When the singers of Sunset and Aloha high schools in the Portland, Oregon area signed up for choir, they probably didn’t expect to be asked to sing in Anglo-Saxon, the distant ancestor of modern English. I’m guessing the same goes for director Chris Rust when he invited me to write a piece for his students to sing virtually, adding, “Write whatever you want.”

The fool! Little did he know that I’ve long been harboring a desire to set passages from Beowulf, the ancient epic poem that I have loved ever since taking a class in college studying Anglo-Saxon poetry in its original language. In the twenty-plus years that I have been toting around my various Beowulf translations and Anglo-Saxon grammars, I have noted many a wrinkled nose and tart reactions like, “Uh, are you reading that for fun?” 

Hey all, Happy December!

​Please join me and Dr. Lynne Morrow for a free Oakland Symphony virtual event this Friday, December 4, 3:00-3:45pm Pacific Time.

Lynne and I will discuss the Mass for Freedom, my five-movement work for chorus and orchestra that Lynne commissioned and directed with the Oakland Symphony Chorus last year. I'll play some original recordings of the five spirituals that form the core of the work, and talk about why I was inspired by these particular songs. 

We’ll end with a video showing of the full premiere performance, so if you weren’t able to make the concert, I especially hope you'll check it out! There will be some Q&A afterward. 

Just RSVP here for a link to the Zoom. 

​I'm excited to relive the awesome experience of writing and premiering this work. Hope to see you there! 

Mike

Have you heard? Today’s a pretty important day. Everyone is feeling pretty anxious. I know I am. And yet, unless you are one of those fantastic people still making calls and sending texts to get out the vote (thank you, people), there’s really nothing election-related to do today. No news worth consuming until later tonight (and maybe not even then). 

So instead, I invite you to consume some beauty. It’s delicious, and good for you too. I’d like to share a few pieces of music (not mine) that never fail to stir my soul. I have been listening to these, usually late at night, when I feel my spirit getting a little parched. The next time you feel the itch to read another poll, or article about “How Trump can still win,” perhaps you can listen to one of these instead. 

Histoire du tango: Bordello 1900, by Astor Piazzolla (3.5 minutes)
Listen on YouTube
Listen in Apple Music
Family-friendly and Safe For Work, despite the title. This piece single-handedly got me excited about learning classical guitar. I’ve been listening to it for twenty-five years and never get tired of it. If you have time, listen to all four movements. 

Beau soir, by Claude Debussy (3 minutes)
Listen on YouTube
Listen in Apple Music
A beautiful arrangement for violin and piano of this gorgeous song by one of my favorite composers. It conveys a welter of emotions that particularly speaks to me right now, but ultimately it is just a magnificent three minutes of music. 

Is Any Afflicted, by William Billings (1.75 minutes)
​Listen on YouTube
​Listen in Apple Music
In honor of America, here is a quick choral piece by our finest composer of the Revolutionary era. The melancholy of the title lasts for about five seconds; the rest is decidedly chipper. The refrain, “singing and making melody,” is one you’ll be happy to have stuck in your head. 

Petite suite: Cortège, by Claude Debussy (3 minutes)
Listen on YouTube
Listen in Apple Music
Turns out I really like Debussy, and this piece for piano-four-hands is a gem. Again, listen to all four movements if you have time. 

Even if you don’t listen to these pieces, I hope you’ll take some time today to listen to any music you love!

With you in spirit and in unity,
Mike

There’s too much going on right now. What this world needs is a video of singers meeting virtually to sing about virtual meetings. 

Please enjoy Zoom, my first official piece as composer-in-residence with San Francisco’s International Orange Chorale. (It’s three-and-a-half minutes long, and there are lyrics in the video description.)

The planned June concerts did not happen, obviously. But I did have a nice Zoom chat with the choir (and two other composers on the program) about the music they had been planning to perform. And in the ensuing conversation I found myself talking about how it can be tough for us as choral composers to write music that really speaks to the moment, because for legal reasons we tend to use public domain text that is, by necessity, old. 

As I signed off the call, I thought: well, of course we can always write our own text. I could do that again. But what to write about...?

You never know what's going to bubble up. I must have needed some levity in my life; at a time when everything feels really, super serious, Zoom is not. But there is a genuine message here: we are getting through all of this together, one day at a time. We couldn’t possibly do it alone. So isn’t it really, really amazing that we have some tools to help us carry on with our business and be with our loved ones whenever we want, even if we are far away? My twice-weekly Zoom chats (and online card games) with my brother in Tennessee and my dad in Florida have helped keep me afloat these past seven months. That’s something to sing about. And I’m really lucky to have this amazing choir to do the singing for me. 

Hurrah for International Orange Chorale, and hurrah for all of you. Hope everybody’s staying safe in these uncertain times. 

Lots of love,
Mike

I’m pleased to announce that International Orange Chorale (San Francisco) has asked me to be their Composer in Residence for this upcoming season. (I said yes.)

