For those who always ask about seeing one of my performances:

Click the link above (or access it from norfolkmusic.org) at 4pm EST today (August 18).

I’ve been in Norfolk, Connecticut, this week working with Simon Carrington and 23 other professional singers from around the world at the Yale Summer School of Music / Norfolk Chamber Music Festival Chamber Choir & Conducting Workshop. The culmination of our work is a concert this Saturday featuring works from the Renaissance to today.

I’m posting the program below, but one of my favorite pieces is a world premiere by Yale composition student Loren Loiacono. It’s a setting of text taken from the last few paragraphs of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening.

Lieto Godea  |  Giovanni Gabrieli (c. 1555-1612)

Peccantem me quotidie  |  Cristobal de Morales (c. 1500-1553)

Venite Populi, Venite  |  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1778)
with string quartet and organ continuo 

Lover’s Recantation  |  Thomas Arne (1770-1778)
with soprano Jessica Petrus, flute, strings, and harpsichord continuo 

Sehnsucht, Op. 112, No. 1  (arr. Kugler)  |  Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
with piano 

Uri Tsafon (2002)  |  John Christian Rommereim (b. 1959)
with string quartet and piano 

The Awakening (2012)  |  Loren Loiacono (b. 1989)
with soprano Jessica Petrus, flute (doub. piccolo), clarinet (doub. bass clarinet), horn, trombone, percussion, and string quartet 

Psalm 148 (2008)  |  Judith Weir (b. 1954)
with trombone 

Song for Billie Holiday [from Afro-American Fragments (2009)]  |  William Averitt (b. 1948)
with four-hand piano 

Aesop’s Fables (2008)  |  Bob Chilcott (b. 1955)
with piano

  1. The Hare and the Tortoise 
  2. The Mountain in labour
  3. The Fox and the Grapes
  4. The North Wind and the Sun
  5. The Goose and the Swan

(Source: capitalismconcarne)

9 months ago  Notes (6)

For those who always ask about seeing one of my performances:

Click the link above (or access it from norfolkmusic.org) at 4pm EST this Saturday afternoon (August 18).

I’ve been in Norfolk, Connecticut, this week working with Simon Carrington and 23 other professional singers from around the world at the Yale Summer School of Music / Norfolk Chamber Music Festival Chamber Choir & Conducting Workshop. The culmination of our work is a concert this Saturday featuring works from the Renaissance to today.

I’m posting the program below, but one of my favorite pieces is a world premiere by Yale composition student Loren Loiacono. It’s a setting of text taken from the last few paragraphs of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening.

Lieto Godea  |  Giovanni Gabrieli (c. 1555-1612)

Peccantem me quotidie  |  Cristobal de Morales (c. 1500-1553)

Venite Populi, Venite  |  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1778)
with string quartet and organ continuo 

Lover’s Recantation  |  Thomas Arne (1770-1778)
with soprano Jessica Petrus, flute, strings, and harpsichord continuo 

Sehnsucht, Op. 112, No. 1  (arr. Kugler)  |  Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
with piano 

Uri Tsafon (2002)  |  John Christian Rommereim (b. 1959)
with string quartet and piano 

The Awakening (2012)  |  Loren Loiacono (b. 1989)
with soprano Jessica Petrus, flute (doub. piccolo), clarinet (doub. bass clarinet), horn, trombone, percussion, and string quartet 

Psalm 148 (2008)  |  Judith Weir (b. 1954)
with trombone 

Song for Billie Holiday [from Afro-American Fragments (2009)]  |  William Averitt (b. 1948)
with four-hand piano 

Aesop’s Fables (2008)  |  Bob Chilcott (b. 1955)
with piano

  1. The Hare and the Tortoise 
  2. The Mountain in labour
  3. The Fox and the Grapes
  4. The North Wind and the Sun
  5. The Goose and the Swan

(Source: capitalismconcarne)

9 months ago  Notes (6)

For those who always ask about seeing one of my performances:

Click the link above (or access it from norfolkmusic.org) at 4pm EST this Saturday afternoon.

