Get thee behind me...

Another semester come and gone. But this one was different. I've NEVER had a semester where I've not "ugh"-ed over assignments, except this one. Sure, Fall 2008 has had its moments of frustration with professor demands and deadlines too close to meet those demands with quality (but I guess we couldn't officially call this experience education if that were not the case...); but I have truly turned in each assignment (whether that be a paper or theory analysis or concert I conducted in) feeling like a better person for having spent the time doing it.

Next semester holds some challenges. Stars in the East is a new ECU event instated by Dr. Bara, and he has hired some conductors to come work with his grad students for the experience, education, and as a resume builder. 3 conductors are coming in January, and...drum roll...the first one is William Weinert (Director of Choral Activities at Eastman, and Dr. Bara's teacher), Craig Arnold (director of choral activities, conductor of the Nordic Choir, and professor of music at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa), and Dale Warland. Dale Warland is extremely well known, and I encourage you to read the bios on all three of these outstanding choral teachers. Also in the spring I get the opportunity to teach Bach to University Chorale: 1) Sicut locutus est from Johann's Magnificat (I think I get to call him by his first name now), and 2) Dona nobis pacem from his B-minor Mass. If you haven't heard these two works what in the world are you waiting for?! Stop reading Blair and go listen to Bach!

Orchestral Conducting

Last weekend ECU Symphony along with Chamber Singers performed Mozart's Requiem. What a satisfying performance!! Dr. Bara conducted the amazing performane, and I observed him non compos mentis so as to pick up all I could from my teacher about how to teach and conduct an orchestra. It's a bit of a different language, as you can't turn to the violins and ask for things like, "Violins, could you guys put a little more breath in that sound," or "Cellos, could we find that dome-space resonance in that tone?" So if these tricks don't work, what does? Dr. Bara sang to them a lot, and actually Dr. Jorge Richter, the symphony's regular conductor, sang to them as well - "Trombones, I wonder if we can make your B-flat sound like [insert a b-flat pitch] taww, rather than taaa." Dr. Richter also demonstrated rhythms verbally - "DI-da-da-da, violas...Again!" And Dan gave the players the benefit of the doubt of being able to read music well, but that passage was just a mistake; so his response would go something like, "Careful that your dotted quarters aren't too long, clarinets."

Anyway...another geeked out post.

Today's Tunes...

So, I've been engulfed in my Choral Literature class the past several weeks, and I've heard some amazing music.
Obrecht wrote some fantastic music, Missa Caput in particular.
Palestria...WHOA! Go listen to his Pope Marcellus Mass...at least the Kyrie. Fantabulastic!
Thomas Luis da Victoria...good stuff.
My favorite: Josquin. Absalon fili mi.

I'd heard the music of these guys before, but not in context of what I have learned about their cultural time period. These guys were rock stars!

alright...now that my geek self has passed, Rachel Yamagata has been coming through my speakers. Jazzy girl. Good stuff. Cold Play's X&Y album has been playing in my vehicle. I like his voice, even though he sings with little resonance and solely from his throat. I certainly wouldn't encourage my choir to sing like that, but his voice fits his music well.

Hmm...this is a geeky post, but I am, afterall in graduate school.

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Todays Tunes...

Howard Helvey's arrangement of the spiritual The Time for Praying. Ooo...good stuff. I think I'm going to do this with our church choir.

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Today's Tunes...

So this is a much more fitting title for this section of my blog, rather than confining me to a specific day; we all know how well that worked out.

Today I've listened to Stile Antico, a choir of young British singers which has gotten its name out of a Renaissance idea. I have been listening to their album "Music for Compline" while working on a research & bibliography assignment. You can preview the entire album on Amazon, and I have particularly enjoyed tracks 5, 10, and 16. I think you will particularly like 10.

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Choral Scholars and Chamber Singers

Beautiful concert in a beautiful singing space! Here's the Ave verum corpus (William Byrd) I conducted. This is Choral Scholars, a small volunteer choir from Chamber Singers. You may not be able to readily tell that it's me, but rest assured that you aren't seeing some guy off the street and that it is in fact me...in that case, I guess it IS some guy off the street. THANKS FOR THE VIDEO, RACHEL!!

