Blog: Open Intervals

Words fail to describe this, really, you just need to watch. Sit back, turn up the speakers, and watch the whole thing.

The one thing you need to know:  this piece is a theme and variations, so it's a musical theme (a melody) that's presented and then Herr Roman Kim plays multiple variations on that theme. You'll still recognize parts of the original theme, but it might be played higher, lower, or with 'extra' notes within the same melody.

Think of it as one car (the theme) with lots of options …

Querido Teatro del Lago,

I had no idea how hard it would be to get to you, and it was worth every painful moment. First the 2 1/2 hour flight to Dallas, then 9 more hours to Santiago, where I had to wait all day (allbeit distracted by downtown Santiago and a delicious Peruvian steak lunch), so we could soldier on another 2 hours on a flight en route to Puerto Montt, where all of us, close to tears for lack of sleep, boarded a bus to ride another half hour to the hotel. Only to be given the news …

Arriving in Chile last week was a pleasure and exciting because no man has schlepped me further around the world and to more places than Helmuth Rilling. He probably doesn't know that, he sees probably thousands of choral singers every year, but really, it's all his "fault." ;)

Or maybe I can give Kathy Salzman-Romey some of the responsibility for this, because she's a mastermind of choral creation.

When I lived in Germany and sang with the Gächinger Kantorei we went to Italy twice (once St. Mat…

St. John Passion by Johann Sebastian Bach

April 16-21, 2014

I'll be joining the chorus to sing this masterpiece under the baton of Helmuth Rilling.

Here is the schedule of events:

April 16th:  Masterclass

April 17th:  Masterclass

April 18th:  Lecture Concert, Frutillar

April 19th:  Concert, Teatro del Lago, Frutillar

April 20th:  Lecture Concert, Temuco

April 21st:  Lecture Concert, Santiago

A couple of numbers:

This will also be my 1st visit to Chile, 2nd visit to South America…

Sunday 6 April 2014

9:30am

The Elm Ensemble

Bach's unique and epic motet Jesu, meine Freude performed during morning worship.

Free and all are welcome!

Christ Church Lutheran

3244 34th Ave S

Minneapolis, MN 55406

612-721-6611

In 2010 I was honored to be a part of a Composer-Librettist Studio, a life-changing 2 weeks of making music as part of a truly collaborative thinktank. (You may remember that Maybe So came out of the C-L Studio.)

Now the Composer-Librettist Studio is happening again and here is your turn to participate as a composer, a librettist, or a singer. Read below and get on it--applications are due on April 18th!

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Here's the short version:

NAUTILUS MUSIC-THEATER ANNOUNCES 2014 COMPOSER-LIBRETTIS…

Some organizations just don't have a large budget, yet they offer great concerts, wonderful experiences, and provide wonderful resume-builders for singers. And we should, for all reasons, sing them and bring music to people. That is, after all, the whole point. So let's look at a few ways that organizations offer and singers accept gigs that are perhaps lower on the pay scale but high on education, respect, and worthiness.

a/k/a How to ask a singer to sing your concert when you't have much money…

It’s time to mythbust [insert dramatic music here] “Singing for Exposure!”

(N.B. this is not singing for free according to the Singing Donation Budget or when you take a lower-paying or free gig because it makes you happy and proud even when it doesn’t fill your pocketbook; this is concert presenters who ask you to sing for a lot of hours for dirt cheap.)

More and more frequently people offer ‘exposure’ as a benefit for professional musicians to sing a gig that’s poorly paid (or not paid at all)…

I once received an email asking if I would sing a series of concerts for what was a very low sum of money. As is typical in negotiations, I countered with an offer that was higher and noted that if my request exceeded their budgeting, I would gladly put them in touch with other singers. Pretty standard.

The presenter said there were no more funds, but s/he could offer exposure, which is when I ended the exchange with a friendly “My fee for this would be $X and I’d be happy to work with you later…

Scansion (pronounced scan-shun) is matching the meter of the words with the meter of the music, so that we have the right ACCent on the right SYLLable, and not an acCENT on a syllABle. (See what I did there?) The accent of the music and the accent of the text must match.

Written for Perfect Scansion: Maybe So

There’s a pretty cool scansion story behind the brilliance that is “Maybe So.” It began as an exercise in scansion and ended up heart-wrenchingly beautiful, an devotion to unrequited love…