Help us Help a School in Haiti

Greetings all – especially to those of you who have been directed here so that you could read my semi-annual updates of what I am doing in the music world.
I usually try to update you on new pieces I am writing, or pieces just released by my publishers, or some traveling or guest conducting I am doing. This time I am going to write something that is not so much about me-me-me; and ask you read all the way to the end if you can.

I am in Raleigh, North Carolina teaching the 32 gifted choral students at the North Carolina Governor’s School East ( www.ncgse.org ) on the campus of Meredith College. The NC Governor’s School selects 600 of the brightest high school students in ten discipline areas from all over the state and brings them together for a six week intensive summer experience where there are no grades; just the challenge of concentrated work in their main area, as well as amazing explorations of learning in new areas for each student. This is a place where students can be (as we say here) “nerds, geeks, and artsy freaks” to the hilt without being self-conscious about it, and where the unofficial motto is “try, fail, fail better”. In other words, we give these kids freedom to not have to worry about maintaining an immaculate GPA and we throw daunting, yet cool projects their way and let them solve them without our help. It’s all great fun, very challenging and yet exhausting in a good way for six weeks.

When I was at the ACDA conference in Cincinnati this past spring I heard Ethan Sperry’s great group from Miami University of Ohio sing music from Haiti, as arranged by Sten Kallman. I was blow away by this soulful music and corralled Ethan one evening. I found out that these pieces would soon be out in his earthsongs series and I immediately decided we had to sing them at NC Governor’s School.So that is what we are doing-- we just sang one of those pieces June 30th and July 1st (titled Freo—O Brother) to very enthusiastic packed-house audiences and we will add “Gede Nibo” soon to our repertoire. The students love this music and have totally connected to it musically and spiritually. We have also been highly successful in singing it with pretty authentic tone colors for this folk music.

Sometimes things in the world align, and here is what developed here over the last three weeks—I met the new French teacher and she is fluent in Creole and is teaching her French students “Nawlins” and Haitian Creole. We’ve put our classes together and learned more about Haiti, both past and present. We then realized that the grassroots environmentalist Dave Chameides ( www.365daysoftrash.blogspot.com ) was visiting our school to not only speak about the environment (we know him as Trash Dave for his speeches to us about how wasteful Americans are; he also owns two Emmys for his work as a TV cameraman), but also would give a short talk to our students about his trip to Haiti just two weeks after the earthquake(visit www.dchaiti.blogspot.com).Most of my students attended that short talk.

You can see all these things coming together, because Lesley Curtis (the French teacher) and I had started to talk about our classes doing a service project together. Lesley knows two American teachers who were in Haiti when the earthquake happened, and one of them actually knows a school whose building was destroyed and still hopes to start school in some way in a few months and that is in dire need of school supplies for two hundred students.

So Lesley and I hinted to the students that we should do more than just be scholars, or practice room shut-ins (hope you agree on that!); and that we should do something for the world. And our students really grasped this idea- that they, even as teens, could step up and do something important to help others.

So here is what is happening-- that school in Haiti (they have a brand new 501c3 website www.korebel.org set up by friends in NYC) has given us a modest list of school supply needs for their 200 students. All they are hoping for is a packet for each student consisting of:

three spiral notebooks
three black pens and three red pens
ten pencils & one eraser
one ruler

Dave told us he decided to help in Haiti in a number of ways- but one of them specifically was to find a way to give to people directly and make a personal connection. There’s nothing wrong in giving money to Red Cross, for instance, but he wanted to make his connection personal. This is what we at N. Carolina Governor’s School East choral music and French class want to do; make it personal. We are going to try to donate these supplies by ourselves, and also through the parents, through the community, through pleas to OfficeMax or Staples, or any way we can. When get the supplies all gathered together we also intend to write personal notes to the people at the school and put them in the supply packages as well. And maybe we can record our Haitian music on a CD and they can hear us sing THEIR music as best as we can. By the way, you can see pictures of the Korebel students, the ruins of the school and efforts to keep teaching the children amidst the runs by clicking here www.korebel.org/media

This is where you can help if you would like to join us. I have spoken to the NC Governor’s School East director, an amazing person and historian named Dr. Michael McElreath about this goal. He tells me that if any of you in the US choral world would like to contribute to this cause, you could write a check to us and we will buy more and more supplies for this school and try to overwhelm them with kindness. We also feel that it would be silly for you to mail us school supplies, because we would still have to ship them again to Haiti. That’s why we are hoping some of you will want to mail us a check to help this cause.

I am hoping that ChoralNet/ACDA will publicize this and help build this. I think folks there like Philip Copeland and Tim Sharp are great people who want our music to be more than just mere notes on a page; and that our singing should bring joy and uplift people and that we really must work harder in our field to make what we do be of further impact in the world. All of the recent growth and energetic new leadership at ChoralNet and at ACDA are amazing me. I think there is a groundswell of newly focused energy in the American choral world, and that is what I am trying to tap into in as big a way as possible. Who knows, what we do here in Raleigh for this project and what you might contribute might overwhelm this small school in Haiti to the point that they will need to share the newfound abundance with other schools nearby. How amazing would that be?

So if I have touched a nerve within you, here is how you make a donation (hopefully a bit before we finish the session July 24th):
Checks should be written to “NC Governor's School East" and put "Haiti school supplies" on the memo line.

Mail your contribution ASAP (any size appreciated) to:

Dr. Michael McElreath
NC Governor’s School East
3800 Hillsborough Av
Raleigh, NC
27607


Thanks in advance for anything you might want to contribute!

Best wishes,

Paul

Lagniappe!

