Saturday Afternoon at 57th Street and 7th Avenue

Saturday afternoon was warm and beautiful in New York City and the inside of Carnegie Hall was equally glorious.  What a privilege to conduct again on that stage!  New orchestrations of CLOTH OF GLORY and THE CIRCLES OF OUR LIVES were a highlight for me, on a program that also included CANTATE DOMINO, I AM IN NEED OF MUSIC and SIMPLE BOAT. It was wonderful to have students of mine from the university as part of the chorus, family and friends in from Illinois to attend the performance, and a happy reunion with long time friend Dale Reynolds who was at the piano in the orchestra.  Bravo to Joyce Flanagan, Monique Retzlaff, Ron Sayer and Steve Johns for preparing their choruses so thoroughly for this concert.  They were an exceptional chorus of alert, focused, mature and sensitive singers, whom I enjoyed in rehearsal and was proud of in concert.  Other memorable moments from the weekend were a magnificent dinner at the foot of the big Buddha at TAO, a leisurely evening in Central Park with no agenda, nouveau Mexican at Hell's Kitchen, the revival of Larry Kramer's devastating play The Normal Heart, and my niece's unexpected live appearance onstage on MTV's The Seven.  What more can you ask for?

3 Days - 14 Choirs!

This was an extraordinary week full of singing.  On Tuesday I was in Tampa for the Gulf Coast Youth Choirs' Young Voices Festival.  The festival, begun by Lynne Gackle and continued by Margie Smith, brought together seven choirs for a day of clinics and a massed choir experience, culminating in a grand evening concert.  On Thursday the Rehoboth Road Middle School singers were in town for OrlandoFest and I had the opportunity to interact with them and their director Sue Jacob in a morning workshop setting.  Saturday was the Siouxland Youth Choirs annual Kidzsing in Sioux City, Iowa, established by Shirley Leubke, the dedicated supervisor of music for the Sioux City schools, founder and director of the Siouxland Youth Choirs, and a long time friend.  The day long event culminated in a grand finale concert of 150 singers.  Today I'm on a plane to Orlando with a lot of Disney-bound Midwesterners and their children, listening to Bobby McFerrin through headphones...

Sunday in the Park

It was a glorious Easter Sunday in Central park (and atop the Highline, my new favorite green spot in New York City).  I was in town as a guest of the Wando High School choir from Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina to hear the premiere performance of SEA FEVER at Carnegie Hall.  Their performance was beautifully sung and expertly crafted by their conductor Eric Wilkinson.  What a treat to hear them in this beautiful hall!  They'll sing again tonight as part of a large choral and orchestral concert conducted by John Rutter but, alas, I am already in the Jet Blue terminal at JFK...

If you've not strolled the Highline, it's a really creative re-invention of old elevated train tracks that span nine blocks from 20th street to below 12th along the Hudson river.  Trees, grasses and spring flowers sprout in and around some of the old tracks, with lots of seating and unexpected surprises.

Another first this weekend was a visit to the Rubin museum of Tibetan art in Chelsea, a small and exquisite space filled with treasures.

W.W.W.!

I received a Warm Wando Welcome (I like the sound of that!) from Eric Wilkinson's singers at Wando High School in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina yesterday when I had the opportunity to hear them in rehearsal for the premiere of SEA FEVER, which they commissioned this year and will premiere at Carnegie Hall Easter Sunday. John Masefield's text has many images of the sea that resonate with these residents of the Charleston area and make me wish I had the good fortune to live in a similar place.  Bravo to all and best wishes for Sunday's big performance!

BC3 and JPS

What a wonderful time with the Berks Classical Children's Chorus in Reading, Pennsylvania Monday night!  I traveled north to work with them in rehearsal for their local premiere of SPIRITUAL MUSICK, which will take place May 1.  They are delightful singers who are inspired by their directors Kristin Diehl and Jeffrey Brunner (my long lost cousin?).  An added surprise was spending the night in the Wyndham Abraham Lincoln hotel, whose claim to fame is that John Philip Sousa died there after a rehearsal of Stars and Stripes Forever with the Ringgold band the day before!  No ghosts that night...