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Martin Luther

Yes, the monk in the 1500s...not the King Jr., and both equally respectable. But I have been doing a lot of reading lately...comes with the whole grad. school thing...and I came across a Forawrd he wrote to Georg Rhau's Symphoniae, a collection of chorale motets published in 1538. Avid music lover, you might like this as I paraphrase a bit:

 I, Doctor Martin Luther, wish all lovers of the unshackled art of music grace and peace from God the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ! ... The riches of music are so excellent and so precious that words fail me whenever I attempt to discuss and describe them...In summa, next to the Word of God, the noble art of music is the greatest treasure in the world. It controls our thoughts, minds, hearts, and spirits...A person who gives this some thought and yet does not regard music as a marvelous creation of God, must be a clodhopper indeed and does not deserve to be called a human being; he should be permitted to hear nothing but the braying of asses and the grunting of hogs.

 I was eaing lunch in one of the dining places at ECU while I read this, and I burst out laughing. It was one of those moments where folks look at you and wonder...surely those moments are quite common for me. Hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed sharing!

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Concert FRIDAY

...no this is not another attempt at creating a catchy title in order to help me blog. We have a concert Friday night at St. Paul's Episcopal Church - high ceilings, where the acoustic rolls around forever, stone floors, 52-rank organ that is breathtakingly beautiful, and a beautiful chancel. Great place to sing and be heard...and with that kind of acoustic, you can in some ways be your own audience...
Chamber Singers will sing Calvisius, Brahms, Schumann, Boyce, Paulus, Rutter, Poch, and Alwes. And Choral Scholars (the graduate lab choir for the conducting students) will do a plethora of pieces. I am conducting William Byrd's Ave verum corpus, and hopefully all will work out musically on my part - I'm not at all worried about the choir (and I never really thought I'd say that). Hopefully I can calm myself internally to trust my hands to do everything right and my ears to hear what every beautiful note they sing.
It's going to be a great experience!

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Tuneful Tuesday

Matt actually gets the credit for this - Frank LaRocca's "O Magnum Mysterium"

Handel's Messiah, but only Part the First. I've listened to a few portions of Part the Second.

Poulenc's Gloria...again. I truly recommend getting this. See if your local library has it, and if it doesn't it is completely worth the bucks you'll use on it in iTunes. If at all possible, listen to it with the score (Dr. Simmons might be able to help you out; if you're really ambitious, J.W. Pepper.com can certainly help you.)

I brought back a little bit of the band Vigilantes of Love this morning, a band I started listening to in high school and had a crush on.

We continue our studies of Brahms in Chamber Singers, and more and more I see just how masterful, and surprisingly NOT dark, fatalistic, or sullen as might be the label he gets often.

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Workshopping middle and high school choral kids...

I taught...well, really congealed/ solidified, middle school basses a Patrick Liebergen version of a Handel piece from Joshua (which is really a Liebergen score influenced by Handel), and Morten Lauridsen's Sure On This Shining Night. The kids did really well, especially the high school guys. It was good to get back into teaching high school choral kids again, and I'm excited about conducting the Greenville Choral Society Youth Chorale! Great kids!

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Rehearsal.