Lagniappe @ N. Carolina Governor’s School East

Lagniappe (Louisiana Creole): to give something extra, an unexpected bonus given freely (like a thirteenth donut when asking for a dozen)

Mark Twain writes about the word in Life on the Mississippi: he called it "a word worth traveling to New Orleans to get":

We picked up one excellent word — a word worth travelling to New Orleans to get; a nice limber, expressive, handy word — "lagniappe." We discovered it at the head of a column of odds and ends in the Picayune the first day; heard twenty people use it the second; inquired what it meant the third; adopted it and got facility in swinging it the fourth. It is something thrown in, gratis, for good measure.When a child or a servant buys something in a shop he finishes the operation by saying — "Give me something for lagniappe." The shopman always responds; gives the child a bit of licorice, gives the servant a cheap cigar or a spool of thread. When you are invited to drink, and this does occur now and then in New Orleans — and you say, "What, again? — no, I've had enough;" the other party says, "But just this one time more — this is for lagniappe."

So Lagniappe is now in its second year at GSE- led by our director Michael McElreath and our French teachers last year and this year who are really into Creole, both Haitian and ‘Nawlins style. And our version of Lagniappe is this- not only do we work our tails off teaching these gifted kids Monday through Saturday, but we also give them Lagniappe night- an evening when our goal is to entertain them with the creative things we are doing in our careers and in our explorations, whether really serious or just interesting dabbling. It’s all presented as performance, and even the teachers who aren’t really performers (like natural science folks and math folks) take a shot a being stage personas.

So tonight Lagniappe included the following, in no particular order--the instrumental faculty dressed in jammies and lounging on a beat-up sofa gradually launching into John Cage’s Living Room Music; a video of Bill Fick doing some amazing print-making processes accompanied by a weirded- out Conlon Nancarrow piano track with improv added in by percussionist Billy Bialecki; a dance contact improv by dance teachers Karen Ivey and James Healey to a slightly modified track of Moon River, with an added live video feed, creating interaction between the dancers, their video images and cameraman; a magical holographic art demonstration by Gavin Hackeling; a poetry reading by Chuck Sullivan which tied directly into thoughts from the Thursday night Holocaust guest speaker; and much more. My presentation was pretty low-tech to begin with, and became even lower tech when we had the one tech snafu of the night when the cam projector failed. So I went into talk to the audience without tech mode, involved the audience a bit as I introduced the background of my choral setting of May Swenson’s witty and wonderfully humorous poem Summer’s Bounty and then we listened to a performance of the piece. The students laughed at the funny spots (yes it’s funny for sure, how could 300 HS students not laugh when they hear a choir sing about "nuts"?) and the tiny tech failure made no difference. In fact, later on, some colleagues complimented me for not flaking out over it, and just talking directly to the audience- their comments made feel nice.

So Lagniappe was a big success—the students in the audience had no idea what to expect as we told them really nothing about what this was- but we for sure gave them that thirteenth donut. I think the students here now realize fully that their faculty is weird but yeah, also really talented and totally thinking outside the box. We’re really just them with some years added on. And maybe next year we should have free popcorn for them- that would for sure be Lagniappe!

North Carolina Governor's School East- Wrapping up Week Two

N. Carolina Governor’s School East: The Rest of Week One and Week Two

Well I have fallen behind on blogging- forgive me as I have two rehearsals per day, meetings, consults, leading some informal chess electives, you name it- the days get filled to the brim for students and faculty a like here. That’s a good thing until the sleep deprivation starts happening, and that can become a big issue for these students who have never pushed through that sort of thing like an adult has.

So here we go- hit and miss on topics as I pick up where I left off. We had two wonderful days with my friend Lisa Fredenbrugh as visiting clinician. Lisa did a full day of vocal tech with the kids- a big eye opener for us was her idea of thinking of breathing from your back, not some more frontward breathing point in the belly/diaphragm.I think the reason this works is that it makes you more aware of your intercostal muscles being part of the whole breathing process.We also needed work on jutting/moving jaws, and even today a week later another visiting clinician was pointing out that issue to the singers.

My assistant Susan Hahn and I continue to keep working these voices through passagios and on and on into new tessitura territory. Today we had some “altos” singing healthy high B flats(!) as they worked one on one in vocalise with today’s clinician, the very youthful and very talented Jonathan Blalock.
I was glad to see Jonathan place singers on their back on the floor to vocalize. The change in gravity and the feeling in breath support are radically different in this position, and when a singer stood back up and sang again, wow- the sound popped. My first experience with this tool was when I attended a masterclass by Richard Miller (the guru of the scientific approach to singing) a few year ago and he had one of my singer from Vox Caelestis (my professional women’s choir in Chicago at that time) do it. This was a young lady who sure had a wide, slightly odd vibrato for her age which you could see Richard did not like and when he had her do the sing on the floor thing she really had to change her approach to support. And actually, it was the first time she let her guard down and trusted that someone else might know more than she did (Miller would have been about 70 at the time, she was about 25).

This year’s GSE students are very enthusiastic, very smart, and really don’t want to stop singing when the bell rings. Even with eleven rehearsals per week, they would rather just keep going. Of course this becomes an issue in regard to their vocal health. Last Friday we had guest speaker Leda Scearce from the Duke Voice Care Center give them a presentation on keeping their voices healthy. Leda especially stresses the idea of personally planned vocal rest, and that is what I have been working with them on as well. We also are trying to stress to them that what they do in choir is pretty darn healthy- we give them well-designed warm-ups that prepare them for each rehearsal and the day, and we also work with them on connecting more to their bodies, trying to get rid of the Western trap of separating mind and body. What often isn’t healthy is what they do with their voice OUTSIDE of choir-too much cellphone talking, too much yelling on the quad, and too much Broadway or Glee belting when they have some free time near a piano. Many afternoons I ask for a countdown- I countdown from 10 as “my voice is in great shape” down to 1- “uh oh, I have a serious problem”. Anyone raising their hand when I am counting down into the 3-2-1 area is given vocal rest, yet they attend rehearsal and pay attention. Once again, this is a way for us to keep track of the endurance/pacing issue; we have to try to keep HS voices healthy over six weeks in an intense learning environment.

