It has been a unique spring to say the least – I cannot remember a time that I have been busier with writing, guest conducting, concerts, teaching, and traveling. I am constantly humbled by colleagues both near and far who have selected “American Visions” for performance with their group. While there are program notes in the score, I feel led to provide the full story that sparked this piece into being. Some of it was written over my life-time, but I did not know how to say it. It is a piece about America, a piece about my father, and the composer I am trying to become. Read more…
As I hinted at earlier this summer, the May 6th concert at Mercer was great. The students delivered some wonderful performances of music by Julie Giroux, Quincy Hilliard, Andrew Boysen, Willie Owens, Brian Balmages, Scott Watson, and Patrick Burns. The other part of the equation was the willingness of a great friend and colleague make an idea a reality with a big impact. Dr. Joe Pisano (over at Mustech.net – It’s Visionary!) helped me to use Skype and bring three of those aforementioned composers (Boysen, Balmages, and Watson) right into the concert hall to introduce their piece. Dr. Pisano has started a four part series over at Mustech.net that I highly encourage all of you to check out. In case you have not been keeping up, Dr. Pisano is really becoming the leading figure for helping all of us do smart, simple things with technology that can pay big dividends in our professional career. This amazing evening was to our knowledge the first of its kind, and can hopefully be a vision of the future as we all make better use of technology to allow our students to have a greater connection with the music that they perform. You can read more about this amazing evening by clicking here.
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