I Am the Raccoon!

What a joyful experience to partner as Composer-in-Residence with Doreen Rao on Ravinia Sings!, her inaugural project with the Ravinia Elementary School in Highland Park! Her masterful teaching brought choral singing to children in grades 1-5 for the first time.  The school mascot is the raccoon, so what better piece to compose and dedicate to these young singers than "I Am the Raccoon"!  Great fun.  Thanks Doreen and the little raccoons!

Jemison Visiting Scholar

It was a great joy and honor to be at the University of Alabama-Birmingham as a Jemison Visiting Scholar in the Humanities and to interact with student conductors and singers. Thank you to chair Patrick Evans, Director of Choral Activities Brian Kittredge, choral faculty colleague Elizabeth Fisher, and my great friend of many years Jeff Reynolds. I loved our public conversation and watching him conduct my O MUSIC with Brian's Concert Choir was the perfect ending to my visit. I could have asked for nothing better.

My Return to the Grande Prairie Singers

It's been nearly forty years since my tenure as conductor of the (then) Park Forest Singers, a community chorus in Chicago's south suburbs, and this fall I return as Artistic Director and Conductor of the (now) Grande Prairie Singers.  I'm happy to "come home" to this group of enthusiastic and dedicated singers and look forward to sharing the joy of singing with our audiences.

A Gorgeous Brahms Requiem

A beautiful evening last Friday in Chicago's Millennium Park. Carlos Kalmar brilliantly paired Joel Thompson’s Seven Last Words of the Unarmed with the Brahms Requiem. Gorgeous singing! Many of the violinists played instruments from Violins of Hope, instruments once owned by Jewish musicians before and during the Holocaust.  My last of the summer's symphony concerts with chorus.  It has gone so quickly!

Riccardo Muti's Last

Last weekend Riccardo Muti conducted performances of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis in Orchestra Hall, his last as Music Director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.   This conductor, chorus and orchestra brought incredible artistry to this large and long, monumental work.  Even in the highest seats of the Flynn Gallery the music soared!