New Choral Piece Sweet Stillness

Sweet Stillness is a seven minute plea for peace, kindness, and grace through humility. The music creates a neutral space to contemplate, center, feel, and extend grace to one another in a world currently full of darkness and strife. The work is dedicated to Dr. K. M (Kay) Knittel “who still lights the world around us.”

Sweet Stillness for soloists, mixed choir, and ensemble Texts by Barthold Heinrich Brockes and Joel Phillip Friedman Catholic University Orchestra and Concert Choir Noel Nascimento, conductor The Hartke Theatre 3801 Harewood Rd. NE, Washington, DC Free but reservations suggested Reserve your free ticket here

Upcoming pre-concert talk on Mahler 5 for the FSO – April 26th.

This Saturday night, April 26th I’m giving a Fairfax Symphony Orchestra preconcert talk introducing Mahler 5. 70 minutes of intense, extraordinary, and meticulously  crafted music. It’ll be a blast and I can’t wait to hear what Chris Zimmerman does with the orchestra!

I’m hosting a new informal post-concert series “And In Closing…” with the Fairfax Symphony and Maestro Chris Zimmerman

I have been asked to host and help create a new series of informal post-concert conversations “And In Closing…” with the Fairfax Symphony’s Music Director Chris Zimmerman and added guests from different artistic disciplines. Instead of doing the usual concert/repertoire-specific talks, we aim to create a sense of community with the orchestra’s thriving audience and to bring artists from varied field together to converse about fun and important issues in today’s arts world. Our next events with be March 22-23rd. That weekend’s program includes Varése, Britten, Shostakovich, and Mozart. Join us!

Latest writing piece: an interview with Pulitzer Prize winning composer Steven Stucky for the Choral Arts Society of Washington

As you know my website motto is: Constructing thought, one note at a time.  I came up with this it seemed to comprise the many things I do: composing, speaking, teaching, writing, and thinking about music. I love being in the thick of things. So, it’s been a bit since I’ve constructed thought one WORD at a time, so I thought I’d post a link to my recent interview of Steven Stucky, Pulitzer-prize winning composer, for the Choral Arts Society here in DC.  The article was in conjunction with the East Coast premiere of Stucky’s Take Him, Earth commissioned for the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy’s untimely death. CAS just held a terrific concert, the Stucky paired with Verdi’s powerful Requiem, at the Kennedy Center. CAS also added a visual element to the concert: images of Kennedy’s life and times tastefully coordinated with their performance.