Latest Blog Posts
Monday Motivation: Concentration
“The ability to concentrate and to use your time well is everything if you want to succeed in business–or almost anywhere else for that matter.” ~Lee Iacocca
Stick Time: Clever Concert Presentation
The addition of sound effect and movement is a good way to enliven a choral concert. In our current media-driven world where we are all bombarded by non-stop video images (TV screens in the grocery store!? Please.), people seem a little uneasy when they are challenged to contemplate music without a visual component. I hold […]
Stick Time: Challenging Tuning
Tuning. It's a minute-by-minute challenge, isn't it? Some selections sound as though they shouild be easy to sing in tune, but they reveal themselve to be quite difficult. Then there are works that are almost relentless in the demands on the singers. Here we listen to an example of a work that requires tremendous tuning […]
WCG Update: Cincinnati Pops to Headline Opening and Closing Ceremonies
CINCINNATI (OH) – This was Erich Kunzel’s vision when he led the charge to bring the 2012 World Choir Games to Cincinnati USA. The beloved Cincinnati Pops founder and icon, who died Sept. 1, 2009, dreamed of watching the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra in the Opening Ceremony of the 7th World Choir Games at U.S. Bank […]
Stick Time: Communicating Powerful Poetry
It occurs to me that we sometimes underestimate the emotional capabilities of those in the choirs we conduct. Take for instance men’s ensembles. I love “Brother’s Sing On,” the various college fight songs, and the other rousing standard repertoire for the men’s chorus. Listen though to the text of this too-seldom heard work by Lee […]
CJ Replay: What Are the “Most Important Pieces?”
In an conversation with famed conductor Eric Ericson published in the Choral Journal, interviewer William Wyman asked, “If you were advising a choral director as to what you felt were the important pieces that he or she should be attempting to study and perform, what might some of those pieces be?” Ericson’s reply: “It […]
Boy Soprano Faces Discrimination
YANKTON, SD – It’s every student’s dream to earn All-State honors. From the hardwood to the stage, those opportunities abound across KELOLAND. But one Yankton student was turned away because his talent breaks the rules for a state-sanctioned event. The music flowing from these walls on Roberts Street is enough to make anyone want to […]
Stick Time: A Performance Idea
Always the master showmen, in this performance from an ACDA National Conference the King’s Singers show us how a selection from the late Renaissance can come to life in a very clever manner (While yes it may look spontaneous, you can bet this was meticullously rehearsed). Who know we could do so much singing and […]
Lessons from Mistakes
Two publications recently caught my attention related to the concept of learning from mistakes. In a September 14 New York Times article entitled “What if the Secret to Success Is Failure?”, Paul Tough references the work of David Levin, co-founder of the KIPP network of charter schools, who spent years investigating how to provide lessons […]
Tuesday Treat
Here’s a little something for you from the kind folks at SoundWaves (the firm responsible for recording the concerts at ACDA National Conferences). Soundwaves would like to offer a gift of one free CD. Simply browse MEtunes, choose any album, and use the coupon code below for a free choral CD when you check out. Contact […]