Music in the Park

It has been quite a summer in Chicago's Millennium Park, where the Grant Park Symphony hosts its annual eight week music festival of free concerts.  Mendelssohn, Haydn, Lauridsen, Vaughan Williams, Arvo Part, Broadway, premieres of new works and performances of lesser-known music by women and people of color, the Grant Park Symphony Chorus, Anima/the Glen Ellyn Children's Chorus, the Lyric Opera, Walt Whitman's Soul Children of Chicago, and more... and more.  Oh, and Riccardo Muti leading the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony!  It doesn't get much better than this.

Pater Noster

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.

Poems by Kaz

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.

Yo le Canto todo el Dia on the Choral Catalogue Podcast

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!

Face-to-face Festivals

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.