SEVEN days and counting!
So excited about the start of our new season next Friday. Everything is really coming together nicely now. I am both terrified and exhilarated about the idea of singing a solo a capella concert. But in seven days, that's exactly what I'm going to attempt. For a vocalist, that's like walking a highwire over the Grand Canyon with no net, no balance beam, and no little blue umbrella. My Naked Voice concert is going to be twice the highwire act as well since I'm going to be presenting all of the music for my Wild Archangel album, much of it for the first time.
Rosalind Russell once said that acting is like standing naked on a stage and turning around slowly. This is a bit like that.
And I'm sure everyone's curious about whether or not that will even be entertaining. I am a bit concerned about that myself. But that's mostly my own insecurities talking and I have to remember the fact that I have good pipes and I know how to use them pretty well. I have good pitch and my choir director from Rollstone Church Katherine Dodd is impressed, so that's good enough for me. So I'm going to take the leap.
I always have laid it all out there. That's always been my way, I think. I'll tell you everything about me, even the "bad" parts, and THEN we'll see if you still like me. Generally people do still like me. My "bad" parts are mostly in my head anyway. But I think I second guess people's sincerity in liking me if they don't know everything about me. As if I worry that since they only see the good parts, of course, they like me. But in order to trust it, I feel compelled to make sure that they know the parts that make me feel insecure, vulnerable. I procrastinate. I am lazy. I need a babysitter 40 hours a week to ensure production (boy there's an uncomfortable confession!), if I lived alone my house would probably descend into nothing but a storage facility with trails through the debris. I really am bad at things like filling out forms and mailing them in. I am constantly 5 minutes late and constantly saying to myself that this is the last time I'm ever going to be late for anything. I am forgetful. I forget so many names, but I always remember when I liked someone. I can look at them and know that I know them from somewhere and that I really like them, but no other details come to mind! I usually have to be honest about it.
So those are some of my bad things. Do you still like me? lol...
My concert next Friday night Naked Voice* *Clothing not optional is an exercise in acceptance. I want people to see me and hear me and understand exactly what message I hope to communicate in the world. And without fans to cover the dancer, what then? With no band, no special lights, nothing but the reaching beauty of the Christ Church cathedral and the acoustics it provides, will you still like me? I must know before I can go any farther.
So with all this exposure I have an opportunity to include my community in the development process of my Wild Archangel album. I am going to issue lyric booklets and a score sheet. Literally. I want them all to adjudicate their experience. The can score the lyrics, the melody, the vocal presentation, and make suggestions, comments, or let me know how it made them feel. I really want to know these things.
For the past five years I have been writing music. My first song was presented at my very first symphony appearance. On February 14, 2004 I headlined with the Thayer Symphony Orchestra. It was the first time I had the opportunity of singing my own song choices and singing them my own way. A concert vocalist can sing anything he wants! I'd been in musical theatre for years just so I could get paid to sing. That was true and it worked, but it took that appearance with the Thayer (right in my very own hometown) to realize how much I wanted to be a different kind of artist.
Please Don't Forget Me When I'm Gone was a song that I had heard snippets of in my head for several years. The title phrase and its melody were present since at least 1996. But it was not part of a full song until I was offered my first headline. The awareness of that upcoming appearance, along with added inspiration from theatre director & choreographer Russell Garrett who assisted with my preparations for the appearance, I finished writing the song.
It was to have been presented with the full orchestra. But the orchestrations I commissioned didn't come in on time. So I cut that song from the list. I was crushed, but it also gave me an easy out. I didn't know if I had any business writing songs and I was worried if it would be a big disappointment.
I had brought out every bell and whistle for this 60-minute appearance with a professional symphony orchestra. I rehearsed a 40-member choir who wore borrowed robes from Burlington High School, Russell Garrett choreographed 6 nine year old girls and me a touching softshoe for the song "Glory of Love," Cherie Ronayne and Tim Smith performed a beautiful pas de deux while I sang the heartbreaking "Where Have You Been?" A song I have never performed since. I brought several support vocalists with me as well bringing the total count of humans added to this one-man headline to somewhere around 50. And did I neglect to mention that I also flew in a 9-piece, several hundred square foot overlapping rendition of George Seurat's pointlist painting "Sunday on the Isle of La Grande Jatte"? And that was for my encore. I apparently assumed I'd get an encore. There's a confession! I get the shivers now thinking of the utter nerveless presumption one would require to design and build a set for an encore. It did come out beautifully, though, Mary Beth Makara and Ira W. Leighton III did the majority of the painting and I did the shadowing. It was very dramatic to have the large paintings descend one by one over the orchestra and chorus as we sang the moving finale to Steven Sondheim's Act I of Sunday in the Park with George. I'll post some pictures of it on my facebook page. Look for the album named "Thayer Symphony Valentines Day 2004."
