Too Much Excitement!

I have some great news to share with the world!   First, I just found out yesterday, that I have been awarded the Ellen Battell Stoeckel Fellowship from Yale University!  With recommendations from some amazing people and through a rigorous application process, I was selected to be one of the singers performing at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, which is held at Yale University in August.  The Festival is North America's oldest music festival and attracts many of the world's leading composers and musicians.  Essentially, I will be performing - and rehearsing - the whole time.  This fellowship is a prestigious honor to me, since it recognizes academic achievement in a real way - one that collaboratively makes music with the world's leading musicians.  Plus, I've never been able to be of interest to an Ivy league school, so now I can gratuitously flaunt my new-found Connecticut accent - obviously in boat shoes and fluffy cravat!  I am very excited and I hope that this will help me in many ways.  http://music.yale.edu/norfolk/

Second, I was asked early last week by the Kansas City Symphony to sing as a soloist on their upcoming Education Series concerts.  These concerts have been sold-out since sometime in November.  I will be singing at Helzberg Hall in a unique situation.  If you are old enough to remember, Leonard Bernstein offered Young People's Concerts on national television from the Symphony Hall at Lincoln Center.  He had the New York Philharmonic play famous music for children who would come and learn about what a whole-tone scale was, or what instruments played a duck or hunter in Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf.  Bernstein would begin each piece by (passionately) describing what was going to happen, and then the Symphony would play the piece.  Kansas City is doing the same thing, and it is a great way to teach music, inspiring many children to dream big, and dream to play in a symphony and in one of the most magnificent halls in the world.

Not only that, it is almost completely free.  The children and teachers get books, a semester-long curriculum, instruments, a concert ticket, busing to the hall, for only $5 per child.  Also, the orchestral scores are all free and the kids participate in the concert in various ways.  It's an amazing program produced and provided by both the Kansas City Symphony and Carnegie Hall - the children have spent all semester learning many pieces including pop music, Brazilian dances, classical music like Beethoven's Fifth, The Blue Danube, The Toreador Song, even an Arvo Pärt piece.

Helzberg Hall - Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts
Home of the Kansas City Symphony

With all that said, I was honored and excited to be asked.  I had a meeting this afternoon to find out exactly what I will be doing, and IT IS INTERESTING - some of it is kind of funny too...but, I will keep you on pins and needles in the meantime.  Soon, I will be providing more information, details, and perhaps video, but since it is at the Kauffman Center, you never know who might have a dressing room nearby - one time it was Placido Domingo, another time Itzahk Perlman, then Yo-Yo Ma, and Juan Diego Florez, but as luck would have it, this time it'll be with royalty - a certain Queen of Soul.  Well, I'll leave you hangin' but I'm excited to give you some video and pictures of everything going on in the coming weeks!

A Famous Hat

Third, the 34th Summer Choral Institute (sponsored by the Master Teacher Institute for the Arts) ended its application process and we completely shattered all of our applicant records.  I am the Administrative Director of the Institute and it is one of the most amazing weeks of my year. More students applied this year than ever before - students representing 12 states and many, many schools.  I am so excited to bring together some of the nation's most talented high school singers and some of the most amazing conductors and musicians that I've had the high privilege to know for a week of awesome, life-changing music.

Fourth, the Kansas City Vocal Institute is holding it's online auction through Monday.  Items include an autograph of a Star Wars score by John Williams, and lots of other autographed items by Melissa Etheridge, Chanticleer, Norah Jones, Betty White, the Kronos Quartet, Donald Trump, Joyce DiDonato, Juan Diego Florez, Zubin Mehta, Martina McBride, and Yo-Yo Ma.

Finally, I have an intense upcoming schedule.  Tomorrow, I will attend the Barber of Seville at the Kauffman Center with the KC Lyric Opera, then perform in the other hall at the Kauffman Center on my birthday (Saturday) with the Conservatory Orchestra and Singers - performing the famous Rite of Spring and Chen Yi's new Chinese Myths Cantata, which features me in the fourth balcony singing whole-tone scales in complete darkness, in Mandarin (Chinese) no less, with eleven other singers!  And, on Sunday I will be in Salina, KS singing in a church service and an afternoon concert to commemorate the new sanctuary at University United Methodist Church.  The following week, I will be the tenor soloist for Haydn's Lord Nelson Mass at Washburn University in Topeka, sing at a UMKC graduation in Kansas City, and sing the Canadian National Anthem at a Sporting KC game.  (not to mention that the KC Symphony stuff begins in earnest after that!)

