Latest Blog Posts

         “I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual.” Henry David Thoreau I always try to be grateful. In this season of Thanksgiving, I am more grateful than usual. Perhaps our world is in upheaval but there is one thing I know for sure; there is plenty more Good than […]

    COMPOSITION SPOTLIGHT ~ by Jack Senzig   (The Composition Showcase is a unique resource for conductors.   Choral composers are allowed to share only a few of their best works.  Each week we offer you the best of the best on a silver platter.   The Silver Platter Award winners are works that your choirs will love […]

This September, I was fortunate to be one of the conductors selected by ACDA to take part in an exchange with the ICEP (International Conductors Exchange Program).  I was very excited when I first heard about this program a few years ago, when I was asked to serve on the NW Division Steering Committee for […]

I like to compose choral music for specific projects, around concepts I am working on, and for challenges that occur to me that I find interesting to explore. In other words, I compose out of interest and curiosity, not because it is in any way my vocation, a compulsion, or any of the other reasons […]

But this sorrow and rage will not inflame us to seek retribution; rather they will inflame our art. Our music will never again be quite the same. This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.   Yesterday, so many of us went to work […]

    “There is no place like home.” L.Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz   On Saturday evening, I will give a pre-concert lecture for the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra, our local professional symphony. The concert is a program of Russian Masters with not a speck of choral music to be heard. I will be […]

            COMPOSITION SPOTLIGHT ~ by Jack Senzig   (The Composition Showcase is a unique resource for conductors.   Choral composers are allowed to share only a few of their best works.  Each week we offer you the best of the best on a silver platter.   The Silver Platter Award winners are works that […]

Michael Wu is on the faculty at the Landon School, Bethesda, MD and is currently a DMA student in Choral Conducting at George Mason University. Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Michael!   When I advocate at my school for an accompanist to be in the room with me during my choir rehearsals, I liken […]

  “…A person can develop ‘la grippe.’ ” From Adelaide’s Lament   It is mid-November in the Midwest and you know what that means. A few leaves still cling to branches after their brethren have made a truly lovely, colorful exit. Birds are gathering on trees and powerlines to migrate en masse as soon as […]

          COMPOSITION SPOTLIGHT ~ by Jack Senzig   (The Composition Showcase is a unique resource for conductors.   Choral composers are allowed to share only a few of their best works.  Each week we offer you the best of the best on a silver platter.   The Silver Platter Award winners are works that your […]