So all of this leads me to the song. I had cut the song from the list and we did not rehearse it with the orchestra, of course. But on the day of the concert, I decided I just had to sing it. Even though the song was listed in the penultimate position of the song list - a crucial point in maintaining the audiences' attention during an evening - and I had no orchestrations, and the preceding song was some enormous number involving the choir and all, I knew I just had to sing that song.
I went to the Maestro's dressing room and spoke with both he and his companion Donna. I told them the story about the song and the real reason why I had to do it. A story I am not rendering here. They agreed that it must be performed and that their concert pianist Mr. Allen Mueller could sight read it. However, I cautioned them that I had written this piano part myself, with no experience in writing a piano part - I can barely play the thing - and I had written it in a free computer program I had downloaded off the internet that didn't allow you to compose key changes unless you bought the full program. So, for those of you who know something about music, Mr. Mueller played the whole thing transcribed in the key of C with accidentals written in to denote the FOUR modulations that occur in the piece. But they said that it was okay he usually arrives early and he can look it over and make notes. It would be alright and it was worth it.
However Mr. Mueller chose this night to arrive exactly 5 minutes before the downstroke. I ran along side of him as he came down the corridor from the parking lot explaining everything as we went backstage and right onto the stage with him as he put his music on the concert grand with the audience watching everything. He said he would do his best. I thanked him for his graciousness. And I think he was exceedingly gracious considering the circumstances. He still is exceedingly gracious each time I see him. I'd pinch me hard in the arm if I were him.
So the concert proceeded and it was finally time for my half of the concert to begin. We had a lot of technical problems with the sound. There was horrible feedback that startled the audience on a regular basis. It startled the performer too. But in spite of that it went very well and the girls did a beautiful job on "Glory of Love" and Cherie and Tim were breathtaking. The chorus seemed so happy to be involved. I had to musically direct them myself and so I fear I did them a disservice, but they were troopers. But now it was time to sing Please Don't Forget Me When I'm Gone for the first time. My first original song at my first symphony headline and after all the bombast of the previous song, I had to follow it with nothing but my voice and a sightread piano part written by an amateur. God bless Mr. Allen Mueller.
It was terrifying, but I didn't fall off the stage, didn't forget my lyrics, and my fly stayed up that whole time. (All things, by the way, that have occurred to me in my chronicle of stage experiences.)
When the song was over there was a spark of silence and then a rush of applause. It was sustained and carried on to the point where I found myself embarrassed by the praise of it. I suddenly felt embarrassed that we were wasting so much time applauding me when I should be busy getting back to entertaining them. But in a moment I recovered myself and allowed them to applaud. I needed to hear it.
Come see how the next chapter in my artistic exposure come out. And be honest.
Rosalind Russell once said that acting is like standing naked on a stage and turning around slowly. This is a bit like that.
And I'm sure everyone's curious about whether or not that will even be entertaining. I am a bit concerned about that myself. But that's mostly my own insecurities talking and I have to remember the fact that I have good pipes and I know how to use them pretty well. I have good pitch and my choir director from Rollstone Church Katherine Dodd is impressed, so that's good enough for me. So I'm going to take the leap.
I always have laid it all out there. That's always been my way, I think. I'll tell you everything about me, even the "bad" parts, and THEN we'll see if you still like me. Generally people do still like me. My "bad" parts are mostly in my head anyway. But I think I second guess people's sincerity in liking me if they don't know everything about me. As if I worry that since they only see the good parts, of course, they like me. But in order to trust it, I feel compelled to make sure that they know the parts that make me feel insecure, vulnerable. I procrastinate. I am lazy. I need a babysitter 40 hours a week to ensure production (boy there's an uncomfortable confession!), if I lived alone my house would probably descend into nothing but a storage facility with trails through the debris. I really am bad at things like filling out forms and mailing them in. I am constantly 5 minutes late and constantly saying to myself that this is the last time I'm ever going to be late for anything. I am forgetful. I forget so many names, but I always remember when I liked someone. I can look at them and know that I know them from somewhere and that I really like them, but no other details come to mind! I usually have to be honest about it.
So those are some of my bad things. Do you still like me? lol...
My concert next Friday night Naked Voice* *Clothing not optional is an exercise in acceptance. I want people to see me and hear me and understand exactly what message I hope to communicate in the world. And without fans to cover the dancer, what then? With no band, no special lights, nothing but the reaching beauty of the Christ Church cathedral and the acoustics it provides, will you still like me? I must know before I can go any farther.
So with all this exposure I have an opportunity to include my community in the development process of my Wild Archangel album. I am going to issue lyric booklets and a score sheet. Literally. I want them all to adjudicate their experience. The can score the lyrics, the melody, the vocal presentation, and make suggestions, comments, or let me know how it made them feel. I really want to know these things.