I’ve been in Norfolk, Connecticut, this week working with Simon Carrington and 23 other professional singers from around the world at the Yale Summer School of Music / Norfolk Chamber Music Festival Chamber Choir & Conducting Workshop. The culmination of our work is a concert this Saturday featuring works from the Renaissance to today.

I’m posting the program below, but one of my favorite pieces is a world premiere by Yale composition student Loren Loiacono. It’s a setting of text taken from the last few paragraphs of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening.

Lieto Godea  |  Giovanni Gabrieli (c. 1555-1612)

Peccantem me quotidie  |  Cristobal de Morales (c. 1500-1553)

Venite Populi, Venite  |  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1778)
with string quartet and organ continuo 

Lover’s Recantation  |  Thomas Arne (1770-1778)
with soprano Jessica Petrus, flute, strings, and harpsichord continuo 

Sehnsucht, Op. 112, No. 1  (arr. Kugler)  |  Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
with piano 

Uri Tsafon (2002)  |  John Christian Rommereim (b. 1959)
with string quartet and piano 

The Awakening (2012)  |  Loren Loiacono (b. 1989)
with soprano Jessica Petrus, flute (doub. piccolo), clarinet (doub. bass clarinet), horn, trombone, percussion, and string quartet 

Psalm 148 (2008)  |  Judith Weir (b. 1954)
with trombone 

Song for Billie Holiday [from Afro-American Fragments (2009)]  |  William Averitt (b. 1948)
with four-hand piano 

Aesop’s Fables (2008)  |  Bob Chilcott (b. 1955)
with piano

  1. The Hare and the Tortoise 
  2. The Mountain in labour
  3. The Fox and the Grapes
  4. The North Wind and the Sun
  5. The Goose and the Swan

9 months ago  Notes (6)

"So we were rehearsing Mozart’s Requiem and the director reminded us to use Germanic Latin… Later we pulled out the Brahm’s Ein deutsches Requiem and I asked ‘would you like us to use the Germanic Latin for this piece as well?’ He [the director] pulled his glasses down to the tip of his nose and said ‘We will be using the Germanic German’”."

A story told by one of my new favorite music teachers in Prince William County Schools. (via mamsiehead)

I am a big fan of the historically accurate use of Germanic Latin (and Germanic German haha, although I do not recommend the performance of Brahms’ Requiem - ever).

1 year ago  Notes (3)

If you live in Hampton Roads and you are free Friday or Saturday night or Sunday afternoon this weekend, you should come hear yours truly and the Virginia Chorale in a performance of From Cupid’s Bow.

The program includes works by Thomas Weelkes, Jean l’Heritier, and Orlando di Lasso, as well as Eric Whitacre’s Five Hebrew Love Songs, Johannes Brahms’ Liebeslieder Walzer, excerpts from Alice Parker’s Songstream, and a cappella arrangements of hits by The Beatles.

If you’re interested let me know and I’ll make sure we have a ticket for you.

1 year ago  Notes (2)

I don’t care what anyone says. Brahms isn’t easy to sing.

He likes to write vocal music that sounds simple. And often much of it is simple, but he has a habit of incorporating an unexpectedly tricky note or passage in just such a place place that if you miss it, everything else becomes impossible to sing.

1 year ago  Notes (3)

Best recording of the Liebeslieder Walzer?

I don’t like it, which is going to make it harder to learn, so I will be needing the aid of a good, clear recording.

So do I go for a solo quartet or a full chorus?

1 year ago  Notes (1)

Utilizing my VSO comps for the first time since I started singing with them on Saturday.

Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 3

Should be good.

BUT ALSO A WHOLE GODDAMN BRAHMS SYMPHONY. At least I get to end the evening on a high note with the Rachmaninoff.

1 year ago  Notes (1)