The last day of week one we attended the Longleaf Opera Company’s aria competition. This was an aria competition (hmm, I generally dislike arts competitions) for young artists. The nine semi-finalists we heard on Saturday afternoon were between the ages of 25- 34, i.e. singers just entering their prime. They were all quite good, but certainly some really grabbed your attention. It was wonderful for my 16-17 year olds to see where they might be in ten years. It was also very valuable for them to see storytelling going on, almost always a healthy vocal production (although there were two tired voices trying to compete), and for them to see that every not meant something. I was happy to see that a concept that Richard Miller always stressed, the idea that every note matters and that every note must ring and contain a natural vibrato, were apparent in almost every singer.

A valuable tool for us in week two has been count singing, especially for a spiritual arrangement of mine, Hear de Lambs A-cryin’. Since the melody is slow and has some sustained notes the count singing has helped teach the singers to keep those longer notes from becoming flabby, meaningless, and disconnected from the overall melodic line. For anyone unfamiliar with count singing, it’s a rehearsal technique championed by the late Robert Shaw in which the words are stripped from the piece and replaced by singing the subdivided pulse “1-and-2-and-3-and-4-and” all the way through a piece. By count singing all the eighth notes in a quarter note pulsed pieces (say 4/4) the whole line has meaning and shape, including any long notes. In addition, it becomes very apparent when chords are not tuning. My singers’ reaction to count singing was twofold; I think some of them weren’t that thrilled about it (kind of like getting them to eat their veggies!) but I did notice many of them picking up on the bit by bit benefits of it, as each time we went through it was a little better than the time before (“Baby steps” a la Bill Murray in What about Bob?).

So it’s Sunday morning the 28th now and it’s time to start wrapping up this meandering blog. Tonight the faculty here are presenting something called Lagniappe- which I hope doesn’t mean Long Nap. We each take five minutes to wow the students with whatever we want to present - a mini-lecture, a demonstration of research we might be doing, a work in progress report- underwater ventriloquism- you know, whatever we think might help them realize that the faculty here is smart and cool.

I am going to be talking about my setting of May Swenson’s poem Summer’s Bounty, a wacky poem which is a basketful of deconstructed summertime compound words. For instance morning glories becomes glories of morning, raspberries becomes berries of rasp, and one of my favorites- mushrooms becomes rooms of mush. It also contains a cool chord I stole from the opening of George Gershwin’s overture to Porgy and Bess (see George, at least I tell people where I got it).After I talk about the poem a little we’ll listen to a nice recording of the piece by the Oregon State University Chamber Choir directed by Steven Zielke.

Ciao for now!

North Carolina Governor's School East- Day 2 and 3

Day Two and Three:

I’m blogging here Tuesday night after four sessions (over two days) with my amazing choral students at N. Carolina Governor’s School [Moses Hogan Singers CD on in the background- oh yeah…]

Monday we had two class sessions- my first chance to get to know the students and start inventing our choir. Rather than just pull out scores and rehearse- you know, that same old approach, I had decided that on Sunday I would assign them to bring in a found percussion instrument. So all 32 brought something in and there were some great lil’ instruments- metal water bottles, things which sounded like a guiro, shaker type items like empty plastic water bottles with pebbles inside, the sound an umbrella makes when you open and shut it, and even one student who took a small cardboard box and strung some rubber bands on it, thus creating a mini-ukelele. Then we actually played these things together, added a conga to it, and had some fun making (literally) music.

The afternoon was an exploration of really interesting ideas presented by an extraordinarily talented young percussionist named Billy Bialecki, who is a teaching assistant for the instrumental music department. Billy played some Indian (as in India, the country) folk music which featured some amazingly dexterous warbling of 32^nd notes by a female singer. He went on to work with my choral students in creating creative clapping games, wherein they learned not to rush and truly feel a beat , and then we started to work with them on overtone singing . One our singers is actually already quite proficient in this, but for virtually all of the singers this was new territory (which they loved learning about and trying). We also played a little bit with just trying to build some octaves, fifths and such and listening for higher overtones to “pop” (appear) in the acoustics of the room. These students have pretty rich voices, and once I got them listening some of them could hear what I was hearing- some overtones becoming audible in the room whose actual fundamentals were not being sung. We’ll move into a more resonant space soon and explore this more. One thing I have been amazed by when listening live to European choirs, especially from Scandinavia, is how much they utilize this kind of sound- it seems like US choirs are fairly oblivious to the idea of developing this sound and developing the ears to notice when it actually is happening!

This morning (Tuesday) we continued listening to two mystery tracks- some ethnic music from who knows where- I am trying to get them to figure out the music’s origin and maybe what it is about, what language it is in and so on. So far, Susan (my assistant) is just writing up on the whiteboard what they think is being sung (one slow track, one fast track). Soon I will let them know if their educated guesses are on target or not. Then we’ll probably go ahead and give them the text on the whiteboard (one of our other teachers knows this mystery language, and we’ll pull her in soon to coach it), but we still plan on not handing them the scores until they try to learn it by rote from the recording. Maybe at some point we’ll hand out the scores just to help them confirm a few pitches and such- but by then they will pretty much know the piece already by using- their EARS! This truly is one of my big goals – to lead what is basically seen as a traditional “classical music” choir by teaching them to use their ears, intuition, and community skills and not just be hiding behind musical scores without a real connection to the soul of the music.

