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!

Tomorrow (in SF) and Friday (in Berkeley), Pacific Edge Voices will premiere two of my choral works, settings of Robert Frost's 'In Hardwood Groves' and 'Stars', at their holiday concert, The Promise of Living.

If you don't yet have your tickets, you can enter "composerguest" at checkout for a $10 discount. (It pays to know the composer.) 

Buy your tickets here!

I attended rehearsal last week, and PEV is doing a beautiful job with this new music. It's a busy, busy time of year, but I sure hope you can take some time out to come hear these pieces draw their first breaths. 

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.

This school year, I've had the good fortune of serving as the kindergarten music teacher at Ecole Bilingue de Berkeley, where my son attends (and my daughter will attend this fall). It would be difficult to overstate how much fun it is to play music with these kids. I always leave class with a smile that lasts for days. 

Yesterday, May 25, we had our end-of-year show for the parents. We performed our very own original tune, "Things We Love," with lyrics supplied by the kids, and the French song "Le petit chaperon rouge et le chasseur" ("Little Red Riding Hood and the Hunter"). Learning French alongside the kids has been a delightful perk of the job. 

The kids rocked it. See for yourself! 

All I can say is that the future of classical music is in excellent hands. 

On Sunday, May 21, I served as one of three judges for the American String Teachers Association SF Chapter's competition finals, here in Berkeley at the Crowden School. Students of violin, viola, cello, double bass, guitar, or harp compete in two divisions: Youth (age 14 and under) and Junior (age 15-18). (There is also a Senior division that did not hold a competition this year.) This was my second time judging the ASTA finals, in addition to helping select finalists from a preliminary round of video auditions.

When I decided to dedicate the lion's share of my composing time to choral music back in fall 2014, I knew it was likely to be an exercise in delayed gratification. It takes time to build a body of work, establish relationships with choirs and directors, and shepherd a piece all the way from the sketchpad to the concert stage.

I'm happy to report that the first of my recent choral crop has been sung publicly for the first time. The choral ensemble Full Circle, under the direction of Jennifer Yocom, premiered my setting of Robert Frost's "Stars" at concerts in Bradford, VT and Lyme, NH on April 28 and 29. 

"Stars" is one of four pieces in my cycle of SATB a cappella settings of Frost poems, from his collection A Boy's Will. I call this cycle Hymns from a Meadow: four seasons in a secluded, sacred spot in northern New England. So I am beyond delighted to have this first Hymns premiere take place in the Upper Valley of VT and NH: Frost's stomping grounds, and my favorite place in the world.  

My heartfelt thanks to Jennifer Yocom and Full Circle for taking a chance on this new work, and for their hard work in bringing it to life!

Coming up later this year—here in my current Bay Area home—my frequent collaborators Pacific Edge Voices will premiere the entire Hymns from a Meadow, performing "In Hardwood Groves" and "Stars" (Fall/Winter) this fall, and "A Prayer In Spring" and "Rose Pogonias" (Spring/Summer) in spring 2018.  

Berkeley choir Pacific Edge Voices will be performing my arrangement of "Hawai'i '78," the beautiful and haunting song recorded by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, in their Jazz & Pop concert this June 3, 8, and 11. 

I have loved Iz's recording of "Hawai'i '78" for many years, and created this large-group a cappella arrangement while in Maui two summers ago. I'm delighted PEV will be bringing it to life for the first time. 

Concert tickets and info

Hope to see you at the show!