Today in Chamber Singers, the group that's doing Rutter's Hymn to the Creator of Light and Brahms' Schaffe in mir Gott, we rehearsed the Brahms and the Boyce Ave Maria, which I completely undercut and diminished in a post a couple of weeks ago b/c it's fantabulastic. Rehearsal didn't go so well as far as revisited notes. Under pitched and in certain circumstances completely wrong: not-even-in-the-same-zip-code-as-the-correct-pitch wrong. I could sense that Dr. Bara was not well pleased, and he did a marvelous job of not adding his unhappiness to the equation of a bad rehearsal. And he sends an email to each performer to express his disapproval. The first sentence: "Dear colleagues, We are better than today’s rehearsal suggests...." Dagger to the heart. We understand he's disappointed, but this sentence in the context of the entire email tells us that we should be too. "New music [Ave Maria - we've rehearsed it two days] must be approached with zeal, energy, curiosity, and absolute fearlessness. Who’s going be the one to nail it first? To make the first mistake and fix it? Older music must be approached with mindfulness of all that has been learned before, musical sensitivity, a vigilant ear for intonation and tone, and a renewed commitment to make it better piece than when we left it." Aside from all that I learned about being a conductor in this email, this letter enlightened not only an approach to music but an appraoch to life. Translation/ correlation/metaphor for life: We're two weeks into the new school year, the giddiness of newness has subsided...or should have. When do we decide to move from there? Do we decide to move from there? If we don't decide to move on, there is a major problem. When we approach a piece of music, Scripture, marriage, or anything that we love that is of substance to us, anything that captures our emotional attention, when do we decide to move from the "giddiness," the on-the-surface of it into the exertion or excercise or application or utilization of it? Two weeks? Two years? Two days? Two hours? I think when we can answer something like the latter, we've found something profound.

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Tuneful Tuesday

ON TUESDAY! (almost...but you're probably reading on Tuesday!)

Arvo Pärt - Missa Syllabica; Cantate Dominum Canticum Novum

Beethoven - Missa Solemnis

Norman Dello Joio - A Jubilant Song
Dan Davison - Shout for Joy
Stephen Paulus - Pilgrim's Hymn

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Tuneful Tuesday

Have you had your daily dose of Poulenc's Gloria? What about Stravinsky's Symphony of Palms? Well, what are you waiting for??

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Tuneful Tuesday...

Ok, I know it isn't Tuesday, but it's a "tradition" I started on this blog, and with my blogging habits...well, the two don't exactly mix well, and you're lucky to even be getting this post.

As, I've mentioned once or twice, graduate school is truly amazing; even after it gets busier than a one-legged man in a butt kicking contest. In Chamber Singers, we are doing a concert in October, which should be streamed on the ECU School of Music web page, and for that concert we are performing none other than Rutter's Hymn to the Creator of Light! I was ecstatic! If I get asked to conduct part of a Chamber Singers rehearsal, guess what I'm rehearsing... We're doing a Brahm's Motet (Schaffe in mir Gott), a Schumann Motet (Und ob ich schon wanderte) [after next semester or next fall I might be able to translate that for you], and a few other octavos - an Ave Maria and a couple of spirituals.

I am conducting William Byrd's Ave verum corpus in Choral Scholars, and it's many much fun. Along those lines of music listening, we have been talking about the early 1500s in choral literature class, so I am becoming more familiar with Palestrina. Whoa! Beautiful composer! I mean, I knew I liked his music before the class, but I'm becoming more aware of why I like it. Points of immitation, texture changes because of the music's text....blah, blah, blah.

In University Chorale we are doing a gorgeous Clausen piece, O My Luve's Like A Red, Red Rose and Sing Unto God by Paul Fetler. Great pieces!

In November, Chamber Singers will be performing Mozart's Requiem at least three times - once on campus, another time at a local church, and for the North Carolina Music Educator's Association. Oh! it's four times. once for some high school kids that come for choral festival...I hope they last 50 minutes and don't clap between movements...

That's about it for now. I have a feeling Tuneful Tuesday will become more random and ultimately will not link itself to Tuesday at all... Stay Tunedful Tuesday...er, something.

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...

So I'm not a good blogger...at least I know it's not my calling in life.
However! Getting higher degrees IS, I believe, my calling. I didn't think school could possibly be any better than under graduate studies. Oh, no, mein freund! I absolutely LOVE graduate work. (At least for now.) You get paid to do what you're longing heart desires to do in academia. It truly is a beautiful thing...you should try it.

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New Whitacre piece

Eric Whitacre has scored a Kipling text, "The White Seal's Lullaby," for piano and SATB (we'll probably see it scored for other vocal ensembles if it isn't already available). Mr. Whitacre titled his piece "The Seal's Lullaby," rather than keeping Kipling's original title...perhaps a copyright issue? But here's a link to his blog about the premiere of the piece complete with recording! Enjoy!

