Latest Blog Posts

David Griggs Janower pointed me to this work by Melissa Dunphy.   Here is the excerpted text as it appears in the new choral work: “Good morning, committee. My name is Phillip Spooner and I live at 5 Graham Street in Biddeford. I am 86 years old and a lifetime Republican and an active VFW […]

It is a pleasure to have an office below the archival collection of the American Choral Directors Association. Our ACDA archives are fertile ground for anyone interested in doing research on the choral profession and choral music education (hint, hint to any doctoral students reading this). In preparation for an address I recently gave to […]

Here’s an interesting video for your Thursday morning.  Perhaps put your coffee and muffin down if medical videos make you at all squeamish.   A view of the tongue working, as through the eyes of the MRI, of an opera soprano, and a beatbox emcee.     The video was featured at the Sounds and […]

Last week I took my banjo to a technician to have the neck adjusted (the “Reply” button below this blog is where you can deposit your banjo joke. I think I’ve heard them all, so if you post one, I hope it is a good one.) Why was I doing this? Because tone quality and […]

The ChoralNet community that follows this blog may be interested in this:   Number of Hits ChoralNet gets per day:     Somewhere between 3000 and 4000.  Monday and Tuesday are the biggest day.     Notes from recent Copeland Technology Session:   For any of you that have attended my technology sessions at ACDA […]

 What an incredible choir and piece of music – perfect for your Saturday listening needs:   “Salve Regina” by Josep Vila i Casañas    

Acting off a Dan Pink twitter link, I read the article from Harvard Business Reivew called the 12 Things Good Bosses believe.   I thought it might be worthwhile for choral directors, so I changed up some of the words and made it more applicable for choir directors.  See what you think, and give me your […]

Recent findings from IBM’s Institute for Business Value survey was published last week in Business Week magazine and demonstrate one competency leadership values above all others. I share this common value related to the work of the American Choral Directors Association.     On my desk at the ACDA National Headquarters are nine ink pens, a […]

I was at Podium 2010 and had a few moments to visit with Leonard Ratzlaff, a prominent Canadian conductor at the University of Alberta.  I’m a big fan of Len and have blogged about him before.   Len is a special kind of conductor.  When he performs Monteverdi, he makes you want to perform Monteverdi. […]