Throughout my career, I’ve had the privilege of working with thousands of musicians in numerous ensembles from young children to top professionals. Each of the people in each of these groups has had an impact on me as a musician, and a person. Below are descriptions of these ensembles, as an acknowledgement of who they are, and how they changed me for the better.
Ensembles That I Began Or Revitalized
First Congregational Church of Los Angeles: Laude
Laude is the professional chamber ensemble that leads worship at FCCLA that I have the privilege of directing and singing with. Laude performs every week, singing repertoire across the vocal spectrum, and premiering new work often, including pieces by the ensemble leaders themselves. In 2018, Laude premiered or performed second performances of more than 20 pieces. The ensemble consists of leaders in varied fields, including assistant conductor Alexander Lloyd Blake (founder and conductor of Tonality), Fahad Siadat (composer and owner of See-A-Dot Publishing), Laurel Irene (soloist and co-founder of VoiceScienceWorks), Corona de los Santos (soloist), Monika Beal (soloist), Kathryn Shuman (composer, soloist, and founder of Kat and Ben), Molly Pease (composer, soloist, and band leader of Ackland), David Conley (conductor, composer, and soloist), and a rotating roster including celebrated artists David Saldana, Abbe Drake, Emily Goglia, Raed Saade, Katie Hampton, Jaquain Sloan, Frank Hobbs, and Laura Jackman.
First Congregational Church of Los Angeles: Cathedral Choir
When I arrived at FCCLA in August of 2017, the 16-voice professional choir that had led worship there for decades had been reimagined, a process that left the church without an ensemble. Only three of the singers who had been there remained. In a couple of weeks, with the help of an energized group of leaders, we relaunched the Cathedral Choir as a volunteer-based group, and created Laude, the professional ensemble that acts as the core of The Cathedral Choir. A year later, the ensemble has grown to 50 singers, with new members joining on average every other week. We sing 3-4 pieces for each service, exploring as many musical styles as possible. In the fall of 2018, for example, we gave a two-hour concert of Bruce Springsteen's music, the next week sang movements from Leonard Bernstein's "Chichester Psalms" and "Candide", the following week, visited with Gabriel Faure's "Requiem", and the following weeks, explored Ramirez, Bach, and Poulenc. We make it a point to explore music by under-represented composers as well, and feature women and minority composers as well as music from around the world regularly.
First Congregational Church of Los Angeles: The Commonwealth Community Chorus
In the fall of 2018, we launched a choir for children and teens aimed at helping a new generation build a powerful community through song to shape the future of Los Angeles. The Commonwealth Community Chorus is a community-wide project that brings the voices of a new generation together to sing, connect, learn, and promote the benefits of diversity & social justice in our changing world. A choir for teens and children (grade 4 and above), the Commonwealth Community Chorus welcomes members from across Los Angeles, and calls First Congregational Church of Los Angeles and The Pilgrim School its home.
Laude is the professional chamber ensemble that leads worship at FCCLA that I have the privilege of directing and singing with. Laude performs every week, singing repertoire across the vocal spectrum, and premiering new work often, including pieces by the ensemble leaders themselves. In 2018, Laude premiered or performed second performances of more than 20 pieces. The ensemble consists of leaders in varied fields, including assistant conductor Alexander Lloyd Blake (founder and conductor of Tonality), Fahad Siadat (composer and owner of See-A-Dot Publishing), Laurel Irene (soloist and co-founder of VoiceScienceWorks), Corona de los Santos (soloist), Monika Beal (soloist), Kathryn Shuman (composer, soloist, and founder of Kat and Ben), Molly Pease (composer, soloist, and band leader of Ackland), David Conley (conductor, composer, and soloist), and a rotating roster including celebrated artists David Saldana, Abbe Drake, Emily Goglia, Raed Saade, Katie Hampton, Jaquain Sloan, Frank Hobbs, and Laura Jackman.