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Ode to the Male Ensemble

So, I quickly felt bad about denigrating the male ensemble in my earlier post. Let me make it up to myself and to you. There's Cantus, The King's Singers, and a youth ensemble I have recently grown to love...it didn't take me long. Here's a link to a clip of The Prayer of the Children (Kurt Bestor) performed by the guys of Amabile Youth Singers of London, Canada.

And the Mormon Tabernacle Men are fabulous as well. Battle Hymn of the Republic video. This is an SATB piece, but there are sections where the men are glory, glory, hal-le-glorious...I don't care if they are mormon and pray to the angel Moroni or Joseph Smith.

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The female voice

Why is the female voice impeccable? Especially in an ensemble. They just sound so great. I mean, I've heard some not-so-great female voices, like ones-that-can't-match-pitch-bad, but aside from those experiences, a female ensemble is just stunning. Guys don't, in my experience, make it sound so easy. It seems like it takes male voices a bit to get cranking. I've also heard my share of male ensembles that sound remarkably jaw dropping, but those experiences don't come from lazy learning environments.

I don't know...maybe this post comes from listening to The San Francisco Girls Chorus and other female ensembles lately. But they just make it sound so easy to do. And it's absolutely beautiful.

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Boyz II Men

So I thought I'd take a second to expound on the marvelous musicianship of Boyz II Men. This is a clip of their arrangement (actually I don't know who to credit for the writing of it) of The Star Spangled Banner. This is only the end of it because of copyright, but this is enough to talk about their musicianship.

1. It's a capella. You have to know what you're doing to sing these harmonies a capella.
   
2. GREAT chord on "night."
3. I can live with two "T's" on the "night" cut off.
4. The word "that" in the phrase, "O, say does that star spangled banner..." is rhythmically out of this world. Hemiola! Bass voice and inner two voices are on triplets, and the upper voice is on sixteenth notes. Well done!
5. THEN after that rhythmic fiesta, they open up to this shimmery chord on "star" in that phrase, characteristic and very fitting of the word.
6. "Wave" of that same phrase is colored with some R&B stylistic beauties.
7. Nice chord building on the word "free," THEN they crescendo, which isn't easy to do with an ensemble, out of the beautifully built chord.
8. Nice bass ending.
9. All of this while singing with great vocal technique - nothing pushed or sounded tense. The first tenor has a great falsetto.
   

I hope you enjoy this as much as I do!!

Tuneful Tuesdays

Well...it's been an eclectic week. I have the choral tunes, of course, but I have some things that perhaps will strike those who've known me a while as different.

First, I'll talk about a piece of Electronic music by Nico Muhly called Mothertongue. "Born in Vermont in 1981 and raised in Providence, Rhode Island, Nico Muhly graduated from Columbia University in 2003 with a degree in English Literature. In 2004 he received a Masters in Music from the Juilliard School, where he studied composition under Christopher Rouse and John Corigliano" (http://nicomuhly.com/biography/). With those credentials, a music listener should expect something. I liked it, unlike a few reviews I read on iTunes about this piece. Of course, it IS iTunes, afterall, and how much validity can you expect in those other than opinons of non-music majors? Not to be egotistical or demeaning, but face it, most iTunes listeners expect things from composers, and if listeners don't get it from their music they click the "next" button.

I have also found a new respect for radio music. I have come to terms with the fact that if I am going to cope with the radio and most everything on it, then I have to separate it into another genre of art. And I shall call it...Recording Art. I'm sure it's already in the books as that, but I like to think that I have a few original thoughts... These guys, though not lyrically thought provoking and often sexually explicit and down right vulgar, they do work hard at what they do. I guess this side of me spawns from my recent interest in podcasting and that process, because I have tasted the flavors of that sometimes hard-to-swallow genre. Studio recording is hard. It takes a lot of listening, some difficult decision making, second guessing and often third guessing yourself...anyhoo...I'll jump off of this stump and get to what I've listened. I've been driven by some hip-hop: Ludacris is genius, Fergie, a little Beyoncé, and an Atlanta guy named Sam Rhansum (who I know personally, actually). In this same stage, but teetering toward vocal music more is the group Boyz II Men, who are really quite great musicians.

