Rocky Mountain High

Just home from an incredible experience with 290 singers from ten choirs at the Sing-A-Mile-High Children's Choir Festival in Denver.  Jena Dickey and her team have created an exceptional experience for young singers which I have enjoyed conducting on two occasions.  This year's festival brought together choirs from Colorado, California, Maryland, North Carolina, New Jersey, Nevada, and Montreal, Canada, for three days of rehearsal and a grand concert Sunday night in the University of Denver's beautiful Gates concert hall.  A highlight of this year's festival was collaborating with Yvonne Farrow, who created choralography for Ken Berg's Solfege Waltz and a fanciful, theatrical vehicle for the premiere of my new setting of Lewis Carroll's JABBERWOCKY.  The chorus took on the character of the townspeople, the mayor, and the young hero, and took flight en masse as the dreaded Jabberwock!  Kudos to all of my new friends and their directors who brought energy, engagement and excitement to the festival.

Other memorable experiences while in Denver included hikes in the Red Rocks area and on Mount Falcon, and an incredible Sunday morning alone -- except for crowds of butterflies and the rushing river -- in the grandeur and quietude of El Dorado Canyon; Neopolitan pizza with Mike Grant and Steve Bartu at Marco's Coal Fired Pizza; Indian fry bread tacos and green chili at Tocabe (an American Indian Eatery); Intelligentia cappuccino; and more bottles of water than I can count.