For the past five years I have been writing music. My first song was presented at my very first symphony appearance. On February 14, 2004 I headlined with the Thayer Symphony Orchestra. It was the first time I had the opportunity of singing my own song choices and singing them my own way. A concert vocalist can sing anything he wants! I'd been in musical theatre for years just so I could get paid to sing. That was true and it worked, but it took that appearance with the Thayer (right in my very own hometown) to realize how much I wanted to be a different kind of artist.
Please Don't Forget Me When I'm Gone was a song that I had heard snippets of in my head for several years. The title phrase and its melody were present since at least 1996. But it was not part of a full song until I was offered my first headline. The awareness of that upcoming appearance, along with added inspiration from theatre director & choreographer Russell Garrett who assisted with my preparations for the appearance, I finished writing the song.
It was to have been presented with the full orchestra. But the orchestrations I commissioned didn't come in on time. So I cut that song from the list. I was crushed, but it also gave me an easy out. I didn't know if I had any business writing songs and I was worried if it would be a big disappointment.
I had brought out every bell and whistle for this 60-minute appearance with a professional symphony orchestra. I rehearsed a 40-member choir who wore borrowed robes from Burlington High School, Russell Garrett choreographed 6 nine year old girls and me a touching softshoe for the song "Glory of Love," Cherie Ronayne and Tim Smith performed a beautiful pas de deux while I sang the heartbreaking "Where Have You Been?" A song I have never performed since. I brought several support vocalists with me as well bringing the total count of humans added to this one-man headline to somewhere around 50. And did I neglect to mention that I also flew in a 9-piece, several hundred square foot overlapping rendition of George Seurat's pointlist painting "Sunday on the Isle of La Grande Jatte"? And that was for my encore. I apparently assumed I'd get an encore. There's a confession! I get the shivers now thinking of the utter nerveless presumption one would require to design and build a set for an encore. It did come out beautifully, though, Mary Beth Makara and Ira W. Leighton III did the majority of the painting and I did the shadowing. It was very dramatic to have the large paintings descend one by one over the orchestra and chorus as we sang the moving finale to Steven Sondheim's Act I of Sunday in the Park with George. I'll post some pictures of it on my facebook page. Look for the album named "Thayer Symphony Valentines Day 2004."
So all of this leads me to the song. I had cut the song from the list and we did not rehearse it with the orchestra, of course. But on the day of the concert, I decided I just had to sing it. Even though the song was listed in the penultimate position of the song list - a crucial point in maintaining the audiences' attention during an evening - and I had no orchestrations, and the preceding song was some enormous number involving the choir and all, I knew I just had to sing that song.
I went to the Maestro's dressing room and spoke with both he and his companion Donna. I told them the story about the song and the real reason why I had to do it. A story I am not rendering here. They agreed that it must be performed and that their concert pianist Mr. Allen Mueller could sight read it. However, I cautioned them that I had written this piano part myself, with no experience in writing a piano part - I can barely play the thing - and I had written it in a free computer program I had downloaded off the internet that didn't allow you to compose key changes unless you bought the full program. So, for those of you who know something about music, Mr. Mueller played the whole thing transcribed in the key of C with accidentals written in to denote the FOUR modulations that occur in the piece. But they said that it was okay he usually arrives early and he can look it over and make notes. It would be alright and it was worth it.
However Mr. Mueller chose this night to arrive exactly 5 minutes before the downstroke. I ran along side of him as he came down the corridor from the parking lot explaining everything as we went backstage and right onto the stage with him as he put his music on the concert grand with the audience watching everything. He said he would do his best. I thanked him for his graciousness. And I think he was exceedingly gracious considering the circumstances. He still is exceedingly gracious each time I see him. I'd pinch me hard in the arm if I were him.
So the concert proceeded and it was finally time for my half of the concert to begin. We had a lot of technical problems with the sound. There was horrible feedback that startled the audience on a regular basis. It startled the performer too. But in spite of that it went very well and the girls did a beautiful job on "Glory of Love" and Cherie and Tim were breathtaking. The chorus seemed so happy to be involved. I had to musically direct them myself and so I fear I did them a disservice, but they were troopers. But now it was time to sing Please Don't Forget Me When I'm Gone for the first time. My first original song at my first symphony headline and after all the bombast of the previous song, I had to follow it with nothing but my voice and a sightread piano part written by an amateur. God bless Mr. Allen Mueller.
It was terrifying, but I didn't fall off the stage, didn't forget my lyrics, and my fly stayed up that whole time. (All things, by the way, that have occurred to me in my chronicle of stage experiences.)
When the song was over there was a spark of silence and then a rush of applause. It was sustained and carried on to the point where I found myself embarrassed by the praise of it. I suddenly felt embarrassed that we were wasting so much time applauding me when I should be busy getting back to entertaining them. But in a moment I recovered myself and allowed them to applaud. I needed to hear it.
Come see how the next chapter in my artistic exposure come out. And be honest.