Enough appetizers. Meredith Monk's "Astronaut Anthem" from her opera Quarry (1976) was on the choral plate this week. Interesting. I listened to The San Francisco Girls Chorus' entire album entitled Voices of Hope and Peace. Stunning. The centerpiece of the album is Anne Frank: A Living Voice, by Linda Tutas Haugen, and it's written and performed altogether deftly. The composer commissioned this work for the organization's 25th anniversary. The album is simply amazing. These young ladies have been trained exceptionally well. They could certainly show up some college choirs, and I'm sure they have at some point in their 25 years of existence. The opening piece of the album, Vivos Voco by Joan Szymko, is a six-part (SSSAAA) vocal piece with piano and handbells, and well, it's quite an opener. Grandioso in every way, and it's spectacular. Completely worth your time and money. I sat down with some John Rutter scores today: 1) Te Deum, and 2) Magnificat. The Te Deum is a piece i have listened to a bit, as I bought the recording many moons ago, but I have not been introduced to his Magnificat until this afternoon. I used to sort-of like Rutter; he had some pieces that I thought were just ok, as I think they are on the Te Deum recording. Then I sat down with the score for Te Deum. Great stuff! THEN I sat down with the Magnificat score. Oh man. There's a reason it's "Magnificat," other than the liturgical reason - the canticle of the Virgin sung at Vespers. It is AMA-ZA-ZING! Truly great, and a torment for a young conductor (maybe a torment for an old conductor...)to conduct.  If you are inclined to shy away from Rutter because you haven't heard his compositions beyond church anthems and his Gloria, not to say those are bad but I don't think they're the most exciting (except the Gloria...I like it a lot), you should most definitely listen to Rutter's Magnificat and if at all possible sit down with the score. It's about 40 minutes long, and you can get a score for about 8 bucks.

Well, this post has been long enough. TTYL, TTFN, BFF, or whatever text shorthand you wish to insert...

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The Pup-pups

Tuneful Tuesdays

This week I've listened to The King's Singers a bit. I listened to their album Street Songs, where they have recorded several multicultural pieces. One of my favorite pieces is "Horizons." However, I don't think this is a piece for them. I mean, I like the King's Singers; they've been a premier group for decades and earlier. But I think this piece needs a more beefy tone to it. The group has a wonderful sound for early music, they do 20th century pieces well, and overall they are good at applying certain tonal characteristics to the literature they do. Maybe "Horizons" is a piece for them, but the way they've recorded it on this album is not as primitive in color as I think this piece should be performed. It's a bit too proper...if that makes any sense...

I've also listened to a long time favorite band, Over the Rhine. Ah...good stuff. Particularly their album Good Dog Bad Dog.

Nessun Dorma was in the mix this week. I'm not sure what it is about that piece, but it brings me close to tears nearly every single time I hear Pavarotti perform it. It's just so vocally magnificent for his voice. Maybe this is a "Bandwagon" piece - one that you can talk about a little bit or nod your head saying "I know this piece" if you dont know much about music of this genre - but it truly is one that gets to me a lot.

Now get out there and be healthy by listening to music regularly!

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The Pups!

Here's an update on our doggies!

All things musical...

Send a JibJab Sendables® eCard Today!

The FUNNIEST thing I've seen all day, possibly all month, debatably all year.

Tuneful Tuesdays

I've listened to U of Miss. Gospel Choir - "Lift Him Up," and "Tell Somebody" in particular. The vocal technique is...well, I'm not sure it's healthy. But these two pieces have a rhythmic element to them that I just like. Good stuff.

I sat down with the recording and the score of Jenny McLeod's Childhood. Genius. Hard to get a hold of, but worth it if you can.

I continued my Bach and Mocnik obsessions as well.

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Tuneful Tuesday...except this is Sunday.