This afternoon Susan and I sat and talked about ourselves so that the students would know what we have done and are currently doing in our careers. This is a great thing for them to see, an older fellow who is a composer/conductor doing a lot of work in the field, and a much younger choral teacher to whom they can easily relate to in many ways. We then had a couple students introduce themselves to break the ice and get to know each other. We’ll keep having them intro themselves a few at a time until we get everybody covered. The student’s energy overall is pretty electric- they seem very pumped about Governor’s School and what we are doing as a choir. We then also really quickly did some solfege warm-ups (most seem to know basic solfege-YAY), did some count-singing just for a little while on a piece by me that we had tried out in the morning, and then worked on the fun, yet somewhat challenging rhythms in René Clausen’s Jabberwocky- they really were strong on their counting, Susan and I were very impressed. I then split them into four groups of eight and assigned the groups to take two days on their own time to prepare a play act of the text of Jabberwocky- we’ll see what they come up with. The idea is to get truly inside the story, to make it come alive, etc so that when we sing it all that physical energy of acting it out will be IN the singing.

All in all, Susan and I are pretty blown away by our students' energy level, enthusiasm, and pretty strong vocal skills as well and they really seem to already have the idea of creating a resonant presence to their sound. In general we are not telling them how to do things- we are facilitating them figuring things out, which is a classical GSE (Governor’s School East) approach. When we have my friend Lisa Fredenburgh here all day Thursday and part of Friday they will get a really solid vocal tech group lesson from a great nuts and bolts standpoint, but for now, this is all about letting them discover things either quickly or gradually, and not just telling them what to do. The GSE approach to teaching and learning is what should be happening all across our country- it’s about engagement and directed learning- not adult robots drilling factoids into student robots.

PLUS
#1 We have hardly used the piano in the room
#2. We have been rehearsing in a circle and we just ain’t sitting
(I hate that slouch thing that chairs cause)

MINUS The clock on the wall is ticking too fast- we are having so much fun that I don’t think anyone really wants to stop

North Carolina Governor's School East Mixed Choir- Day 1

Three hundred bright young minds (gifted high school students who have just finished their sophomore or junior years) arrived here at Meredith College in Raleigh, NC for the six amazing weeks of the North Carolina Governor’s school, the first governor’s school in the country. To read more, visit www.ncgovschool.org

These young adults will study in one of ten main areas (I am leading the 32 voice mixed choir) plus engage in classes about life, ethics, current events, new ways of looking at things and be addressed by some very interesting guest speakers. They reside fulltime on this small college campus and develop very strong bonds over the six weeks. They are constantly encouraged to try new ideas on for size, and these bright kids, many of them straight A types, are also encouraged to not fear “failing” at something, in the belief that maybe an errant first attempt at something is really the true learning experience, as opposed to the idea of getting everything right the first time and nailing an A at all times. In fact, there are no grades here, just an amazing exploratory experience awaiting them. After their main classes, they can also drop in on a wide variety of ”electives”, one or two hour informal sessions led by a teacher or counselor on just about anything you can imagine. There might be as mini-lecture on zombies, a chance to sing doo-wop, a discussion of Foucault, sports to participate in or just hanging out on the quad. I am starting out by doing electives on geocaching and chess for beginners. That should be fun.

The teachers are from all around the country and are very interesting. They are all outside the box thinkers and quick wits, and all very loving and collegial. Many of us live on the campus and hang out together for hours and/or hang out with the kids on the quad. Its just one big happy family!

So this is where we start- an empty slate to be filled. In fact, when I met with the choral students and their parents today I commented on how cool it is that we get to invent a choir over six weeks starting with just us. I certainly have plans on what I want to lead them toward, but I want them to invent a lot of this- this is about me and my great assistant Susan Hahn facilitating, not dictating, and at first this may seem strange to some of them. I actually intend on sending subgroups off to learn pieces by themselves without any initial help from me or Susan or YouTube. And then we’ll see how well they work together, how many leaders emerge and so on. We’ll guide them and challenge them, but also often get out of their way if they show signs that they want to start conducting, make some of the musical decisions and decisions on how to present our concerts (I doubt we want to be boring in concert, what fun is that?). We’re going to be more about music than about musical scores. We are only going to use scores to learn music, and then put away the scores. And in fact, we’re also going to learn some pieces without scores…shocking, eh?

I’ll try to blog as often as possible (2-3 times per week?) and anyone interested can read my perspective about what happens.

So stay tuned and I’ll try to describe the experience!

Art imitates life:The winners get the losers money

Is art a competitive sport? Or, why music composition competitions can be unhealthy and unfair.

Well, my title certainly tells part one of this blog entry- since when did art have to become a competition? And what are the motivations for competitions and what positive and negative messages do they send us?


Let’s look at this from each side of the equation:

Party of the first part, the composition competition creator:

I think there can be two motivating factors in play here- one would be a simple desire to find new heroic talent by throwing competitors into the Coliseum pit and see who emerges bloodied yet triumphant. Okay, I guess that could work. But for every single “winner” there are far more losers and some of these may be folks whose fragile artistic, sensitive egos may be totally shredded by not winning. So is having one glorious winner worth all this? And, anyway, can we really judge art objectively enough to warrant this kind of general abuse of all the entrants?

Motivation number two for the organizers- lots of public relations attention, a new angle for selling tickets, maybe some cash profit.

Let’s look at the entrants’ motivation:

Well, to win may be prestigious, and the winner probably hopes that wining one or two of these things will build a reputation, open doors, look good on a resume, etc. But once again, do composers need to be judged in this manner, in hand to hand battle with each other? It just seems so unhealthy. And honestly, from my perspective, winning some of these competitions does not really enhance ones career much at all. In the long run, your reputation as a composer will be based (and justifiably so) on your work over a period of time, say at the very least ten or twenty years filled with successful compositions, successful collaborations with great directors and quality publishers, and so on.

Here’s my own history in this area- having not composed for a long time, I felt the need to catch up to some of my age peers who hadn’t stopped composing. So I entered some competitions and won two of them awhile back. After awhile, though, I did see that despite the fact that they looked good on my resume they really weren’t opening too many important doors, and I did start disliking and disapproving this competitiveness in the arts. So I stopped competing in these things and concentrated on only positive things, like writing good music and finding cool people to work with.

