“This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.” Leonard Bernstein For the month of December, I’m rerunning some Choral Ethics blogs from years past with a few modifications where needed. Two of my MOST REQUESTED December Blogs will be making their yearly appearances, including […]
Leadership
The Conductor as Yogi: It Does Not Go Unnoticed
We made it through the semester. Our return to in-person music making. I have been reading our singers’ reflection papers, their one-page response to three prompts: What did you learn musically? What did you learn beyond the music? What suggestions do you have for the future? On music, they wrote about re-learning how to sing […]
The Conductor as Yogi: Living Seasonally
I am intrigued by the wisdom of living seasonally. Taking cues from the shifts in nature, in daylight and temperature and foods that are fresh and available. Living in harmony with the rhythms of nature goes a long way towards making us feel well. Instead of fighting the cold or the heat, the dampness or […]
Choral Potpourri/Choral Ethics: Being Grateful
“I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual.” Henry David Thoreau I always try to be grateful and during this Transition Thanksgiving, I remain grateful. Our world is still in upheaval, much less than last year but not quite back to normal, but there is one thing I know for […]
Choral Potpourri/Choral Ethics: Choral Ethics for This Time
“My sorrow, when she’s here with me, thinks these dark days of autumn rain are beautiful as days can be; she loves the bare, the withered tree; she walks the sodden pasture lane.” Robert Frost Today’s Choral Ethics blog is a revisited blog from last fall. During the tough times we are going through with […]
The Conductor as Yogi: Why I Yoga
We are busy people. We have full lives; we live at the center of a wheel that turns constantly, with professional, family, health, spiritual, and personal spokes of responsibilities, challenges, and joys. We bounce between feeling full and satisfied and just plain busy with lots of activities that don’t seem to be organized into anything […]