Record Release - Rachmaninoff All-night Vigil, 100th Anniversary Recording!

Hello to my nearly 700,000 readers!  Please take a look at my new recording with the Kansas City Chorale and Phoenix Chorale - both multi-Grammy-winning ensembles.  We got to together with 3 multi-Grammy-winning producers at Chandos Records and are releasing this album:  Rachmaninoff All-night Vespers on the exact 100th Anniversary of its premiere.

As of this morning, we are 7th in the iTunes charts, and this is only the SECOND classical album ever offered on iTunes First Play!  Get your copy today on iTunes or Amazon.  The album release date is March 10.  I'll give you updates along the way.  And be sure to join me in a live chat as Minnesota Public Radio hosts a world-wide listening event on the evening of March 10 at www.rachparty.com

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/rachmaninoff-all-night-vigil/id964253884

http://www.amazon.com/Rachmaninoff-All-night-Vigil-Phoenix-Chorale/dp/B00RPNPAU0

Oh, and take a look at who is on the back cover!!!

Fellow Bryan

Greetings from Connecticut!  I'm currently a Fellow at Yale University's Norfolk Chamber Music Festival.  This is one of the oldest music festivals in North America and certainly one of the most renown.  Today, I'll give you a quick run-around and in the coming days I will have photos and stories from my short stay.

Norfolk Chamber Music Festival 2012

Back in March, I applied to Yale to be a part of this.  I was extremely fortunate to be invited and to be awarded the Ellen Battell Stoeckel Fellowship which covers all the expenses during my stay.  I reckon that most who read this do not know what this program is so...

The Norfolk Chamber Music Festival hosts 30 concerts during the summer and invites some of the world's most prolific composers with amazing musicians to share music among friends.  I am currently staying on the estate of Ellen Battell Stoeckell who was one of the wealthiest persons in the world in the late 19th century.  It is hard to explain her wealth, except to say that her estate has many cottages (one of which is my home for the week) and houses, greenhouses, barns, etc.  It is absolutely gorgeous!  It isn't a castle, but what appears to be quaint on the outside is horribly luxurious on the inside.  The White House (main mansion) of the estate looks simple on the outside, but the music room inside is covered with gold leaf walls, Tiffany windows, and contains one of the world's greatest art collections.  The dining room, filled with ancient European furniture, has an elephant skin ceiling.

Ellen Battell Stoeckel White House

Then there is the little music shed out back.  The Music Shed may sound like a nice barn, but before the Panama Canal was built, Ellen Battell Stoeckel had Redwood Trees in California logged, shipped from California around the southern tip of South America and up to New York City, then carried by horse-team a short ways before giving up because the massive size of the logs were nearly impossible to move around the bends of the mountain trails and roads leading into Connecticut.  So, instead of milling the logs into boards and then transporting the boards, she did what any multi-millionairess would do.  She built an entire railroad to her estate just to transport the logs, and she made a quaint little music shed out of the Redwood.

Ellen Battell Stoeckel Music Shed

Music Shed at the Ellen Battell Stoeckel Estate

With stupendous accoustics, the Music Shed is an amazing place and what's more amazing is with whom I'm humbled to share the honor.  When I arrived here, I received a little card saying "Welcome to the Yale School of Music - Norfolk Chamber Music Festival.  This summer, you will be following in the footsteps of musicians like Sergei Rachmaninoff, Jean Sibelius, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Percy Granger..."  Oh, my!  Yes, they all have been a part of this experience - Vaughan Williams premiered his Pastoral Symphony here by the way.

