"David Brunner's music is lyrical, fresh-sounding and always creative. His music is a favorite with the choir as well as the audience!"
Lynne Gackle
School of Music
Baylor University
Tuesday, June 23, 2015 at 7:49AM Though a week later, I'm posting about a performance unlike any other that my singers had with the Rolling Stones at the Citrus bowl in Orlando. 22 singers. 64,000 fans. Mick at 71. 11:00 pm. Very hot. Very loud. Unforgettable. Did this really happen?
Tuesday, June 23, 2015 at 7:38AM I had a great time at the Tennessee state ACDA conference Friday in Chattanooga. Thanks to president Vic Oakes for the invitation to present three sessions as headliner of the conference. Thanks, too, for the gracious southern hospitality! I'll be back in the spring for the southern division conference. An unexpected surprise was sharing stories with president-elect Jeff Ames, whose Belmont U's choir had sung with the Rolling Stones the night before. My singers had done the same the week before!
Saturday, May 30, 2015 at 10:36AM I was in New York city last weekend for the Heritage Festival at Riverside Church, with choirs from as far away as California, Florida and Newfoundland. While in the city I visited the newly opened, Renzo Piano-designed Whitney Museum and the Mahayana Buddhist temple, took a Sunday morning walk on the Highline and heard a pianist play Beethoven, Bach, Chopin and Satie in the Shakespeare Garden in Central Park. The food highlight was pan fried hand-pulled noodles with chicken and shrimp at "Tasty Hand Pulled Noodles" in Chinatown. A bag of Blue Bottle coffee beans was the take-home. I saw The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, a brilliantly staged adaptation of the book that brings Christopher Boone's experience with the world into vivid focus (and is nominated for practically every Tony award) and Darren' Criss' performance in Hedwig and the Angry Inch. It was crazy and loud.
Tuesday, May 5, 2015 at 7:41PM Just home from a weekend in the beautiful Cumberland Valley of Pennsylvania for the 25th anniversary concert of Cantate Carlisle and the premiere of my FUTURE DREAM. Cheryl Parsons masterfully crafted a program around the theme of imagination, innovation and invention. Making History One Day at a Time featured both the adult and youth choruses singing music of Bob Chilcott, Eric Whitacre, Gwynneth Walker and others, culminating in an intergenerational performance of Future Dream, on a text by poet friend Scott Lounsbury, that speaks to our place in the unfolding of history forward from this day. Thanks, everyone, for this memorable weekend!
Wednesday, April 22, 2015 at 10:59PM It's been a remarkable six months with a bounty of new publications -- eleven in all! Profound thanks to my editor, Scott Foss, at Boosey & Hawkes, for his commitment to bringing so many new works into print this year. Treble works include EVERYTHING IS MUSIC, MUSIC CAME AND STARTLED ME, and BLESSED BY LIGHT (and new treble versions of the popular I AM IN NEED OF MUSIC and VIVA LA MUSICA); SATB works O AULA NOBILIS, SWEET MELODY, a new voicing of THE CIRCLES OF OUR LIVES, and SONGS OF FAITH, my first work in Phillip Brunelle's Cathedral Series; and the SAB setting of Langston Hughes' I DREAM A WORLD. Walton Music also released NOW TOUCH THE AIR SOFTLY, a treble work on William Jay Smith's beautiful text. It's gratifying to see some of my favorite pieces now in print.