Latest Blog Posts

It is not as inscrutable as you might imagine. Sometimes what you’re most afraid of doing is the very thing that will set you free. – Robert Tew There are certainly enough instructional papers, blogs, and seminars about the IPA, but they beg some significant questions: How long does it really take to become proficient […]

#60: “Moon Goddess” by Jocelyn Hagen
Text from Enheduanna
SSA, 4-hand piano, percussion

If you are looking for a Fierce and Feisty selection for your women’s choir, this is the one! Written in 2011 for the ACDA Women’s Chorus Commissioning Consortium, this work by composer Jocelyn Hagen has brilliant drive and musical energy. And it has text to match, sourced from Sumerian poet Enheduanna. This is a can’t-miss selection for your women’s or adult-treble ensemble.

“God creates, I do not create. I assemble and I steal everywhere to do it – from what I see, from what the dancers can do, from what others do.” George Balanchine I follow many composers, musicians, performers and many other artist types on Social Media. Before COVID-19, I did so to keep up with […]

The realities of our new “normal” are becoming more apparent each day as we end one semester and plan for the way things might look in the fall. Many things have changed and, as the “visionary adapters” that we are, we have taken things in stride and made necessary changes to our teaching, our communication, […]

This week and in weeks to come I will be sharing this introduction to the ancient method of solfège with the ChoralNet community. The series has accumulated more than 15,000 views on Off The Podium since originally published in 2015, and when it was run in its entirety in my Choral Director magazine column over […]

The June/July 2018 issue of Choral Journal features an article titled “Choral Elitism is Real: What It Is and What We Should Do about It” by Chris Maunu. You can read it in its entirety online at acda.org/choraljournal. Click “Search Archives” and choose June/July 2018 from the dropdown menu._____________________________ I have been a high school choral director for […]

Greetings, friends and colleagues. As Choral Directors, we stand in front of large diverse groups of people from different backgrounds, races and religions. With that comes a beautiful diversity of opinion. For people in our position, we should be a beacon of peace and reconciliation in a world coming apart at the seams. Seem dramatic? […]

“The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.” William James My late mother, an opera singer, used to tell me that the music was the easy part; it was all the other stuff surrounding the music that was difficult. She was right; I would not have enough material to write […]

How do we actively engage students in lifelong music learning and participation? 1. By becoming aware of our teaching and instructional habits in the classroom. Teaching “out loud” encourages teachers to put the ensemble right in the middle of the rehearsal process with you. To let your students hear you think, hear you question, and […]

I have read the New York Times every morning for much of my adult life, although lately there have been mornings when I have put this activity off until later in the day…there just hasn’t been much good news. It’s difficult to find articles that aren’t directly or indirectly related to our current shared situation. […]