"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, August 23, 2022 at 4:29PM It's one of those rare occurrences. I wrote this setting of the Latin text of the Lord's Prayer on July 11th. Beginning AND ENDING on July 11th. It was that feeling of being "in flow", where one loses track of time and place. Sometimes things happen very quickly, without explanation.
Monday, July 11, 2022 at 10:54AM Just finished two new works for a cappella mixed chorus on texts by Kazuaki Tanahashi. SNOWFALL is a setting of his English translation of Ryokan's poem. AGAIN, AGAIN... is a setting of his original poem in both Japanese and English. I first met Kaz at the 20th anniversary of Doreen Rao's Choral Music Experience Institute in York, England in 2006 where he worked with the choristers on peace-making activities, led morning meditation and painted on works by the visiting five composers -- Imant Raminsh, Lee Kesselman, Francisco Nunez, Rupert Lang and me. His performance paintings on my THE WORLD IS FULL OF POETRY and A LIVING SONG hang in my home and I think of him.
Sunday, June 12, 2022 at 12:40PM I was happy to be a guest of Matthew van Dyke on his Choral Catalogue Podcast, which recently went live. We talked about my Yo le Canto todo el Dia, a popular work that has been around for twenty-six years and still has worldwide performances by choirs of all ages -- young and emerging choruses and older, experienced singers. We also chatted about composing, rehearsing and performing, and some "would you rather" questions. Thanks, Matthew, for the invitation and a fun hour of conversation!
Sunday, June 12, 2022 at 12:32PM I had the opportunity to hear choirs from around the country at choir festivals in Chicago and Kansas City this spring and it was almost like normal. The Chicago festival was a one-day event and the first time in two years that I heard, adjudicated, and worked with choirs face-to-face. It felt familiar, yet different at the same time. Though there were still some masks and an awareness of personal distance, there was also a sense of freedom, released from our little on-screen boxes. In Kansas City I heard 75 choirs over 4 days, a real luxury of live performance.
Monday, March 21, 2022 at 2:42PM I was happy to attend both the Midwestern and Southern Region ACDA conferences in February. The last I attended in person was the 2020 Midwestern convention in Milwaukee.
Covid 19 was already being talked about – we knew a little about it -- and there were fewer handshakes and fewer hugs than I was used to at choral gatherings. We were a little careful. I remember a greeting song sung by a featured choir in one of the sessions. We were all invited to get out of our chairs and join in, singing our way around the room and shaking hands with those we met. Most of us bumped elbows. We smiled and laughed a little, nervously. It already felt strange. There were more empty seats between us in the concert hall, fewer rows with good friends all scrunched in together. Socially distanced before that was a thing. The next week everything changed as we know it.
It was good to be back together in a way that we hadn't for two years. Beautiful live (though masked) performances were thoughtful and moving, each choir bringing messages of reemergence, reconciliation and reconnection, and dinners together and reminiscences brought a new awareness of what we mean to each other. We had all forgotten how much we missed this.
Welcome back, everyone!