Living Creativity

If you follow this blog, you are pointed to occasional TED talks. ACDA Executive Director Tim Sharp pointed me to this incredible resource and I now visit it often.

In this TED talk, fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi talk about things that inspire him, "from '50s pinups to a fleeting glimpse of a hole in a shirt that makes him shout 'Stop the cab!'."

He's a guy who is into everything--his mind makes transfers from one thing to the next . . and he might help you find a little inspiration regarding your next interpretation of choral perfection:

Happy Thanksgiving, Choir

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it . . .
Prone to leave the God I love . . .
Here's my heart, oh, take and seal it for Thy courts above.

Here's one of my favorite choral/orchestral scenes of Thanksgiving. What a moment:

MusicGeek Utopia

Inspired by an anonymous commenter in the earlier post, I give you this (I first posted it here on the ChoralNet Blog)

UPDATE: Ryan Reese has identified himself as the music geek. We welcome you to be blog, Ryan, even if you aren't yet a student at UAB.

What would you say if I told you there was a place on this earth...

- Where children 4 months old start with music classes with parents;
- Where music education at various institutions provides tutoring to infant music groups;
- Where three and four year olds attend music class once or twice a week;
- Where children ages 4 and 5 have specialized music classes;
- Where six year olds start to play many different songs, and learn music by playing games with instruments;
- Where EVERY schools give general classes of music;
- Where music schools in every community provide basic level music instruction connected to the conservatories who provide further studies;
- Where adult education centers are available for those who want to continue or even for those who want to start studying music;
- Where people are able to enroll at a center each year to receive tutoring at all different levels, in everything from classical to pop music;
- Where every community has a school of music and anyone of any age can jump right in and without any cost start to play;
- Where there is an ongoing National campaign to encourage children to love music;

- And where the government covers all expenses?

Would you call this a musical utopia of someone's runaway imagination?

No!

You would call it.... Finland!

See here for more.

Advice for Starting a Music Education Career

I'm spending today prepping for a class I teach in the Spring. I ran across this video that some of you may enjoy.

Another Awesome Slideshow

I read Dan Pink's other book . . . this one looks great:

Career Advice '08

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: advice career)

NO MLK 2009

In case you missed it today, we are NOT doing the MLK concert in January 2009. We'll see what that means for us at the AMEA concert soon.

The Art of Teaching

Found this tonight:

The Art of Teaching

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: teaching quotes)

Is this right? Chamber Singers?

UAB Chamber Singers

Soprano
Crooks, Katie N.
Daniel, Kelsey E.
Foster, Meredith L.
Moore, Brianna L.
Nelson, Terri R.
Pace, Samantha L.
Palmore, Dana E.
Pender, Kristen H.
Prime, Keisha T.
Reeves, Leah E.
Roche, Jacquelyn M.

Alto
Cummins, Whitney S.
Devasure, Audrey R.
Fisher, Jennifer J.
Guthrie, Rebekah G.
Hoang, Thy T.
Holler, Madison C.
Johnson, Jessica E.
Whatley, Crystal L.
Williams, Jasmine M.
Wittkop, Caitlin E.
Smith, Catherine E.
Putt, Staci D.

Tenor
Byars, Nathan P.
Cruce, Michael K.
Daniel, Charles E.
Dees, Michael
Denton, Brian K.
Kunkel, Mark T.
Lightfoot, Robert W.
Lingerfelt, Lindsey H.

Bass
Barbee, Christopher M.
Baxter, Ronald D.
Beatty, Justin H.
Evans, Adam R.
Goodwin, Charles G.
Henderson, Tyler D.
Hyde, Andrew J.
Sutton, Christian

Update complete.

Madi demands an update.  I have now updated.

Developing Resource List

Beginning a resource list . . .

Link to our class discussion tonight.
Programming criteria notes

Kansas State Music List - Required Music for Large Ensembles
PDF List

Chorus Teacher Resource Site: curriculum, more

Florida Music List (being revamped for next year)

Great list. Includes Band and Orchestra.

Alabama vs. Mississippi State 1980

I was at this game in 1980 . . . the last time Alabama was ranked #1 in a contest with MSU:

Mississippi State 6, Alabama 3, Nov. 1, 1980: Bear Bryant’s Crimson Tide were ranked No. 1 and, like this year’s Trojans, were shooting for an unprecedented third straight national title. That dream ended in Jackson, Miss., against a Bulldogs team that had lost to Southern Miss, 42-12, earlier in the season. Alabama had a chance to win it late, but fumbled inside the Mississippi State 5-yard line with 15 seconds left. The Bulldogs recovered with six seconds remaining, but amazingly fumbled on the very next play. MSU fullback Donald Ray King won the furious scramble for the ball on the one-half yard line to preserve the victory.
(source)

Fantastic performance today

Great performance today.

We have choir rehearsal tomorrow and we can talk in detail about it then.

Don't miss tomorrow's rehearsal.

