“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…”
Read More“Bridging the gap between being a student and a professional in the early 2000s, my view of what it was that I could do as a singer was quite narrow. I had been very lucky to follow a path that from all outside perspectives seemed pretty straightforward: go to college; land a spot in a prestigious, year-round young artist program; find a manager; begin your career. As a young singer, I was taught…”
Read More“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…”
Read More“Yesterday I briefly mentioned that part of the goal of this exercise is to try and make my practice of writing more regular, as I attempt to push past the inner critics that paralyze me. It’s tempting to describe this phenomenon as ‘writer’s block’, but I’m not quite sure I am willing to dignify it with such iconic terminology. It feels more like paralysis than a block, and it never feels like I can’t write. It’s just too easy to find any excuse not to write…”
Read More“When I began blogging back in May of 2006, the online landscape was a drastically different and perhaps simpler place. My life was in a simpler place, too. I was still relatively fresh out of a young artist program at the Houston Grand Opera, on the cusp of making my European operatic debut with Oper Frankfurt in a production of Mozart’s La finta semplice. At the beginnings of a professional career without the training wheels of an apprenticeship…”
Read MoreIn 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.
Read MoreIn any other year, the moment Thanksgiving arrives I’m staring down a five week tunnel of constant travel and performance, hopping from city to city singing Handel’s Messiah. There have been many years where I’ve missed Thanksgiving with my family in order to begin a run of Messiah performances on Black Friday….
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