First Congregational Church of Los Angeles: Cathedral Choir
When I arrived at FCCLA in August of 2017, the 16-voice professional choir that had led worship there for decades had been reimagined, a process that left the church without an ensemble. Only three of the singers who had been there remained. In a couple of weeks, with the help of an energized group of leaders, we relaunched the Cathedral Choir as a volunteer-based group, and created Laude, the professional ensemble that acts as the core of The Cathedral Choir. A year later, the ensemble has grown to 50 singers, with new members joining on average every other week. We sing 3-4 pieces for each service, exploring as many musical styles as possible. In the fall of 2018, for example, we gave a two-hour concert of Bruce Springsteen's music, the next week sang movements from Leonard Bernstein's "Chichester Psalms" and "Candide", the following week, visited with Gabriel Faure's "Requiem", and the following weeks, explored Ramirez, Bach, and Poulenc. We make it a point to explore music by under-represented composers as well, and feature women and minority composers as well as music from around the world regularly.
First Congregational Church of Los Angeles: The Commonwealth Community Chorus
In the fall of 2018, we launched a choir for children and teens aimed at helping a new generation build a powerful community through song to shape the future of Los Angeles. The Commonwealth Community Chorus is a community-wide project that brings the voices of a new generation together to sing, connect, learn, and promote the benefits of diversity & social justice in our changing world. A choir for teens and children (grade 4 and above), the Commonwealth Community Chorus welcomes members from across Los Angeles, and calls First Congregational Church of Los Angeles and The Pilgrim School its home.
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, Three excerpts of Laude singing (left to right), my arrangement of Bellini's "Ah Non Giunge" with Laurel Irene, soloist, "Relativity: Voices In Spacetime" a piece that I wrote and premiered with this ensemble in summer 2018, and John Tavener's "The Lamb", and the Cathedral Choir singing Handel's "And The Glory Of The Lord" from "Messiah".
C3LA: The Contemporary Choral Collective of Los Angeles
C3LA is the third professional choral collective that I have helped to start. It began as I was transitioning from Boston to Los Angeles, and I was thrilled to get in on the action, performing with them the week after we got to LA. Like the other choral collectives, C3LA consists of incredibly talented and creative vocal musicians from across one of the world's great urban creative centers. With them, I have premiered 5 pieces of my own composition, and conducted half a dozen others. Their most notable concert to date included a full a cappella choral score for the 1925 "Fall Of The House Of Usher" silent film premiered in the fall of 2018. The score included 12 composers, of which I was a part, and 6 conductors, of which I was one.
Triad: Boston's Choral Collective
Within months of moving to Boston, I had a beer with my close friend and colleague Thomas Stumpf, and we decided to create the second choral collective. What would become known as Triad was, like many great endeavors, a hail Mary that worked. We put out the word to Boston's muscular choral community, and began with 16 professional-level singers in the cold basement of a Cambridge church. The creative and determined energy of those composers, conductors, and performers continues to inspire new choral works in Boston. I was pleased to have conducted several premieres with them, and to have heard 4 of my own pieces performed before moving to Los Angeles.
C4: The Contemporary Composer/Conductor Collective
Though I can't claim a role in the creation of C4, I arrived in New York during the time that they were revisioning the ensemble. What had been 40 became 16, and I was thrilled to have been the only new member added during the cut back. Over the next 5 years, I had the pleasure of being a leader from the podium, as a composer and singer, and on the board during a rapid period of growth for the ensemble. During those years with C4, we transitioned into a professional ensemble in function and pay (the latter part being the new addition), refined the governance of the choral collective model, created the opportunity for the expansion of the C4 model into what would become the C4 Network with the birth of Triad in Boston, produced our first album, started creating workshops, and began performing in new, higher-profile venues. I was pleased to have heard 8 of my pieces premiered by C4, and to have learned so much about the power of creativity through collaboration. C4's profoundly energized members over the years have become some of my most trusted and loved choral colleagues.
