Bloghttp://davidbrunner.com/blog/en-US2012-02-16T20:18:53ZSquarespace Site Server v5.11.81 (http://www.squarespace.com/)Great Weekend in the Northwesthttp://davidbrunner.com/blog/2012/2/13/great-weekend-in-the-northwest.htmlDavid Brunner2012-02-13T22:09:49ZWhat a great weekend in the Northwest! The Salem-Keizer Middle Schools All-City Honor Choir was fantastic, something I knew in the first few minutes of the very first rehearsal. Each singer was polite, eager, prepared, motivated, bright and fun! They have wonderful, dedicated teachers and supportive administrations. Sincere thanks to David Loney, who coordinated and Kerry Burtis, who hosted the event, and Adam Robinson, an able and collaborative accompanist. While there, I enjoyed breakfast at Bob's Red Mill, a really good capuccino at Portland's Stumptown coffee, lunch at a few of the many funky food trucks, a walk in the serene and wonderful Japanese garden in a light drizzle, and a quick browse at Powell's Bookstore, one of the largest and most interesting and varied I've seen. Really needed an afternoon there with a cuppa Stumptown coffee...

]]>Music in the Low Countryhttp://davidbrunner.com/blog/2012/2/5/music-in-the-low-country.htmlDavid Brunner2012-02-05T12:59:37ZJust home from the South Carolina Music Educators Association state conference in Charleston where I presented two sessions for members of the choral division. Special thanks to President June Kirkland for the invitation and for her leadership, and to Pam Brunson for her expert collaboration at the piano. Enjoyed a wonderful French dinner at 39 Rue de Jean with Sally Albrecht and Jay Althouse and excellent crabcakes at Amen Street. Oh, and a praline. Didn't, however, attend the Jimmy Buffet concert next door to the hotel Thursday night...

]]>Great All-County Chorus!http://davidbrunner.com/blog/2012/1/22/great-all-county-chorus.htmlDavid Brunner2012-01-23T00:42:22ZI spent the weekend with the Hillsborough All-County High School Mixed Chorus in Tampa, Florida and was impressed by their preparation, personal musicianship skills, eagerness, good humor and hard work. It was especially gratifying to hear I AM IN NEED OF MUSIC and IF I CAN HELP SOMEBODY sung so well. Now if I can only stop Robert Ray's HE NEVER FAILED ME YET from swirling around in my head...

]]>FMEA experiences Virtual Choirhttp://davidbrunner.com/blog/2012/1/16/fmea-experiences-virtual-choir.htmlDavid Brunner2012-01-16T22:22:55ZMy friends and colleagues Lori Lovell and Matthew Swope and I presented a session on our Vertical Virtual Choir experience at the Florida Music Educators Association conference in Tampa on Saturday. In addition to the documentary and virtual choir, itself, now being live, the octavo of E PLURIBUS CANTUS is in print from Boosey & Hawkes. All made their debut at the conference. It was a joy to share what we learned from this experience and sense an excitement and interest from other choral teachers about how they might experience technology in the choral classroom in a new way. The FMEA conference is always a memorable event and it was great to reconnect with friends.

]]>Virtual Choir Debuts!http://davidbrunner.com/blog/2011/12/15/virtual-choir-debuts.htmlDavid Brunner2011-12-15T13:24:33ZLast night was the video debut and live premiere of the long-in-the-making “vertical” virtual choir project with Maitland Middle School, Winter Park High School and University of Central Florida singers. The project was the inspiration of Lori Lovell, choral director at Maitland Middle School, who had seen Eric Whitacre’s video and wanted to develop something similar for her own students. She was the inspiring force of “yes we can” behind the project and quickly brought Matthew Swope, from Winter Park High School, and I together at Starbucks for a planning meeting the beginning of the summer. The idea of a vertical team of educators from various grade levels in the same discipline working cooperatively to develop and implement the project would bring to young, emerging and mature singers an opportunity to explore technology in the choral classroom and partner together in an exciting and collaborative venture.

What began as a casual conversation over coffee quickly took shape and form, when Tom Todia, the Course Director of Game Sound at Full Sail University (one of the premiere art, music, and film schools in the world) came onboard to facilitate the software for recording and manipulating individual student audio and video. We wanted a piece that was age and skill appropriate for the youngest singers, yet captured the imagination of the older ones, and a text that told the story of our project and was one that every singer could identify with. It seemed that the best way for this to happen was to write a new piece.

I contacted my friend, musician and poet Scott Lounsbury in New Hampshire, to see if he had anything that might fit the unique nature of the project and two days later he delivered E PLURIBUS CANTUS, a tremendous text about coming together from many places to form one voice, written just for us. It took just another two days to compose.

Many happy circumstances converged with good friend Lynn Peghiny agreeing to play the piano track, former Winter Park High School film student Gabe Gundacker launching a documentary video project about the collaboration, plans for a combined live performance that would showcase the video release, and a session for the Florida Vocal Association at the state FMEA conference. The conductor video and piano audio tracks were recorded in August, 180 singers’ audio and video individually recorded in September and the editing process in the months following.