So… here is where I am going next: recently a very talented composer and teacher who you may know, Paul Crabtree, felt outraged by details a of a composition competition. The gist of the details was this: the choir’s website plainly stated that all the entry fees from the composers entering (ie, the sweet income pile of cash coming from composers) would be pooled and 50% of that money would be awarded to the “winner”. Paul was outraged that this was stated out loud so blatantly, and when he told this group how he felt, their response was that they thought it was a good thing that this (possibly) big pile of moolah could grow and grow and the happy winning composer would have a great windfall. Apparently the group made no effort on their own part to raise any money to fund a prize! AND this also begs AT LEAST one question… what is the group doing with the other 50% of the money? And in Paul Crabtree’s mind, isn’t this just becoming a lottery of sorts? And doesn’t it seem patently unfair to fund the “winner”’ on the backs of the losers?

In fact, let’s look at the math of a typical choral composition competition:

One Grand Prize: $1,000
Composer entry fee: $25
Break-even point for organization: 40 entries

My example shows that once there are over forty entries there are actually two winners- the organization and the grand prize winner, and 39 losers who are funding the lucky ones. Isn’t there something wrong with this picture?

And truthfully, there are a number of these competitions where the prize is only $300 or $500, not $1,000 or over, and where the winner is expected to find their own way to finance attending the premiere. And here is a real kick in the teeth, and this one is so offensive I am happy to name names: the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) holds a composition competition which encourages entrants as young as five years old, the entry fee is $100(!) AND if you win and cannot attend the premiere performance your prize is rescinded (gee thanks MTNA for treating children like this). Let’s look at the math there:

MTNA Elementary Composition Competition (5-10 year olds)
First prize $500, second prize $250
Entry fee: $100
break-even point for MTNA: 8 entrants!

Now what would some of these organization say in defense of their competitions and their entry fees? They would probably cite the clerical time/expense involved with the event, or perhaps the hiring of experts to judge the entries. But really, does a group doling out a modest $300 prize really need to hire people to adjudicate the entries-- why not trust that your own musical staff or some volunteer judges could do a good job?

Do I think there should be an entry fee for these competitions? Honestly, I think not. But I think someone could argue that a small fee is not totally out of line, something like $10, just to help defray expenses a bit. But I certainly don’t think that composer entry fees should ever be expected to fund the winner's prize. It just isn’t right and I think is abusive to turn a group a profit from the composers, none of whom, I am sure, are rolling in cash.

I will now cite some great examples of groups and individuals who are supporting new music in a big way and without expecting composers entry fees to fund these prizes:The Cambridge Chamber Singers based in Cambridge, MA run a competition yearly. I won that competition in 2003, the first year that they threw out their entry fee and were bombarded with hundred of entries from around the world. The folks there, including director Ray Fahrner, a great supporter of composers, were thrilled with that massive response, and sifted through all those scores gladly. They made no money off of the composers and have continued to this day in running this event without a composer entry fee, bravo, Ray!

A very large competition, the Barlow Prize, awards a $12,000 prize and a number of $7,000 commissions as well. There is no entry fee.

The New York composer/conductor group C4 is currently holding a competition with healthy prizes and no entry fee. You read about it here recently in a guest blog by C4 member Jon David.

Here is my bottom line opinion, followed by an alternate to the competition and composer fee mentality:if you want to run one of these composer competitions for your musical group, please stop and truly examine your motivations. Is this really about finding new talent and nurturing it, or is it about the PR and entry fee money you are hoping to bring to your group? And how will you feel as a group or a board of directors if your winner can’t afford to get to your city for the premiere? Will you find a way to get them there or will you penalize them? And don’t be so crass as to fund your “prize” on the backs of losing composers . Almost anyone’s gut feeling is that this is just not right.

Here is my alternative: find money to fund a no entry fee competition, or even better, do some homework and find a worthy composer, young or old, and commission them to write a piece for your choir. This is a far more respectful way to treat a creative artist and make them feel valued and wanted, and not just an athlete with a number on their back.

If this blog post changes any group’s mind about their approach to composer competitions, commissions and the like and helps them move toward a healthier approach, I will be pretty happy with my lil’ ole self.

[UPDATE from since I first started drafting this blog: the competition which Paul Crabtree found offensive announced a winner, and also brags that there were over 100 entrants. They also have told me that the 50% of the composer's money they pocketed went into their general operating funds and they do not agree with Mr. Crabtree and myself that this is in any way unethical or "not right". So, there you go composers-- you just funded a choir whether you knew it or not, gave them plenty of PR, and all you got out of it was some more rejection of your art- what a pretty picture, eh? Maybe your entry fee could be written off as a charitable donation?]

Premiere of Endless Worlds- May 14

Back on April 14th I ranted a bit about the narrow expectations of publishers and their desire for all newly composed choral music to fit into their model of accessibility. That blog got some positive response from some fellow composers and directors. Tonight I’m going to blog about a wonderful group who purposely did not want that “make it easy for me” music when they commissioned me to write for them.

The group is the Goldenaires from HD Jacobs High School in Algonquin, Illinois, a highly skilled auditioned chamber choir directed by a very talented young conductor named Andrew Collins. For the 15th anniversary of the groups founding, Andrew wanted to commemorate the event with a commissioned work. When he first inquired about my interest I was struck with his seriousness and high artistic standards. Andrew did the opposite of what many high school directors would have done- he purposely asked for an a cappella piece and welcomed (virtually insisted actually!) that there be divisi writing at times. In other words, Andrew wanted nothing dumbed down for this piece- he wanted a challenging piece, sans piano help, that his singers could do some serious work on.

