Twitterific!

Excuse the completely non-choral-related blog post. But in the last few days I've been thinking a lot about the power technology in my daily life.

First up - Twitter.

I've had a Twitter account now since the fall, and after a few hours of "huh?" I rarely went back to look at it again. Once in a while posting a "tweet" here and there, and reading the odd tweet from others.

Well, in the last 24 hours I have become a complete convert to Twitter, and have discovered all sorts of twitter-fun. I won't go into detail, but perhaps you should look up twitterfon, twitterfox, twittervision, hashtags, and all your favourite celebrities from the NBC Show "The Office", or the PGA tour, or whatever else you like. I now can't seem to stop Tweeting. I had actually wondered if people who twitter should be called "Twits" but apparently, they are just "Tweeple".

Second up - Quantum Computers.

I was listening to the local CBC One yesterday afternoon (because I can no longer listen to the national CBC Two anymore) and there was an interview with a computer scientist who said that the next step in computers will see a progress which is without precedent. Apparently, the speed, memory, and storage capacity of the computers of the future will make the new MacBook I own look like my 1200 baud modem I had bought for my Commodore 64 back in the early 1980s. One example he gave was that the new Quantum Computers will be able to do a mathematical calculation in a few seconds, which would take today's fastest computer months.

I wonder though, in the future, will people be able to manipulate computers as easily as the FBI agents can in the TV show "24"?

Yesterday, my cell phone went through the wash, and the power cord to my computer was left in my studio at the University.

I felt alone.

Home again, Home again ...

After a whirlwind trip home to Ottawa to be named Godfather for the third time, I'm back in Edmonton for the foreseeable future.

Just thought I'd post a quick little announcement that I've been invited on as a contributor to ChoarlNet's ChoralBlog! I encourage you to add it to your feed reader!

I'm looking forward to posting regularly over there, but not to worry faithful readers, I'll still be quite active in this window as well, posting thoughts and observations from the life and times of a freelance conductor and teacher!

... Jiggidy jig!

What kind of music do you do?

I received a phone call early in the afternoon yesterday inquiring about an audition for Da Camera Singers. Although we do schedule regular auditions in late August, I'm always open to taking auditions any time of year for future consideration, and as we have just finished a concert and CD recording sessions, now is as good a time as any to consider listening to potential voices.

It became apparent early in the conversation that the caller didn't know much about our choir, so I gave the usual run down of of the choir. "We are a 35 voice auditioned community choir, rehearse Monday evenings, perform three concerts per year of our own, and usually one or two concerts as part of another organization, like Alberta Baroque Ensemble, or The Edmonton Symphony Orchestra.

Then comes question, "What kind of music do you do?"

As quickly as the question was asked, the answer came out of my mouth, "Classical."

Really John? "Classical?" Is that the best you could come up with? Have you really succumbed to the notion that anything that isn't from a Broadway musical, Canadian folksong arrangement, or choral arrangements of Simon and Garfunkel is "Classical?" Are you not the same person who spend the better part of a week relabeling the "genre" category of nearly 4,000 "songs" on his iTunes list from "classical" to something more specific?

Next time the question is asked?

Q. "What kind of music do you do?"

A. "Good music"

O Crux - Knut Nystedt

I decided it was just about time that I start putting up the odd Da Camera video on YouTube. Unfortunately, all the video I have is pointed right at me, as I've mainly archived video footage for audition requirements, however, I thought I would put a few up anyway.

So, here is me - and Da Camera Singers performing Knut Nystedt's "O Crux" last November.

I even managed to figure out how to sync the video with the archive recording, so you don't just hear whoever was singing beside the camera.



If you redirect yourself to YouTube, I put a couple of Michael Haydn excerpts up from about three years ago as well.

Welcome Home!!

This is how my city has welcomed me home:



For my friends south of the border, that translates to:

ACDA - Oklahoma Final Day

The effects of the end of the conference has caused time to skip forward, and the earth to shake. Well, Ok the time skipping forward was due to Daylight savings time, and at about 8:06 CDT this morning a small earthquake shook the east side of Oklahoma City, jolting a few of us out of our sleep. Perhaps neither of these two events had anything to do with the closing of the ACDA conference, but they did seem to put an exclamation point on what was an excellent conference.

I'll have to admit that on the last day I didn't take in as much as I did the first three days, mainly do to fatigue and "conference burn out", but the events I did take in continued to amaze and inspire.

I am looking forward to going home now (aside from the predicted cold weather and near 2 feet of snow we've had over the last week), as I have a fair bit of work to do in the coming week in preparation for Da Camera's concert and recording session this weekend, I'm also WAY behind in marking (oh - that's what our southern neighbours call "grading" by the way - I had no idea there was difference!)

Hats off to ACDA and the City of Oklahoma for this event. All the concerts where top drawer material, sessions informative, and venues excellent. The shuttle service was incredible, exhibit hall was fantastic, and scheduling excellent. I also had the chance to connect with old friends, and meet new people along the way. It was great to be able to travel with my former supervisor, as I was introduced to many people in the world-wide choral community to whom I'll likely keep in close contact with.

Farewell Oklahoma - Looking forward to Chicago 2011!

