Paula and Francesca and I hit the road today for Lake Placid. We are so excited about hearing the new Northern Lights Choir that Helen Demong has put together. They will be singing some spirituals and also premiering my “Voices of Timbuctoo.” Of all the new works in my Emancipation Again Series, this one is tied to a place more than the others. This piece tells the beginning of the...
Read MoreMy thanks to Gerry Floriano and the Spectrum Women’s Choir, Gwendolyn Gassler and the Concentus Women’s Choir, baritone soloist Jon Turner and drummers Jon Canning, Ted Canning and Yahaya Alhassan for a wonderful premier of the new Dante piece! Earlier in the concert, the two choirs performed a setting of an excerpt from Dante’s “Paradiso” by Giuseppe Verdi. Verdi had good reason to...
Read MoreBirmingham, Alabama University of Alabama I arrived in the deep South yesterday to snow storm shut down big chunks of Birmingham. While my hosts have asked me if I brought this weather with me from Upstate New York, I assumed that they arranged it for me to make me feel welcome. I never want to underestimate the power of Southern hospitality. Despite the weather, a bunch of high school singers...
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