Well of course as a composer this was a delight to hear. So Andrew and his wife Polly joined Sherri and me for dinner and an evening of text discussion between Christmas and New Year’s. Prior to the evening we had already agreed on using some of the poetry from Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali, so the evening was all about trying to find the specific poems within the massive 103 that comprise Gitanjali that Andrew thought he liked. We leafed through a bunch of them and Andrew found ten he liked a lot. After a week or two, I was able to find a way to link three of these poems with a fourth that really appealed to me, thus creating a four movement work. I was happy that I had found something which could function as an underlying linking element to the piece- an introductory poem (and music) that talks about singing and the joy of singing about creation and humanity, an apt choice for a commission celebrating the founding of a choir. Set as an introduction, the rest of the poems relate in some way to the first poem, as well as giving a taste of the other main elements of the vast Gitanjali collection. This was important to me—to pay homage to Tagore’s lyrical brilliance by creating a multi-movement work which musically distills some of his main themes. I did not want to write just a 3 or 4 minute piece because I felt that it would just be too lightweight and not really impart what Gitanjali is about.

With this introduction plus three form I was off and running with the composing all though the cold month of January, writing virtually every night. I also decided to try something new for me-- I took the poem with the most raw passion, and even though that would be movement three, I decided to write it first and link musical motifs and keys from it as I composed the other movements. Thus the center of the piece, not the beginning, is literally the germinal music, an idea I wanted to try at least just as a compositional process for myself, whether it matters or not to a listener. Actually, I think this idea worked quite well since the emotional content of this poem is quite breathtaking and using it as the starting point creatively actually does make the piece quite interesting musically.

I also kept in mind Andrew’s desire for musical/choral challenges, and of course I didn’t purposely set out to write anything difficult, I just knew that if I ventured (and I did) into extended harmonic regions, dissonances, divisi, etc that he had welcomed that.

Once the piece was done I was pretty pleased with it and I sent it off to Andrew. This is always a “keep your fingers crossed” moment for any commissioned composer. Does the director like it or hate it, does the choir like it or hate it? You just hope to hear back something good at this point. I did hear back that everyone was digging the piece (yay!) as they started in on one movement at a time. Andrew set up some Monday evening two hour rehearsals for me to attend. When I did so I was very pleased-- the students were singing their hearts out, they “got” the texts on many levels and enjoyed the variety and connection across the four texts, and were proud of what they were doing. We also took some time out during a couple of these rehearsals for them to ask me questions about composing, music careers, etc and I was happy to share my opinions about a number of things, especially in regard to some of their questions about majoring in music in college.

The premiere is tomorrow night and I am going to be very pleased to attend and cheer on this fine young choir and their amazing director. They will have the Tagore texts printed in the program as well as my program notes, and I will share all that here with you as well now below.

Finally, a word about some of the links across the movements, the architecture which unites the music and the text on a few different levels: probably the most important link is a chorale in movement three; the text being a song about love lost morphing into love of the universe. The chorale signifies spirituality/connection to the divine on a deep level. The music there is a rich F Major and sounds kind of like good ole J Brahms, who I think liked F major a lot (yes, I know F major doesn’t tune well for singers, but I am not going to avoid it always). The chorale theme appears momentarily in other movements as well to signify similar emotions (I seem to write these chorales a lot lately; I’ll blog more about the chorale significance sometime soon). There are also other motifs and keys which span across movements and unify the four movements of the piece. This is all very standard structural stuff, but discovering these structures is not necessarily easy, mind you. And I say discover them, because you can’t force these things to happen, it’s more like starting with some very basic material and then letting the material discover its form while you watch it and nurture it. This is a crazy part of the creative process that many composers and other artists talk about a lot- the fact that often the music starts writing itself and you are just there shaping it as it develops. I have a few philosopher friends with IQ’s double mine that I intend to talk to soon about what this all means and how the universe makes these things happen!

So, time to wrap up this very gabby blog-here are the texts to Endless Worlds and my program notes. And for any of you directors (especially university directors, since this piece is really university difficulty level) who have read this far, send me an e-mail if you would like to see a perusal score of the piece. Meanwhile I look forward to the premiere tomorrow night by Andrew and his young, very skilled and inspiring singers.

Program Notes

In the early years of the twentieth century, Rabindranath Tagore (1861- 1941) took the western literary world by storm with the publication of Gitanjali (Song Offerings). This collection of 103 poems speaking of god, nature, spiritual journeys and meditation, translated from earlier Bengali versions into English by the author himself, was published in 1912. Such was its immediate popularity that it won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913. The introduction to the book by W.B, Yeats distills the essence of Gitanjali; here are a few quotes from Yeats’ introduction:

[The poems come from]… a tradition where poetry and religion are the same thing…gathered from learned and unlearned metaphor and emotion.

Tagore has been content to discover the soul and surrender himself to its spontaneity. Tagore is so abundant, so spontaneous, so daring in his passion, so full of surprise.

We are moved… because we have met our own image…our voice as in a dream.

Yeats’ introduction is worth reading in its entirety, which may be found along with the complete Gitanjali (now in public domain) at www.sacred-texts.com/hin/tagore.gitanjali.htm

When Andrew Collins asked me to write a commissioned piece for his amazing choir, we talked about a few different authors, but eventfully landed in Gitanjali territory. This is obviously a deep treasure trove of very lyrical, metaphysical, pantheistic poetry, and I eventually felt that I needed to at least imply, via multiple movements, the depth of the collection yet not wind up with a two hour piece of music. I eventually found a way to present many of the core textual elements of Gitanjali by constructing a four movement work.

The first movement speaks of music, and specifically about singing-- of Tagore’s belief in the spiritual intersection of singing with god or the absolute. The second movement speaks of the duality of humankind and of nature—while children play in a serene seascape there is also the knowledge that nature can be fierce. Dualities abound in Gitanjali, just as they do in Eastern thought. Here they are readily accepted as yin and yang, as opposed to the way that duality is often a battleground in western thought. The third movement is reminiscent of themes in Sor Juana and St. John of the Cross— the pang of earthly love transforms into love of god, and acknowledgment of the vastness of the cosmos. The fourth movement is in praise of the kaleidoscope of nature and time, and reaches an electric ecstasy. I have tried to capture the energy this poem implies -- yet all along one could imagine Tagore, with no difficulty, peacefully meditating with a slight samadhi smile on his face through all this busyness of the universe and this particular music!

