthsongs series . The two most stunning performances were on "Horizons", the Peter Louis van Dijk tune- I forgot what this title was until I saw the familiar first line "Come my springbok baby...". This was a wonderful performance of a very heartfelt piece, the text ending of which is heartbreaking. This performance stunned the audience in its beauty, depth, and sincerity.

The final piece was a gangbusters all-out wild performance of Ethan Sperry's arrangement of Jai Ho, sung in Spanish and Hindi. I think Ethan was in the room, and I think I heard he was thrilled with their choreography, which was all original. This group brought everyone to a rousing standing ovation, and they deserved every bit of applause and excitement in the room. Thank you Pat Wiehe and thank you to your students for showing that a great high school program, singing quality age appropriate music, can steal plenty of thunder away from the university choirs!

I then had lunch with a very cool, smart, funny, and talented composer- Joan Szymko, who grew up in Chicago-- I would imagine you all know her music. It's my opinion that Joan is writing the best music of her career right now, and we had a blast comparing notes and a bunch of things, and having a good laugh about this and that.

me and Joan

Following that I attempted to attend James Jordan's interest session on breath and center- oops, even thought the session had not yet started attendance was capped off and no more people were being allowed in. I was sorry to miss this, but glad to see that so many people were attending. I think it would be great if more directors would become far more breath conscious-- I saw too many choirs not breathing during the week. Well I guess they were breathing, but you couldn't tell it from their tight singing!

The rest of my evening was devoted to visiting receptions, especially those hosted by universities who have done my music over the past few years, or who are preforming a piece of mine very soon. So, as a bit of a whirlwind I hung out first with the University of Missouri at KC Conservatory people. Chuck Robinson was instrumental in my decision to put regular conducting off for awhile in order to compose more and he was happy to introduce me to Robert Bode who is a recent new addition to the faculty there. Reg Unterseher was with me, and of course he knew Dr. Bode from his years in the Pacific Northwest. After also running into Matt Harden there, I bounced over to the fun reception being held by the children's choir folks, and witnessed the larger than life Nick Page doing a sing along with Doreen Rao.

The photos I took of these two are hilarious.
I had never met Nick, so to get to talk to him for a few minutes and realize what a hoot of a guy he is was great fun. From there it was off to the Walton reception hosted by Gunilla Luboff. The usual suspects were in the room, but also some very interesting Northern European publishers who were manning booths at ACDA for, I believe, the first time. They were asking me all sorts of earnest questions about American composers and I did my best to inform them about a number of things from our perspective and to also tell them that, indeed, Virginia, there are more US composers than just Moses Hogan and Eric Whitacre.

Finally the evening finished up at Mike Scheibe's swanky USC reception where I got to meet a bunch of people including Buddy James, president of NCCO. Mike's receptions are always first class. Another fifteen hour day has flown by!