Bizarre Update to Previous News Post

This struck me as bizarre to read about it one day and see it disappear the next.

The story is here.

University of Alabama at Birmingham pulls plans to buy hotel


The University of Alabama at Birmingham withdrew a proposal today to buy a hotel on University Boulevard near Interstate 65, which it had planned to demolish along with an adjoining Waffle House.

UAB had put its request to buy the Medical Center Inn on the agenda for the University of Alabama Board of Trustees meeting. But during a meeting today of the committee that would have approved it, it withdrew the request.

The $3.2 million plan would have allowed UAB, which already owns the land the hotel is built on, to buy and tear down the building, possibly to make room for more athletic fields. UAB spokesman Gary Mans said only that the school was not ready to move forward.

---

UAB news

See here:

The University of Alabama at Birmingham plans to buy a hotel next to Interstate 65 for $3.2 million, according to documents submitted to the University of Alabama System Board of Trustees.


The building that now houses the Medical Center Inn would be demolished and could be used for athletic fields. The board of trustees plans to hear the proposal Thursday.

UAB already owns the land on University Boulevard and is leasing the land to the hotel and adjacent Waffle House.

The school could get the property for free when the 50-year ground lease ends in 2039, but UAB has decided it does not want to wait that long to use the property, according to the documents submitted to the board.

Chamber Singers - Amahl Memo

Amahl memo here

Update: dates corrected.

testing twitterfeed.

This should send my blog to TwitterFeed.

bob dylan on creativity

Bob Dylan on Creativity

From: chrislandry, 7 hours ago ago

Bob Dylan on Creativity

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: presentations slides)

Assorted things Bob Dyland has said about the creative process.


SlideShare Link

Recordings from Friday

From Friday's recording session:

O sacrum convivium (Miskinis)
O sacrum convivium (Miskinis) take 2

Alleluia (Karai)

Garota de Ipanema (Pereira)

Lobet den Herrn
Lobet den Herrn take 2

These are good recordings, but we have better recordings of this literature in us. Come rested and ready to make great music this coming Monday.

Presentation for Birmingham Organ Guild

Here are some notes and files from my presentation on November 11, 2008.

PDF of presentation "Eight ways to make your choir sound better."
powerpoint of 8 ways

tech presentation pdf
tech presentation powerpoint

All about RSS:

I use bloglines.

Weihnachten

Weihnachten
Frohlocket, ihr Völker auf Erden
No. 1 of Sechs Sprüche, Op. 79
Composed by Felix Mendelssohn

Frohlocket, ihr Völker auf Erden und preiset Gott!
Der Heiland ist erschienen, den der Herr verheißen.
Er hat seine Gerechtigkeit der Welt offenbaret, Halleluja!
Frohlocket, ihr Völker auf Erden, Halleluja! (source)

Rejoice, give praise to the heavens and give thanks to God! The Savior has been sent, as was promised by the Lord! He has revealed his righteousness to the world. Alleluia! (translation source here)

Looking ahead: Spring 2010

What I'd love to do:

Sing at the Southern Regional ACDA Convention in Memphis
Memphis, TN - March 10-13, 2010

Perform and compete at the 2010 Florilege vocal de Tours competition May 28-30.

Check out the new requirements for the Florilege competition . . . looks quite challenging. I'm up for it . . . are you?

UPDATE: For those who can't read French, click on the "ENGLISH VERSION" link at the top of the page.

SECOND UPDATE: We have to submit an audition recording and be invited to sing at ACDA - and the French festival as well. Don't think that just because "I'd love to do it" that we actually GET the opportunity to do it. It's just what I'd love to do . . .

Bianca strikes again

Garota on YouTube

I'm impressed with Bianca's ability to find our literature on YouTube.

This is certainly the arrangement we have, and likely the choir that originally sang the work that Dr. Jordan heard . . . we got the music from them.

Hillary plots Sean's demise: uPdaTed

Sean has no idea what kind of danger he's in.

The trip home

Wow what a trip.

And a fun ride home. Madi showed me a crazy video on the way home--I couldn't remember many of the words that might reference it, but I did remember "bun" and "goat".

That was enough to bring it up on google!

Beautiful in Louisville, Excited in Cincinnati

Some good news on the choir tour trail:

1. A fantastic concert in Louisville, KY. The choir sang with excitement, beauty, and warmth. Many friends, former professors, and former choir members were in the audience. Lindy Ebbs, a friend of mine from SBTS, said "they are incredible...so glad i got to hear them and to see you."

We were complimented on our German as well as our Portuguese. We were complimented on our passion and our difficult program.

I was very pleased.

2. We heard three choirs last night: Eastman, Lamar University, and North Texas State. Jerry McCoy's bunch from Texas was the clear favorite of the choir. They sang with incredible power and richness.

We're excited about performing our program this afternoon. We are looking forward to singing a memorized program, performing with emotion, and making great music.

And we'll be home very late tonight.