So, it's a busy and exciting time!!!  I will try to bring you videos and pictures of all the excitement.

Muriel Kauffman Theater - Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts
Home of the Lyric Opera of Kansas City

Livestrong Sporting Park
Home of Sporting KC

Inspiration

I had the great privilege of being the Administrative Director for the 33rd Summer Choral Institute this last week.    I have to say that it is absolutely one of the most incredible weeks of the year. What's even more exciting is how we are so lucky to witness so many young musicians discovering for themselves their true potential.  My responsibilities were to organize everything about the week - so I have been working for hundreds of hours throughout the year.  The counselors were incredible and equally passionate to give the students the time of their life.  Also, Dr. Julie Yu and Dr. Joshua Oppenheim, the conductors, are not only incredible teachers of music but of life as well.  Lastly, but not leastly, we all give our gratitude to The Master Teacher Institute for the Arts and Bob DeBruyn for their passion and donations so we can bring these students to the Institute on full scholarships.

The students this year were phenomenal.  They are all high school sophomores and juniors.  Now, I listen to a lot of music, and I do not say "phenomenal" very often.  But I just want to give you a clip of one of their recordings from this week.  Remember that they are high school students.



I was so impressed by the recording - the maturity of their voices are years ahead of most other kids their age.  If you are interested in purchasing a copy of their concert, please contact choirs@ksu.edu - they are $10 each.

We had kids apply from many states and had several fly in from Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, Little Rock, and other locations as well.  Just to let you know a little bit more about it, SCI is primarily a choir camp, but it's main focus is leadership.  Some of the very best singers in this part of the country participate and perform a concert at the end of the week, but they grow as a person tremendously throughout the week.

The students must learn their music proficiently and pass a screening on the first day to attend.  We have had to send home kids the last couple of years because they did not know their music well enough.  During the week, they attend rehearsals, recitals, concerts, masterclasses, seminars on jazz and the Alexander Technique - but that's just the musical side of things.  They also participate in a high ropes course, go to an art museum, swim and surf at a water park, have a talent show, play games and bowl, and do many other things as well.  I think for most, it is the first time that they meet so many people their age that share the same passion as they do.  Everyone lets their guard down and spends their time finding new best friends and dreaming big dreams about the future.

Certainly the best feeling that I have is seeing the confidence of the students at the end of the week, perhaps living the life that they want to live for the first time.  Musicians are criticized all the time for being foolish or wasting their potential, by friends, family, and the world in general.  This can be really depressing and very damaging to someone's self worth.  We all have stories about it.  But I am very confident that after this week, these students won't let anything keep them from their dreams.  It's so exciting to see how excited they are about themselves.

------

On another note - I hope you listened to the lovely/horrific recording I posted last week.   I got to thinking a little bit and wanted to give a few more examples over the coming weeks on the art of singing.  As you know, operatic singing is the highest art of the solo voice.  Unfortunately many of your favorite pop singers aren't very good, when it comes to singing well.

Now, I don't believe in talent first of all - and neither do scientists - because the truth is that it is all about the time and work that you put into it.  Actually I feel it's kind of derogatory when people tell me I'm talented, because sometimes it comes off as if I didn't have to work at all for it - they are horribly mistaken.  Many pop stars just haven't put a lot of time into their voice, and they don't need to.  If they changed their voice, even for the better, they would probably lose money.  Part of it has to do with your physical make-up, but no one pops out of the womb singing Pagliacci - it takes lots and lots of work.

(climbing off my high horse)

Let's hear some examples of pop singers, even pop-opera singers, singing everyone's favorite aria, Nessun Dorma.  They may all sound pretty to you, and that's a good thing.  It's just that the quality of their voices are vastly different, and that is what matters in the art of singing.  We want to hear maturity and depth, no straining, nasality, or breathiness.  To use a food analogy,  many people like McDonald's but it's obviously not as great as Grandma's secret family recipe that has been honed and perfected for years.



Finally, I am so excited to go to the US National Team soccer game tomorrow, here in Kansas City, at the brand spankin' new Livestrong Sporting Park.  I will also be singing the National Anthem there at a Sporting KC game as well as the Canadian National Anthem when they play the Vancouver Whitecaps on June 25th.  Let me know if you want to go, because I may be able to get some tickets....maybe...

SCHEDULE COMING SOON...