“You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.” Ralph Waldo Emerson I love to look out my kitchen window, sipping my morning coffee and watching the birds, rabbits and squirrels caper around my yard. Especially in the spring and summer, it helps me focus on […]
Choral Culture
Choral Ethics: Father’s Day Ruminations
“You don’t have to deserve your mother’s love. You have to deserve your father’s.” Robert Frost As I write today’s blog, I am sipping a glass of iced tea, brewed with mint from my own garden. The mint was the first thing we planted when we bought our house over 30 years ago, but we […]
Choral Ethics: Who Will You Choose?
“Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.” Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart One of my sons is also a musician and when he was quite young and had started lessons, we played a game. It was a game […]
Choral Ethics: Favorite Teacher
“I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.” John Steinbeck With the end of the school year, I have […]
Choral Ethics: Truth to Tell
“Truth is always strange, stranger than fiction.” Lord Byron Writing this blog here on ChoralNet, I receive a good number of emails about Choral Ethics every week. Folks who contact me either want to thank me or to tell me their stories. And their stories are amazing. Some seem outlandish at the outset, but then […]
Choral Ethics: Rock Star
“I won’t be a rock star. I will be a legend.” Freddie Mercury My youngest brother is a conservatory trained percussionist…..which means he’s played for a LOT of rock bands. Classically trained, he liked playing for rock bands more than orchestras. Why? The atmosphere. According to him, most rock musicians are not the spoiled brats […]