Musical Elements

All the movements are linked by a tonal center of C, and often there is use of modes- Dorian, Phrygian, etc. F major sections in movement one and three are almost chorale-like, echo each other, and are tied to the textual beauty of those moments. F major (historically a pastoral key) appears as well in the playful uptempo sections of movement two. There are also some juxtapositions of the tonal center C with its seemingly most opposite tone center, F sharp. Some of these are very subtle, but the most obvious one is the “tempest music” in movement 2, starting at m. 63.

Melodically I of course wanted the music to be extremely lyrical. There is quite often a rising element in most of the melodies, as if envisioning Tagore reaching his hands to the skies for communion and inspiration. To also imply the otherworldly beauty of Tagore’s poetry, some of my voice spacing is purposely unusual. There are also hints of the odd dissonances often heard in Aarvo Part’s music, probably most noticeable in movement three, which was actually the first movement composed and really is the expressive crux of the whole piece.



TEXT

Introduction: The Light of your Music

The light of your music illumines the world,
I ever listen in silent amazement.
When you command me to sing
it seems that my heart would break with pride;
I look to your face, and tears come to my eyes.
I know you take pleasure in my singing.
I know that only as a singer, I come before you, before your presence.

On the Seashore of Endless Worlds

On the seashore of endless worlds children meet.
The infinite sky is motionless overhead
and the restless water is boisterous.
On the seashore of endless worlds the children meet with shouts and dances.
They build their houses with sand and play with empty shells.
The sea plays with children, and pale gleams the smile of the sea

Tempests roam in the pathless sky,
ships get wrecked in the trackless water, death is abroad---
yet children play, children play with shouts and dances.


In Desperate Hope

In desperate hope I go and search for her in all corners of my room; I find her not.
My house is small and what once has gone from it can never be regained.

But infinite is your mansion, my lord, and seeking her I have come to your door.
I stand under the golden canopy of your evening sky and I lift my eager eyes to your face.
I have come to the brink of eternity from which nothing can vanish---
no hope, no happiness, no vision of a face seen through tears.
Oh, dip my emptied life into that ocean, plunge it into the deepest fullness.
Let me for once feel that lost sweet touch in the allness of the universe.


The Abounding Joy

Thy sunbeam comes upon this earth of mine with arms outstretched.
All things rush on, they stop not, they look not behind,
no power can hold them back, they rush on.
Keeping step with that restless, rapid music, seasons come dancing and pass away---
colours, tunes, and perfumes pour in endless cascades in the abounding joy.

Guest blog by C4 composer Jonathan David

Hi folks! Today I have a guest blog by cool composer/conductor Jonathan David, a founding member of the choir "C4" based in NYC. Jonathan is a gifted composer and a good friend. I am happy to help spread the word about C4's composer competition, especially as it has no entry fee and some great awards (I will blog soon about the myriad choirs holding low prize competitions funded by composer's entry fees- a really yucky scene,in my opinion, wherein a choir can turn a profit on composer's entry fees). Here is what Jon has to say about C4 and their new activities:



C4 was founded in November 2005 by a small cadre of veterans of New York City's choral scene, including myself, who sought a chance to explore new directions for themselves and for choral music in a collaborative, artist-friendly environment. The world's first Choral Composer/Conductor Collective, C4 is a unique vocal ensemble in New York City dedicated to performing music of our time. It functions not only as a presenting ensemble in its own right, with a three-program concert season, but also as an ongoing workshop and recital chorus for the emerging composers and conductors who form the core of the group.

C4's repertoire consists entirely of music written in the last twenty-five years, with a pretty even balance between works by composer members of the chorus and works by non-members. Including its upcoming May concert (works for chorus and electronic media), C4 will have performed, in less than five full seasons, 49 world premieres and 24 New York City, East Coast, or North American premieres.
Conductor members of the group divide the repertoire among each other and work closely with each composer to achieve a collaborative interpretative approach. (Composers may not conduct their own works.) For those used to concerts with a single conductor a C4 performance is quite singular, each piece rotating to a new conductor.






I’m really excited about our upcoming commission competition (details below—note May 15 postmark deadline!). There were several goals we kept in mind when designing the competition: To maximize the opportunities we will award a relatively large number of finalists (5); in addition to performance, there are substantial prize dollar amounts; there is no entry fee; there is no limit on age or nationality; all judging is blind (anonymous scores only).




C4 (the Choral Composer/Conductor Collective) Commissioning Competition 2010
Postmark deadline: May 15, 2010

The C4 Commissioning Competition will give five finalists the opportunity to compose new
works for C4: the Choral Composer/Conductor Collective, and to participate in the rehearsal process. All five new works will be premiered on March 3 and 5, 2011, in New York City. First prize is $2,000, second prize is $800. The remaining three finalists will receive honorable mention prizes of $400. C4 is the only chorus that is collectively run by its composer and conductor members, and one of the few choruses in America dedicated exclusively to performing contemporary music, programming only music that has been composed in the past twenty-five years. This competition is made possible by grants from The David and Minnie Berk Foundation and the Yale School of Music Alumni Ventures program.

A panel of judges consisting of C4 board members will select approximately twenty semi-finalists. From among these a second panel consisting of James Bassi, Clara Longstreth and Steven Stucky will select five finalists, who will be notified in late August, 2010. The finalists will compose new 3-6 minute a cappella works for C4, to be completed by November 15, 2010. As the performance nears, C4 will record the new works. The outside judges will then select first and second place winners before the premiere, the remaining finalists receiving honorable mentions.