This project captured the imaginations of our students, brought technology into our choral classrooms in a very real way, initiated partnership between the public schools, University of Central Florida and Full Sail University, and united younger and older singers of generation Y in a way they had not experienced before. Communities ringing, each voice joined in singing.

Last night’s performance was the first time that all of us were in the same room at the same time and what a glorious experience it was! My applause goes to all involved, friends and colleagues Lori Lovell and Matthew Swope, master techno-wizard Tom Todia, and all of our students, whose enthusiasm and love of singing is contagious. Scott Lounsbury has artfully captured what it feels like to be a singer in a chorus. E PLURIBUS CANTUS is an anthem to bands of empowered singers everywhere – from many, comes one song.

]]>My Songhttp://davidbrunner.com/blog/2011/12/4/my-song.htmlDavid Brunner2011-12-04T12:54:50ZRabindranarth Tagore's wonderful text, along with the milestone 20th anniversary of the Syracuse Gay and Lesbian Chorus were the inspiration for MY SONG, which premiered Friday night in upstate New York. The chorus sang with generous spirit and heart and brought to the audience an inspirational program of joyful celebration. Bravo to the all the singers and director Glenn Kime for a wonderful evening!

]]>Caldwell & Ivory in Orlando!http://davidbrunner.com/blog/2011/11/13/caldwell-ivory-in-orlando.htmlDavid Brunner2011-11-13T13:27:45ZJust had a wonderful weekend with friends Paul Caldwell & Sean Ivory, who came to work with Sean Linfors and Tesfa Wondemagegnehu's awesome singers from Timber Creek and Freedom High Schools and my UCF Chamber Singers. We spent the afternoon in rehearsal together and featured their music in concert, singing Carrickfergus, Lay Earth's Burden Down, and the second-ever performance of Da Pacem. What a great time!

]]>"The Best of Florida"http://davidbrunner.com/blog/2011/11/6/the-best-of-florida.htmlDavid Brunner2011-11-06T19:24:22ZThe theme of this year's state ACDA convention at Seminole State College in Lake Mary was "The Best of Florida -- a celebration of the choral tradition in the sunshine state", which featured clinicians, conductors and composers who all had significant ties to Florida. Highlights were the exceptional Charles Robinson, who always inspires and moves me, and a performance by Cora Bella, the advanced women's choir at Dr. Phillips High School in Orlando, co-directed by Andrew Minear and Sandy Hinckley. Though there were wonderful performances all weekend, theirs on Friday night was stunning and their performance of my RADIANT SISTER OF THE DAY is now the standard to which all other performances must be measured. Brava to all! I was also surprised and honored to receive the Wayne Hugoboom Distinguished Service Award for "dedicated service, leadership and consistent examples of excellence in choral music in Florida", Florida ACDA's highest accolade. My sincere thank you to all my friends and colleagues.

]]>October Snow!http://davidbrunner.com/blog/2011/11/1/october-snow.htmlDavid Brunner2011-11-01T23:39:42ZJust back from the weekend in Princeton visiting Al Holcomb and George Grace, where Al is the new chair of music education at Westminster Choir College. Heard bits of both James Jordan’s and Joe Miller’s rehearsals, had a fantastic autumn dinner at One53, and hopped small towns on Saturday during the season’s first wet, heavy snowfall.

It’s been a busy fall with performances of Verdi and Puccini opera choruses with the Orlando Philharmonic, directed by Christopher Wilkins, a performance and recording of Milhaud’s Les Choephores with the university percussion ensemble, and the first ever vertical virtual choir project with singers from Maitland Middle School, Winter Park High School, and University of Central Florida Singers, featuring a new piece on Scott Lounsbury’s original poem for this project, E PLURIBUS CANTUS. I’ll give all the details about this project when the video debuts with a public performance in December.

]]>102 in the Shadehttp://davidbrunner.com/blog/2011/7/31/102-in-the-shade.htmlDavid Brunner2011-07-31T12:17:24ZIt was a hot few days in San Antonio, where the temperature climbed above 100 and the TCDA Directors' Chorus performed BROTHERS OF THE SINGING VOID at the closing concert of the convention. This was one of those really memorable performances -- only the second time it has been performed -- both conducted by my good friend Jonathan Reed. The men brought a depth of maturity to both the sound and musical nuance, a warm, rich and pliable sound, molded by Jon (who I think will come to "own" this piece) and intelligent and sensitive collaborative piano accompaniment by Alan Raines. It was great to reconnect with Alan, see great friends and colleagues, hear Craig Hella Johnson's commissioned work WE ARE -- strikingly beautiful text and music -- and be, again in this unique and inviting city. Unexpected surprises were a wonderful dinner party in the "upstairs room" at the former-convent-turned-new-home-of-Liberty Bar restaurant, and a chance meeting with an undergrad dorm-mate I hadn't seen in thirty-some years. Neither of us have aged!

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