Latest Blog Posts

More choir controversy in the news, this time about singing religious songs: A student has left his high-school choir after the group sang an Islamic song which contained lyrics in praise of Allah. James Harper, a senior at Grand Junction High School in Colorado, protested when the after-school men's choir chose to sing 'Zikr', by […]

I blogged about IPAnow! a couple of days ago.  The program is a wonderful tool that transcribes texts (Latin, Italian, German, French) into International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) symbols by applying rules utilized by scholarly lyric diction textbooks.    Since then, I had the opportunity to have an email exchange with Kelly Turner, the creator of […]

Most readers of this blog agree that music should be considered a core subject taught in schools, and it's not really a surprise that most professional musicians think so too. But it's always nice when a high-profile celebrity endorses it on national media, so Placido Domingo's flat statement that "music education should be mandatory" in […]

I first wrote about IPANow! on September 30, 2010.  It is a remarkable Windows based program that transforms well known languages (Latin, Italian, German, French) into IPA (International Phonetic Alaphabet) symbols.  It works this way – input text from any of those languages (or copy and paste from an internet source – and then hit […]

The very active Composers Community on ChoralNet has developed a new feature: the Composer of the Month, profiling living composers of choral music, written by editor Jack Senzig. This month’s composer: Michael McGlynn. I’m not actually that interested in Irish music, to be honest. I know that lots of people love that element of my […]

Roses are red, violets are blue, we hope you enjoy, jazz, choir, band and orchestra too! Please enjoy up to $30 off any size order for the following CDs and DVDs. Use the code LOVESOUNDWAVES at checkout. CDs are $16 and DVDs (available for NAfME All-Eastern and All-Northwest) are $30. Shipping for all orders is […]

     As adjudicators, we have often been asked, “What do you expect from the students performing, the teachers directing, and thee festival workshop host or hostess?” The answer to all three is: attitude, expertise, and consistency. These are criteria we apply to ourselves.      First and foremost we project, and demand in return, a positive […]

No twentieth-century composer of choral music has experienced more copyright infringements than William L. Dawson. In the past three years more than 10 new publications have appeared on the market in which arrangers have either consciously or subconsciously “borrowed” compositional and textual ideas invented by Dawson. Melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic motives from Dawson’s arrangement of […]

Let Señor Puente hep you get movin’ on this Sturday!