Both concerts will be recorded. All finalists are strongly encouraged to attend one of the performances. A travel stipend of up to $300 per composer will defray the cost of travel for the winning composers; all additional travel costs are the responsibility of the composer. Accommodations with C4 members will be provided as needed.

Any composer may apply, regardless of age, career level, or nationality. Current and former C4 members are not eligible. Please see the complete guidelines at www.c4ensemble.org for information on how to apply. Email questions to competition@c4ensemble.org.



Jonathan David has been described as “an important emerging musical voice” in the worlds of choral music, music-theatre, and art song. He has served as Composer-in-Residence for The Greenwich Village Singers, Music Director for the Morningside Heights-based chorus, Howl!, and is a core member of New York’s pioneering new music group, C4, the Choral Composer/Conductor Collective. Recent choral premieres include Titania’s Garage Sale by C4 and Flocks Feed by Darkness, a commission from Glass Menagerie. Upcoming premieres include Even in Darkness, a commission from the Packer Collegiate Concert Chorus. Past commissions have come from the New York Treble Singers, and the Thanks-Giving Foundation. His choral music has also been performed by the Princeton Singers, the Glen Ellyn Children's Chorus, and Cerddorion Vocal Ensemble, among others. Current projects include a large-scale song cycle, Winter Birds, for countertenor Phillip Cheah, to texts by poet David Brendan Hopes. Stage works include Bronx Express, which ran to critical acclaim at the 2005 New York International Fringe Festival. His music has received awards from ASCAP, the Americas Vocal Ensemble, and the Global Network of Conservatories. A graduate of Wesleyan University, he studied with John Bavicchi and Don McDonnell at the Berklee College of Music. He is published by Oxford University Press. (February, 2010)

A Choral Music Revolution- no more junk food!

It still seems so strange to me that music publishers think that composers should always color inside nice, neat lines and provide a constant source of predigested music for their masses. They hope we will consistently give them what they want (speaking in the choral publishing world for now, as that is what I do the most): a formulaic 3-4 minute piece, with a simplistic text, very limited tessituras, NO DIVISI ("divisi bad, bad, bad"), and a happy ending (and, oh yeah... high sales figures). An easy to sing piece that parents gurgle a contented "ah" to when they hear their grade school or high school child sing in concert. And, btw, dear composer, don't forget that anything with drums sells, and anything touchy-feely and dedicated"to the children"or "for the sake of our children" sells & sells (like an Energizer Bunny).











So... here is what happens. Some of us do write pieces sort of within some of those parameters. But it just kills me though when the publishers only expect that product to arrive in their submission inbox and the only thing they say over and over is, "Well we love your music, so write your very, very best music, find that fabulous text, create art on the very highest level.. but just make sure it is (and here all composers cringe)... accessible". Ah yes, the dreaded "A" word.


My reaction to this is as follows- to set out on purpose to write "accessible" music will usually result in blandness and lack of creativity. Nor will these purposely mediocre pieces ever challenge a choir in the ways many of them want to be challenged. Where is their opportunity for growth if all we ever feed them is pablum? There are choirs out there who want to sing music with divisi, yet no publisher believes this to be true.

Better to write a good piece of music that just happens to be "accessible" within certain parameters. Composers should write pieces with creativity and then, if they choose, gradually craft some of them into age-appropriate or choir type-appropriate models. It is fun and rewarding to do original pieces and arrangements along these lines. But the creative spark has to come first and remain foremost. Better to listen to that inner creative voice than to print out a banner in screaming CAPS to place over your piano that says "PLEASE THE PUBLISHERS AT ALL TIMES- BE ACCESSIBLE" and have that as your motivation.

I will always write my off the wall stuff and I encourage every other composer to do the same-- keep writing amazing pieces you want to write even if you already know they aren't mediocre and predictable enough to please the average publisher-- the pieces that are not formulaic, are longer than four minutes, are musically and textually challenging, aren't a tidy ABA form, contain divisi, and so on.

How can we make a major shift in our musical world? It's really pretty obvious- directors and composers need to work together more directly, and stop relying on the mainstream publishers to set values. We need a new era where composers and directors collaborate far more and stop accepting the junk that the mainstream publishers and retailers think we want for our choirs. In other words, we need to rebel- composers need to stop writing to mainstream publishers narrow standards of so-called accessibility, and directors need to stop buying garbage from Hal Leonard and the like and stop blindly purchasing whatever JW Pepper and other music mega-retailers are telling you to buy. If a Jamie Oliver can start a "Food Revolution" in this country and work his tail off to quash junk food in our schools, why can't we band together and start a choral music revolution?We really do owe this to ourselves AND to our children to start turning things around. We need to stop looking for an EASY button when it comes to how we write music, teach it, and choose repertoire.




http://www.jamieoliver.com/campaigns/jamies-food-revolution


Dear directors, I have an idea for you: think of doing this-- that composer whose published music you already know you like-- e-mail or phone them and ask them what they have in manuscript that the publishers won't touch (you know, the pieces the publishers would cringe over and treat like proverbial red-haired stepchildren if they were forced to take them in). Ask about the pieces a quality creative composer has in ms that "won't sell", but of which they are especially proud, and that probably have gotten zero or just a few performances. You would be making a composer or two very happy if you would seek out their so-called "unpublishable" music and consider it for your program.

Dear composers, get out there in the real world more and form more personal relationships with choral directors and their choirs. We as composers have got to be far more visible and more approachable for directors and choirs of all ages and types. And start asking directors what they would like to see you writing and work together with them one on one. I assure you that doing this will be very rewarding as a composer and as a person.

Let's get rid of the junk, start fresh, and work together a whole lot more!

Thanks for reading,and I do feel I need to go on record at this moment and state that I do have a wonderful relationship with the Roger Dean Company and their editor Scott Foss, who has always treated me with respect and honor.

PC