You may remember IOC as the choir that premiered my piece O Child in 2018. I was so delighted to get a piece on their program, as I had been to several of their concerts and consider them one of the best choirs in the SF Bay Area—not just the bestly-named chorus in the Bay Area. (They take their name from the official paint color of the Golden Gate Bridge, FYI.)

So you can imagine how happy I am to have the opportunity to work very closely with them this year. The residency will have two parts:

1. IOC will perform my piece A Prayer in Spring on their June program.
2. I will compose a new piece, text TBD, for their fall concerts. 

Please save one of these dates (or both, go nuts) for the June concerts:

Saturday, June 6, 2020 at 7:30 PM, East Bay
Saturday, June 20, 2020 at 7:30 PM, San Francisco

Exact locations TBA—I’ll let you know as soon as I know. I’ll be attending the June 6 concert (but will have to miss the June 20 concert, alas). 

More to come! 

Speaking of O Child: this past December, Accord Treble Choir premiered the women’s chorus version of the piece.

Shortly after the premiere of Mass for Freedom with the Oakland Symphony and Chorus last April, I received an e-mail from the orchestra’s trombonist, Don Benham. Thanks for the cool solo in the Agnus Dei, he said. And would I like to write a piece for his chamber trio, Noyo Consort, for their concert at the Mendocino Music Festival in 2021?

Of course, I said. What’s the instrumentation? Flute, trombone, and piano, he replied. 

Say what? I’d never heard of a flute, trombone, and piano trio. Could this seemingly odd combination of instruments actually sound, you know…good ? 

I tried to find videos on YouTube. I found exactly one, and a not very helpful one at that. I searched Apple Music. No dice. 

It was at that point I remembered I’d been writing nothing but vocal music for several years. I’d grown accustomed to having a text point me in the right musical direction. But here I was in the musical wilderness—no compass, no map, just the idea of a flute, a trombone, and a piano together somewhere, dancing harmoniously in a mythical forest glen. I felt like Link in that old Legend of Zelda commercial: “Which way to go?”

Then I remembered that I do have something useful, something I often forget about when composing starts to feel more like problem-solving: an imagination. Maybe I don’t need a map. Maybe I can just make stuff up as I go along. See what happens. Hack a path through the woods. If I hit a wall, I can turn around and hack another one. 

So that’s what I’ve done, and I have indeed hit a wall—several times. Each time, I’ve learned a little bit more about this unique combination of instruments. And, I think, each new path has been a bit wider than the last, a bit straighter, a bit more promising. 

I’m still on the most recent of those paths, and definitely the most promising so far. It feels like that mythical glen is, perhaps, just over the next rise.

Listen: International Orange Chorale sings 'O Child'

Accord Treble Choir sings 'O Child' tomorrow and December 15 in NYC! 

The Bible doesn't tell us much about Joseph's state of mind when his virgin wife gave birth in a stable to the soundtrack of a heavenly choir, but I've always been pretty impressed that he seems to have held it together well enough not to elicit comment from the Gospel writers. Could he possibly have been as calm as those Nativity scenes always show him to be? Seems doubtful. 

When my son Hank was born in 2009, and then my daughter Eliza in 2012, I feel like I got an inkling of what might have been going through Joseph's head that night. He probably didn't hear the heavenly hosts. He probably didn't notice all those donkeys invading his personal space. He probably didn't care whose name went on the birth certificate, his or God's. He was probably just thinking about that child, his child, perfectly whole in the straw. 

I wrote 'O Child' from Joseph and Mary's perspective, and set it to music in two versions: one for mixed choir and one for treble choir.

San Francisco-based choir International Orange Chorale premiered the first version last December, and I've been holding on to their recording ever since so I could share it with you during the holiday season. They gave a stunning performance! 

Listen: International Orange Chorale sings 'O Child'

My good friends Accord Treble Choir in New York City are premiering the treble choir version tomorrow, December 7 at 6:00pm in Manhattan, and next Sunday, December 15 at 3:00pm in Brooklyn.  I apologize for the short notice, but hope that my NYC-based friends can make it! 

​Full concert info here. Admission is free (donations accepted). ​

Happy summer, friends! 

I'm excited to share some audio with you from the world premiere of Mass for Freedom, this past April 13 in Oakland: 

I've included the first and last movements (Kyrie and Agnus Dei), along with the text. While you're there, check out the great sneak-peek video if you haven't seen it already.

This is a live recording of a first performance, so there are some inevitable bobbles along the way. But these 120-or-so musicians pulled together some pretty tricky music pretty beautifully, thanks to a lot of hard work and the firm direction of Maestra Lynne Morrow. 

I miss working on it and hanging out with all those great musicians. The good news is that Lynne has big plans for the piece in 2020: the Mass is slated to go on tour with the Oakland Symphony Chorus next summer, with plans for performances in southern cities that were significant to the Civil Rights movement (think Selma) as well as Washington, D.C. 

In upcoming posts I'll be sharing other recent premieres: Accord Treble Choir ("New England Song") and International Orange Chorale ("O Child").