Everyone in the world NEEDS to sit down and listen to the Bach Magnificat. You just haven't lived until you do.

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Choral sound...

I don't like the word "blend." I think it's too cheap for what we do. I've heard the phrase "homogeneity of sound" lately, and I like this better; it has a better quality to it. But even this term, I think, bleeds too much - it doesn't really seem to allow each section to stand on its own. What if it's described as a conglomeration of SATB homogeneity of sound, meaning each section "blends," if you will, within itself while retaining its own identity that stands, not too distant, but in the next cubicle from the other sections.

I guess this is the wordy definition for combine, coalesce, mix, or meld.

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Tuneful Tuesdays

So, I'm stealing the brilliant ideas my wife has and having a cute, catchy title for certain blogs...hey, it'll help me blog at least a little bit once a week.  What I'm going to do every Tuesday is blog what I've been listening to a lot or a little during the week, and hopefully it will go beyond choral music...but not too far.

This week I've listened to a couple of pieces by Damijan Mocnik - The Prayer and The Beatitudes. He's a Slovenian composer, and these two pieces are amazing. He has written a lot more than these, but I only have recordings of these two by the Atlanta Singers on their album entitled Antiphonica. On that same album is Missa Antiphonica by Henk Badings, a Dutch composer. All three pieces are amazing.

I've also listened to John Adams' Shaker Loops. Great stuff! I recommend listening to these daily.

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Bach...

I also recommend Bach's Mass in B minor, even if you can't get to it everyday. Once a week might fulfill the void for you.

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Beethoven...

If you haven't had your daily skimming of Beethoven's  Missa Solemnis score, or at least daily listening, I highly recommend you get right on that...

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East Carolina Conducting Institute

This week I have been mesmerized and elated to have conducted a marvelous group of folks in a few pieces of music: 1) Rheinberger's Benedixisti, 2) Dan Forrest's A Basque Lullaby, 3) Robert Lau's Sing to the Lord a New Song, and 4) Ken Neufeld's arrangement of  Morton Bay. The Benedixisti I have already talked about, so I won't say much. Though I liked the piece a lot, I think it could use a final bar line after the 3rd measure. A Basque Lullaby has a different text. It talks about fairies, silver wings, and flower buds, which is set to a GORGEOUS musical setting. Sing to the Lord a New Song is fantastic. I conducted it on our culminating concert on Friday. It's portions of Psalm 148, 149, & 150 set to mixed meter of 7/8, 3/8, 3/4 and it has a middle section of 4/4. It's way fun, and I will definitely be returning to that piece when I get a capable church choir. Morton Bay is a fermata frenzy...I didn't like it as much as I thought I might.

Dr. Bara is going to be a treat...I might not want this next two years to end if it's anything like this past week. He's brilliant and funny and an extremely good and patient teacher. Great combination for any kind of teacher...as a matter of fact, I don't think teachers should be anything BUT that.

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Rheinberger...

stunning composer. I had the most pleasant experience conducting his Benedixisti with a group of musicians from all over the country - mostly North Carolina, but California, Illinois, and Connecticut were represented...and certainly represented well here at ECU's Summer Choral Conducting Institute. I spent my podium time thinking about what my hands and arms were doing. I am guilty of not spending much time in score study because I felt I would neglect my conducting gesture. Perhaps that's a cop out, but I really wanted to focus on delivering a comfortable and expressive gesture without having to stop the choir to explain my musical interpretation. I felt I would have spent more time talking to them rather than showing them.

Good stuff. It's going to be a splendid week!

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New Post? OMG!

Congratulations Mr. Musical Mind, you've managed to not post for an entire semester. Maybe that means my mind is only musical...momentarily? Momentarily musical. That's probably it. My mind is quite momentary these days.

But it's off to East Carolina University to study choral conducting with Dr. Dan Bara, an Eastman School of Music DMA recipient as well as a graduate from the University of Michigan. It will be a challenging two years, but I've never been one to turn down too many of those. After three years of experiencing what teaching choral music is like in the rural high school, I am ready for a lot more guidance.