Check out Accord Treble Choir premiering my setting of Walt Whitman's "To Soar in Freedom and in Fullness of Power," June 9 in New York City. (It's less than 3 minutes.)

They nailed it. More premieres below!

[Newsletter readers, view in browser to hear streaming audio, or download here. About 6 min. long]

The Albany (CA) High School vocal department, led by director Mary Stocker, commissioned me to write two pieces for them this year. The first, The Gift to Sing, is a soul-pop tune premiered in March by the AHS "All-Choir" (i.e., all the singers in the dept.—a big group!)

​The second, Our Names, is a whole different animal. Sung by the more select Chamber Singers, in a more classical (but still contemporary) style, the text for 'Our Names' was penned by a student in the ensemble, Harpreet Kaur.

Lucky for me, the Chamber Singers professionally recorded several pieces this spring, and 'Our Names' was one of them. 

You can download the recording for free on the Albany High Vocal Department website. Their work is thoughtful, precise, and profound—far beyond their years. I'm very proud and grateful to have worked with them. 

More on the piece, including text, here.

This past year, Pacific Edge Voices became the first choir to perform the entirety of my choral cycle Hymns from a Meadow (poems by Robert Frost).

I penned some thoughts on the piece for PEV's blog ahead of their spring concerts, in which they beautifully performed A Prayer in Spring and gave the world premiere of Rose Pogonias. 

Accord’s director, Liz Geisewite, sang soprano in the premiere of “A Prayer in Spring” last summer at the Choral Chameleon Institute. She commissioned me to write this piece for her fantastic ensemble of nine women, and specifically for this concert, titled On Wings. New Yorkers, I hope you can make it to a show! 

And having the choral experience I missed the first time around (when I was busy playing guitar in the jazz band—and my rock band, the immortal Flibbertigibbet).

This spring will see the premiere of three commissions I’ve been busy composing for high school choirs. More details forthcoming, but suffice it to say, I am very excited to be writing for some seriously talented students. Quick performance info: 

March 20, 2018
Premiere of 'Voices from the Freedom March' (mash-up arrangement of six iconic spirituals)
Sunset High School Concert Choir, Portland, OR
Christopher Rust, director

March 28, 2018, 7:00pm
Premiere of 'The Gift to Sing' (poem by James Weldon Johnson)
Albany High School All-Choir, Mary Stocker, director

​Albany Veteran’s Memorial Building
1325 Portland Ave., Albany, CA 
Free admission (donations graciously accepted)

May 2018
Commission for Albany High School Concert Choir, text and more precise info TBD

A composer-led choir will be performing my setting of Robert Frost’s “A Prayer in Spring” this Wednesday at San Francisco Conservatory of Music. I’ll be there—hope you can also make it on short notice. The details:

Wednesday, January 24, 7:30pm
SF Conservatory Recital Hall
50 Oak St., San Francisco
Free admission

'A Prayer in Spring' was the piece I developed at the Choral Chameleon Institute this past summer, and will be conducted by one of my fellow composers from the Institute, Bryan Lin. 

If you miss this one, you can hear 'A Prayer in Spring' (along with the world premiere of 'Rose Pogonias') this April 12 and 15 at Pacific Edge Voices’ spring concerts in SF and Berkeley!

Purchase your tickets to hear Pacific Edge Voices perform two pieces from my new choral cycle, Hymns from a Meadow. One is a world premiere, the other a West Coast premiere; I hope you will come share in the birth of these new works! 

Thursday, December 7, 7:30pm
The Green Room, 401 Van Ness Ave, San Francisco
(Mindy and I will be attending this one)

Friday, December 8, 7:30pm
The Crowden School, 1475 Rose St, Berkeley
​
The Hymns bring together four sublime Robert Frost poems to depict an imagined meadow in northern New England as it changes through the four seasons. (PEV will be performing the remaining two Hymns in their spring concert.)

Along with works by Copland, Lauridsen, and others, December's winter-themed concert will include: 

In Hardwood Groves (World Premiere)
A mezzo-soprano soloist stands in for the poet, watching the autumn leaves fall and pondering nature’s endless cycle of death, decay, and rebirth. The chorus chants the relentless fall of the leaves, “over and over again,” and underlines the central message of the poem with a solemn refrain: “They must go down…They must go down into the dark decayed."

Stars (West Coast Premiere)
Written in the depths of winter, Frost’s stars “countlessly congregate/O’er our tumultuous snow”. They watch humanity dispassionately, “like some snow white Minerva’s snow-white marble eyes,” sharpening the already keen edge of the night’s “wintry winds.” 

​Pacific Edge Voices, under Lynne Morrow's direction, puts together very engaging programs and sings them beautifully. They've been performing my work for ten years now, including a number of premieres, and I'm delighted they've chosen to sing the Hymns.

Listen/watch as PEV performs my arrangement of "Hawai'i '78" this past June. ​​

I arranged Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's haunting rendition of this song for Pacific Edge Voices to sing as a full group (SATB with soloists) in this year's Jazz & Pop concerts. Here is a recording and video of one of their excellent performances: June 11 at the Berkeley City Club. 

​Ah, me. June 23—July 1 in Brooklyn was a glorious time. For those magical eight days, I had the distinct pleasure of participating in the Choral Chameleon Composition Institute, led by the venerable conductor/composer/organist/spiritual guru Vince Peterson. 
 
Alongside eleven other composers and two conductors, I spent every day fully immersed in choral writing, with daily classes in ear training and music analysis, master classes with a variety of choral pros, private lessons with the fantastic composer (and fellow SF Conservatory alum) Jeffrey Parola, and best of all, several days reading and rehearsing original compositions with the amazing professional core of Choral Chameleon.

I brought two pieces with me: “A Prayer In Spring,” which I originally drafted two years ago but had basically left in the bottom drawer until this week, and “O Child,” an original Christmas carol that I finished only a week before the Institute. The choir sang “O Child” in a rehearsal for me, giving me a chance to record it for later revision, but “Prayer” became the main course, and the piece that ended up in the final concert.