“I am not one for New Year’s resolutions, but 2021 seems to be the year of setting creative challenges for myself. In addition to this 30 day challenge to blog every day this month, I decided that I would try to make a video of a song for each full moon this year, beginning with today’s full moon, which I recently learned is called the ‘snow moon’. Each song will relate to the moon in one way or another - sometimes very obviously, and perhaps sometimes less so...”

“I had a fascinating conversation this evening with the mezzo-soprano, Sasha Cooke, as part of CAIC’s online discussion series, Heard Over The Piano. We started the series this season at CAIC in order to provide a virtual approximation of the salon-aspect of how we normally present recitals in Chicago when we are able to do live concerts. Ever since the beginning of the organization…”

“Perhaps the most famous line from the tv show, Downton Abbey, is uttered by Dame Maggie Smith’s character, the Dowager Countess of Grantham, during one of the lavishly formal family dinner scenes, where she asks suspiciously: ‘What is a weekend?’ While I and many of my friends have shared a hearty laugh quoting that line over drinks in the past, as the pandemic keeps us locked down…”

“I spent much of today sitting in my friend Henry’s studio, editing the footage of what will compromise CAIC’s upcoming Winter Lieder Lounge recital which airs March 5-7. The recital features two colleagues and friends of mine, baritone Edward Nelson and pianist Ronny Michael Greenberg. We filmed their performance a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve been pondering how much I enjoy producing since that session…”

In the spirit of mourning those who are lost, Myra and I offer this Benjamin Britten arrangement of a song by Charles Dibdin called Tom Bowling…Whatever the truth of the story behind the song, it’s a beautiful remembrance of a lost friend, colleague and family member who was clearly beloved by many. Thinking of the song in the context of today, there is something about it that feels like a sort of musical Tomb of the Unknown Soldier – a memorial to those who have died, but haven’t been identified.

This post is the program note I wrote for the first concert of CAIC’s 2020 Collaborative Works Festival, Modern Women, which will be broadcast October 23-25, 2020.

“Women composers continued to persevere as the 20th century ambled along, but misogyny and racist ideas about music stubbornly stuck. The classical music world increasingly worshipped the hallowed canon of repertoire composed by white men it had placed on pedestals that grew higher and higher with each passing decade…”

This post is the program note I wrote for the first concert of CAIC’s 2020 Collaborative Works Festival, Les Parisiennes, which will be broadcast October 16-18, 2020.

“There is no sex in art. Genius is an independent quality...I do not believe that the few women who have achieved greatness in creative work are the exception. But I think that life has been hard on women. It has not given them opportunity. It has not made them convincing. She is handicapped and only the few through force of circumstances or inherent strength have been able to get the better of that handicap...” — CÉCILE CHAMINADE