C3LA is the third professional choral collective that I have helped to start. It began as I was transitioning from Boston to Los Angeles, and I was thrilled to get in on the action, performing with them the week after we got to LA. Like the other choral collectives, C3LA consists of incredibly talented and creative vocal musicians from across one of the world's great urban creative centers. With them, I have premiered 5 pieces of my own composition, and conducted half a dozen others. Their most notable concert to date included a full a cappella choral score for the 1925 "Fall Of The House Of Usher" silent film premiered in the fall of 2018. The score included 12 composers, of which I was a part, and 6 conductors, of which I was one.
Triad: Boston's Choral Collective
Within months of moving to Boston, I had a beer with my close friend and colleague Thomas Stumpf, and we decided to create the second choral collective. What would become known as Triad was, like many great endeavors, a hail Mary that worked. We put out the word to Boston's muscular choral community, and began with 16 professional-level singers in the cold basement of a Cambridge church. The creative and determined energy of those composers, conductors, and performers continues to inspire new choral works in Boston. I was pleased to have conducted several premieres with them, and to have heard 4 of my own pieces performed before moving to Los Angeles.
C4: The Contemporary Composer/Conductor Collective
Though I can't claim a role in the creation of C4, I arrived in New York during the time that they were revisioning the ensemble. What had been 40 became 16, and I was thrilled to have been the only new member added during the cut back. Over the next 5 years, I had the pleasure of being a leader from the podium, as a composer and singer, and on the board during a rapid period of growth for the ensemble. During those years with C4, we transitioned into a professional ensemble in function and pay (the latter part being the new addition), refined the governance of the choral collective model, created the opportunity for the expansion of the C4 model into what would become the C4 Network with the birth of Triad in Boston, produced our first album, started creating workshops, and began performing in new, higher-profile venues. I was pleased to have heard 8 of my pieces premiered by C4, and to have learned so much about the power of creativity through collaboration. C4's profoundly energized members over the years have become some of my most trusted and loved choral colleagues.
C3LA performing my 2017 composition "In The Name Of Capitalism".
The Jubilate! Sacred Singers, a 50-voice SATB a cappella chorus, formed out of a series of happenstances. Thinking back on the randomness of life, but for raw hope, a little frustration, and the power of relationship, this group would have never been conceived. As it happened, though, from 2001-2009, I had the pleasure of creating with 50+ singing colleagues, a new paradigm in choral music. For those eight years, we performed concerts every week, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for local charities, toured nationally on five occasions culminating in our solo Carnegie Hall debut before a full house, and creating five albums. But it was the community that stands out as the greatest achievement of this ensemble. First, as volunteers, they showed up every week in significant enough numbers to perform a concert or service. This commitment alone, and the dedication to continually learn enough music to allow us to grow and meet the demands of new programs, is staggering. They also prepared major works, hosted festivals, and engaged with other organizations to help promote the initiatives of the broader Front Range community. Where the group really shined, however, was in how they connected with the people for whom we sang. We would also sing for churches who had no choir, and who we outnumbered in size. The Jubilate singers were so humble in their engagement with everyone for whom we had the opportunity to sing, offering themselves and their voices in service to those who would listen. They showed up, 100% every week, and gave the gift of a cappella music to whomever would listen, and from that dedication flowed a magic and power that changed us all. I’m happy to say that they have continued since I left for New York. I hope that this model is one that can replicate itself in other ensembles, that they can learn from the Jubilate model to selflessly take music into the community, rather than simply asking the community to come to them.
The Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Young Men’s Ensemble was an experiment. Dianne Berkun, the Grammy-award winning Artistic Director, had created an institution built on the vast success of her treble ensembles, helping to guide young singers to find passion and joyful singing, many of whom went on to music careers. She wanted to create a place for male voices to share in this wealth. They asked me to get the group off the ground, adding that if the first year wasn’t a success, we would pull the plug. I started with 3 singers and incredible institutional support, and we set out to build a program. Three years later, when I left for Boston, the group had swelled to 25 young men whose dedication to the ensemble would rival any sports team. They were facile improvisers, regularly sang in 4-part harmony, premiered significant works by David Little, Jonathan David, Toby Twining, Keith Burton, myself, and others, and they flat loved singing together. We built a model for working with changing voices that continues today, and the program continues to thrive under its new director.
