The Bond Between premiere, April 2024

Darci, James Blond, and me

After much delay, "The Bond Between" Six songs about women and horses had its premiere April 7th at Northern State University. Commissioned by Darci Bultema, I wrote the music and most of the lyrics. The list of songs is:

1. Three Amigos

2. In Perfect Equipoise

3. Chores

4. The Bond Between (text by Darci Bultema and Michael Ching)

5. Don't Make Me Choose (Between a Husband and a Horse)

6. All is well (text by Josephine Robertson)

Here's a soundcloud playlist of the songs. If you are interested in singing these, just get in touch. I'll get them up on my e-commerce site soon.

The NSU Krikac Auditorium is quite beautiful, with stained glass windows down one side.

 

Promo for Speed Dating Tonight! at Baylor

 

Here's a very nice promo for the upcoming production of SPEED DATING TONIGHT! at Baylor Opera Theater on April 19th and 20th. Wherever I go I try to record some of the really good renditions of songs and add them to the master you tube and sound cloud playlists. Here's the Duet #34-#35, "Is it just me?" sung by Blayne Stonecipher and Monica Malas, who you see briefly in the promo video. This duet is one of my favorites cause it doesn't sound like it's gonna work as a duet until they sing together.

The music school's video guy is Carlos Monzon, who happens also to be a singer. 

Coming up, NOTES ON VIARDOT

NOTES ON VIARDOT will have its premiere next month in April 2024. Dr. Tracelyn Gesteland suggested Madame Viardot as the topic for the opera after we spent nearly a year looking at subjects and discarding them. What a life--dad premiered Almaviva in BARBER OF SEVILLE, her sister was a famous diva, her brother a famous voice teacher. Liszt was her piano teacher and Saint-Saëns her accompanist. She collaborated with Berlioz and Chopin; Georges Sand was her mentor. Clara Schumann was a lifelong friend. Ivan Turgenev was the love of her life. Her salon was one of the most important in Paris. Gounod, Massenet, Faure, Debussy, Dickens, James... it goes on and on. I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to write an opera about her.  

You can download the perusal score on this blog, with the link on the column on the right.

 

Speed Dating Tonight! at Baylor Opera Theatre

SpDT! cast doing the Baylor "bearclaw"

Last week I had a lovely three days at the Baylor Opera Theatre. Thanks to Jeffrey Peterson, Jen Stephenson Baker, Kathleen Kelly, and Morgan Montfacier for making it happen. 

Every time I go to visit a school, I try to record some notable performances for the SpDT! reference audios and videos. This time one of the ones I got was #34-#35 "Is it just me" here recorded by Monica Malas and Blayne Stonecipher. 

The Baylor performances are April 19 and 20, 2024 at the wonderfully named Roxy Grove Hall.

 

The vocal recital transformed

Jamie Barton and Kathleen Kelly with

TOI's Mark Craig after the concert in Taos 

Last week in Taos, I heard what I think was my favorite recital/concert ever. Taos Opera Institute (TOI) presented mezzo Jamie Barton with pianist Kathleen Kelly at the Taos Center for the Arts. The program was wide ranging yet never incoherent. It included German, French, and Italian sections, with the duo providing friendly, inviting commentary rather than formal program notes. This gave the event a welcoming, cabaret feel, which drew in the audience in a way that I've never seen in a program that had the likes of Purcell, Schubert, and Mahler. The closing English group of Libby Larsen and Jake Heggie songs had us enraptured in a way which said "and now let's add the extra layer of instantaneous, immediate comprehension to go along with the musical and vocal beauty and perfect ensemble supplied by their earlier foreign language selections. Songs in English should always provide that... like adding a wondrous fourth dimension.  I arrived at the concert something of a jaded skeptic and left with a sense that Barton and Kelly have shown us how to transform the old "art song recital," into something vibrant, vital, and fun.

Bravo to TOI for bringing this program up the mountain.