I had a truly powerful emotional and aesthetic experience while singing this past weekend, the kind I haven't had in a long time. I don't sing with a choir regularly right now, and I haven't for years, and I think the powerful moments I encountered this weekend reminded me how much I miss it. I still get those rare transcendent moments as a teacher/conductor with my students of course, but the ones you get as part of the choir, those moments the chase of which got me into the whole music education game in the first place? It's been a while. The experience in question was the co-premiere of a newly commissioned work, the wealth of nations by David Lang, at the Aspen Music Festival. I was invited to join Kantorei as an auxiliary singer and got to prepare and perform this work alongside my wife and a bunch of other talented musicians in a beautiful mountain town. The work itself is fascinating, and important, with a text unlike anything I've come across as a chora...
I am a high school choir teacher teaching at one of the most diverse high schools in my state. I am in my twentieth year of public school education, and I taught middle school choir for the first twelve. When I taught middle school, our program's mantra was "Embrace the Struggle," and that mantra continues to take on new significance in a time of great turmoil and upheaval.