Rocky Mountain EMMY Nod: True Concord & Earth Symphony (Runestad/Boss)

So thankful to have been part of the pro choir with True Concord that was nominated for two Rocky Mountain EMMY awards for audio engineering and the composition itself.

Earth Symphony is a work that thinks about what would happen if no humans were left on Earth due to climate making the planet uninhabitable. Jake and Todd left us and the audience with a compelling vision that I was thrilled to help imagine.

Click Here for more information.

“Earth Symphony,” the EMMY® award nominated, ground-breaking choral symphony from GRAMMY®-nominated composer Jake Runestad and librettist Todd Boss, is a 5-part dramatic monologue from the voice of a post-anthropocene Mother Earth. The work imagines Earth’s hope for humanity, her discovery of its power, her ruination at its hands, her lament at its loss, and her recovery. By anthropomorphizing Earth herself, drawing on the familiar earth-mother trope, “Earth Symphony” enables entry into our own ecological shame, guilt, responsibility, potential, and redemption, all from a wide-angled, time-telescoped lens, thereby asking our most immediately pressing environmental questions in an entirely new way.

Enjoy the fifth movement, captured at the premiere for Arizona PBS.

Looking Forward: Fall 2018

As I began the long journey back after another summer at the Bach Cantata Academy in Weimar with my wife, Shannon, I was heading to a new school, new engagements, and new colleagues to learn from and to interact with. Upon arrival I was already preparing for my first performance with the BBCP (event details here) to be performed the Sunday after the second week of classes.

In my church work, I accepted a post at Christ Church Cathedral on Monument Circle in downtown Indianapolis. The responsibilities include weekly Evensong services on Thursdays and singing for the weekly Sunday Eucharist, among other concerts and special events (found under my engagements). Before this particular post begins, I sang at First Presbyterian Church in Bloomington where I met Grant Farmer, DMA (Choral Conducting) candidate at IU. He will use me as soloist for In Ecclesiis by Gabrieli in a concert for choir and orchestra.

As part of joining the HPI at the Jacobs School of Music, I have become a part of Concentus, the instrumental-vocal consort. This semester will feature performances of Medieval Masterworks (Oct 13), French chansons and Italian frottole (Nov 10), and the Schütz Weihnachtshistorie (Dec 7). The performance of Schütz will be my first singing of a Christmas Evangelist as the tenor concertist.

Bach Akademie Charlotte, Emerging Artist Program (June 2018)

In June, the week before my wedding, I travelled to Charlotte, NC to join BACh (Bach Akademie Charlotte) in their inaugural BACh! Fest, a week-long presentation of Bach's music around greater Charlotte. The ensemble is fully-professional, and I joined their ranks as an Emerging Artist, one of their initiatives to help younger singers bridge the gap between schooling and being a professional chorister and soloist. 

The festival presented a weekend concert before I arrived, and then I was asked to join a select ensemble for two Bach Discovery Concerts and for two performances of the B-minor Mass.  The discovery concerts were a chance for audience members to hear a lecture with musical examples on one of Bach's cantatas then hear a full performance of the cantata. The two cantatas presented at lunchtime on Tuesday and Thursday were BWV 75: Die Elenden sollen essen and BWV 76: Die Himmel erzählen die Ehre Gottes with a choir of about 14 with the North Caroline Baroque Orchestra. Cantata 76 sold so well that the performance venue was moved to a larger space. Due to the unfortunate illness of one of the tenors, I was thrust into singing the solo quartet part with the other tenor the day of the performance of BWV 76.

"The Masterwork," Bach's B-minor Mass was performed with as many people in the choir as members in the orchestra with period instruments. The work is as challenging as it is long with few arias interspersed between the hit parade of choruses. I was happy to make the festival a large success for the city, and the 2019 festival program has already been announced.

https://bacharlotte.com/festival