Inside the Music Shed

Inside the Music Shed

As to who is here this year, I am one of 14 singers performing all sorts of chamber music from really old to brand new; from no accompaniment to full orchestra.  There are 10 conductors (including Simon Carrington) and 80 instrumental performers who received fellowships and are artists at the festival including the Tokyo String Quartet (universally recognized as one of the greatest string quartets - after 30 years, they will perform their last concert EVER at this festival next year), several Grammy winners, and the composers James Wood (studied with Nadia Boulanger!), Martin Bresnick (2 time Oscar nominee for music), Aaron Kernis (1998 Pulitzer), David Lang (2008 Pulitzer), and Christopher Theofanidis!  Needless to say, I'm in academic musician heaven!  I have already found many friends - many of them are around my age and have received way too many college degrees than necessary, so I feel right at home in many ways.  But, I am one of only 13 from a public University so I am very proud to represent the University of Missouri Kansas City and for that matter, I'm proud to represent all the "average Johanns" out there making their way into music with the tireless help and heart of many selfless public school teachers.  Musicians were invited from every continent (all the warm ones that is) and from many of the most prestigious music schools in the world.  It truly is an amazing place.

But that's all for now...tomorrow, I will let you in on some of what I have been working on!

Simon Says...

I have certainly had the most amazing week so far.  Last Saturday, I began singing with the Simon Carrington Chamber Singers - for most of the world, that's a big "so what!"

Well, it has been one of the most interesting music experiences of my life.  First, this is a small professional choir.  Its purpose is to record an album this week with singers from all over the nation and world.  Boy am I lucky, they just happen to record in Kansas City - the group is as diverse as possible, but the sound is incredible.  It certainly is amazing.

From the get go, it is clearly apparent that this recording is ultimately important - I expect that they will want to submit it for recording awards and such.  But, Simon Carrington is a sweet genius.  He is an amazing person with a great attitude and bright English accent, but he is to the point - his rehearsals are premeditated and intense in all the best ways.  We begin with careful but difficult warm-ups challenging perfect intervals - to any Joe Schmo, most wouldn't be able to tell the difference between perfect and horrible, but pitch accuracy is vital and just the slightest problems will be noticed in a group like this.

Our rehearsals are long, and frankly, I was not in the least bit pleased with myself after the first rehearsal.  It was apparent that the other singers, all super-professional singers and choristers, were better prepared for the situation than I was - I spent hours Saturday night practicing; ironing out my problems.  Yesterday and today have been a blast however and I don't think many singers would believe the detail that has been discussed such as:

A group of perfectly tuned 4ths and 5ths descending and ascending in parallel motion were not staying in tune with a held high G by the sopranos in a John Corigliano piece.  The problem is that descending perfectly tuned 4ths and 5ths will be flatter than equal temperament because of physics - so we have to purposefully tweak the 4ths and 5ths in very precise ways to make it sound correct.  One person described the problem as "we're singing a B sharp instead of a C" - let that screw with your mind.

Other problematic details include finding your note in a piece opening in a cluster chord, without an opening pitch; which ethnic dialect of Latin to use; the precise length and intensity of a breath, the letter "f", a crescendo, the glottal mechanism for beginning on a vowel, and even our facial reactions (which effect the brightness of the sound).  All of these are controlled to a precise detail and it is incredible to work with such amazing musicians who can pull off the most impressive tasks.

We even have sound technicians in the room yelling at us, even personally at times, what we did wrong and why, all to a very small detail.  If you are a singer, these experiences will teach you so much about discipline in making art - if perfection is ideal, it takes people like this to at least attempt it convincingly.  So, with that said, we will soon have an album to release, and we will have a concert on Friday at the beautiful Episcopal Cathedral in KC (at 7:30) as well as a concert on Saturday at Corpus Christi Church in Lawrence (at 7:30).  We are also recording for NPR today, and Simon will be in a live interview on Kansas Public Radio at 11:00am on Thursday.  I hope you are able to hear us live!

On a different topic, I was able to get a private hearing of the organ at Helzberg Hall at the Kauffman Center from a good friend, Jan Kraybill, who is its caretaker.  It was amazing, an elevator takes you right up into the middle of the organ pipes.  You must walk through the pipes and wood planks winding their way out to the console which overlooks the beautiful hall.  And the sound was startling - I was so excited I laughed uncontrollably through Saint-Saens.  Thank you Jan for the amazing opportunity!