When I was asked to take the job at College of the Holy Cross, I was torn. Leaving New York is never easy (as the song says), but I had once had a premonition that I would one day work at a New England liberal arts college, and, the job was too good to pass up. What I found once I got there was an incomparable student body whose energy and willingness to try new things led us to some incredible discoveries. When I arrived, the group was down to 13 singers over two choirs, and only one music major. When I left, we had 65 singers, a solid touring regiment, and 15 music majors, most of whom chose to study music because of their choral experience, and the influence of their singing peers. We performed six unique concerts a year, several major works, premiered pieces or sang second performances by faculty (Golijov, Gouin, Arrell, and myself), students (Baker, Ross, Dunbar), and composers outside of the school (Lau, David, Rubinstein), and sang pieces across the choral canon. We performed with major celebrities, and toured to Argentina and Alabama. But the most impressive developments while at Holy Cross had to do with the creation of the VoiceScienceWorks model of choral instruction. Having met Laurel Irene at the Summer Vocology Institute the first summer after I began at Holy Cross, I asked if she would be interested in working with us. Together, we created a model of integrating voice science regularly into the choral rehearsal which included short lectures, regular vocal instruction time, and one-on-one engagement with her and the students, where every singer received at least two private lessons a year with her. The growth capacity we experienced with those singers is something that I’ve never experienced before, and we had a lot of fun along the way.
The Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Young Men’s Ensemble was an experiment. Dianne Berkun, the Grammy-award winning Artistic Director, had created an institution built on the vast success of her treble ensembles, helping to guide young singers to find passion and joyful singing, many of whom went on to music careers. She wanted to create a place for male voices to share in this wealth. They asked me to get the group off the ground, adding that if the first year wasn’t a success, we would pull the plug. I started with 3 singers and incredible institutional support, and we set out to build a program. Three years later, when I left for Boston, the group had swelled to 25 young men whose dedication to the ensemble would rival any sports team. They were facile improvisers, regularly sang in 4-part harmony, premiered significant works by David Little, Jonathan David, Toby Twining, Keith Burton, myself, and others, and they flat loved singing together. We built a model for working with changing voices that continues today, and the program continues to thrive under its new director.
When I was asked to take the job at College of the Holy Cross, I was torn. Leaving New York is never easy (as the song says), but I had once had a premonition that I would one day work at a New England liberal arts college, and, the job was too good to pass up. What I found once I got there was an incomparable student body whose energy and willingness to try new things led us to some incredible discoveries. When I arrived, the group was down to 13 singers over two choirs, and only one music major. When I left, we had 65 singers, a solid touring regiment, and 15 music majors, most of whom chose to study music because of their choral experience, and the influence of their singing peers. We performed six unique concerts a year, several major works, premiered pieces or sang second performances by faculty (Golijov, Gouin, Arrell, and myself), students (Baker, Ross, Dunbar), and composers outside of the school (Lau, David, Rubinstein), and sang pieces across the choral canon. We performed with major celebrities, and toured to Argentina and Alabama. But the most impressive developments while at Holy Cross had to do with the creation of the VoiceScienceWorks model of choral instruction. Having met Laurel Irene at the Summer Vocology Institute the first summer after I began at Holy Cross, I asked if she would be interested in working with us. Together, we created a model of integrating voice science regularly into the choral rehearsal which included short lectures, regular vocal instruction time, and one-on-one engagement with her and the students, where every singer received at least two private lessons a year with her. The growth capacity we experienced with those singers is something that I’ve never experienced before, and we had a lot of fun along the way.