Tag: conducting

Posted on

Concert: Wesleyan University Choir

This evening I have the pleasure of serving as a guest conductor in performance with the Wesleyan University Concert Choir.  The ensemble will be singing a full concert under the direction of Nadya Potemkina at 7pm in the Memorial Chapel on campus.  As a part of this concert, I will be conducting the women and a small instrumental ensemble in Renee Clausen’s Psalm 100.  I have been rehearsing this piece with the choir each week for 30 minutes.  It has been an honor working with them, and I’m looking forward to hearing the rest of their hard work come to fruition this evening!  The concert is free and open to all.

Posted on

Chorus of All Souls Times Review

The concert in which I both sang and conducted this past weekend was reviewed in the NY Times, though not so favorably.  It was a wonderful experience and in many ways, the most bizarre concert I have been a part of.  I sang in two pieces – one an operetta about zombies, the other an early music-influenced doom trio about reanimation of the dead.  The piece I was asked to conduct opened the concert with lots of breathing, shoulder shrugging, and yawning (from the singers, hopefully not the audience!).  Of course any musician would prefer a fantastic review, but to get one at all is exciting.  I have had a surprising fall filled with opportunities to perform new music.  It’s a small, invigorated world that I’ve been honored to be a part of!  Here’s hoping for more strange gigs to come…

Posted on

Brant Piece is “Remarkable”

photo (4)Wednesday’s performance at the Roulette of Henry Brant’s Flight Over a Global Map was deemed “remarkable” by the NY Times.  It was certainly that and much more, as it is taking me days to recover!  All 52 trumpets showed up (and even a few extras) for quite a full house.  After about 40 minutes of Brant’s sonic landscapes flowing around the room, sometimes placidly, sometimes aggressively, the piece received a hearty standing ovation.  It was the final piece of three on the concert, all a part of the Festival of New Trumpet Music.  The first piece was the premiere of an energetic fanfare by John Zorn, and the second was a tribute to Butch Morris’s “conductions” (conducting improvisations), conducted by J.A. “Dino” Deane.  What a thrill to have conducted such an prolific piece at such an important and innovative concert!  I look forward to the next time I get to conduct 52 trumpets, whenever that may be…