ACDA - Oklahoma Day III

I'm going to keep this brief, as I have to admit that I've had my share of Cab. Sauv. this evening at the Canadian Reception.

Lecture on 21st century technology for choirs delivered by Philip Copeland of UAB Choirs and Choralblog was fantastic, and I wish it could have gone for 2 hours (although I did skip breakfast, so I was afraid that stomach rumbles might have caused disruption). It was also great to meet Philip, albeit, quite briefly. I'm looking forward to starting a blog for Da Camera Singers in the months to come and begin to implement many of the things I learned in this session to my rehearsal procees. And I think that tatango just might change the way I communicate with University students for ever. And now that I've finally got my church to use Google Calendar, it's time to start up Google Documents!

I think I'll wait until I get home to expand more on this session, but I can say that by far it's been the most informative session I've been to yet.

I then headed off to the finals of the conducting competition. Yes, I know I mentioned previously that they make me uncomfortable, and I was still uncomfortable in this one as well. Not only because the venue was so small, but also because watching a conducting compeition rehearsal still seems so wrong to me. I'll leave it at that for now. However, I am happy to say that they did pick all the right winners.

After another run through the exhibits, and the purchasing of two CDs (yes, I said I was done buying stuff, but they called out to me ... and I couldn't just leave them there without a home), I headed to the concert which opened with The American Boy Choir. It was, in a word, fantastic! Not that I would ever expect anything less of this world renowned group - but it was so wonderful to have the opportunity to see them live, as I doubt that a Canadian tour would see them in Edmonton anytime soon. After they finished their set, it hit me that I was choral concerted out, and it was time for my intermission.

Then off to the Canadian reception, where I was able to connect with so many friends - many of whom I didn't even know were here. It was a lovely evening - catching up with the past, and looking at the future of conducting in Canada. All in all, a great day!

Tomorrow's schedule looks incredibly full - but it ends with Rachmaninoff. A work I know quite well, having conducted it once, and sung it thrice.

A perfect day really.

Oh ... and just so you can feel slightly sorry for me... here's the 14 day forecast temperature for Edmonton. You may notice, that it is going to be so cold on Monday, my first day back, that the graph just bottoms out with no temperature reference.

Click on the graph for a larger image.

All degrees in Celsius: 0 degrees Celsius equals 32 Fahrenheit, and both scales come together at -40 - so the high of -30 or so on Monday translates to -22 Fahrenheit From 80 F to -22 F in four days for me.

By the way, if you don't have the conversion tool "A2Z pro" for your iPod touch or iPhone yet, you really should. It's free, and is by far the most useful application I've ever downloaded.

Intermission

Don't worry, I will be posting an update on the ACDA "Day The Third" later this evening, however, I felt I needed to do a little interlude as observed on a walk through the south of downtown in the City of Oklahoma this afternoon.

First, the weather is still extraordinarily mild for March, even for Oklahoma. Temperatures in the high 20s (near 80s in F degrees), barely a cloud in the sky, and a bit more than gentle breeze across the plains (did I mention that I haven't been able to stop singing "OOOH-Klahoma" since I landed here on Tuesday night?)

Anyhow, I felt that after being inside pretty much all day, I needed to take a break from the festivities and go for a walk. I attended the America Boy Choir portion of the afternoon concert (more on that in the next post) and then walked from the Civic Center (Centre for us Canadians) to my Hotel, which is on the east side of the city in a place known as Bricktown.

I forgot my camera at home, so some lifted picture from various internet sources will have to do.

First - the Civic Center:
An absolutely gorgeous concert hall in the arts district of Oklahoma City. I had a nice long chat with a Civic Center volunteer who let me know that originally in the interior of the center the floor was flat and used for multi-purposes. Now, when I hear of a multi-purpose concert hall, I think, Ok, Musicals, Orchestras, Operas and etc. However, apparently at the time it was built, the Oklahoma Philharmonic shared the space with a basketball court. Now it is only a music concert hall, set up in a tiered horseshoe design, and holds, what I figure must be anywhere between 1,600-2,000 people. (alright - I just looked it up .... it holds 3,200 people. I obviously have never won one of those "How many jelly beans are there in the jar" contests)

About a 15-20 minute walk and I ended up back at the Cox Convention Business Center. Named after the local cable company (not too dissimilar to Edmonton's Shaw Convention Centre, also named after our local cable company). It is a wonderful venue for this conference, a huge exhibit hall, and very large conference rooms and ballrooms. There is also an "arena" inside, which I have NO idea what that entails. My guess is that my preconceived notion of an arena having a sheet of ice and two nets at either end is probably NOT what it is. Rodeos, concerts, monster truck and basketball events likely happen there though. Am I generalizing?

East of the Conference Center is where things get interesting. The Amtrack passenger train on the Sante Fe Line passes over the streets that run east and west (You know, of the "Atcheson, Topeka and Santa Fe" - or as one of my choirs knows it "The Atcheson Topeka and the Duruflé") marking the start of Bricktown. In Bricktown, there is a man-made canal, which you'd think with enough of a run up, you could jump over. A water taxi moves people up and down the canal, which I am guessing is about a 1/2 mile long. Situated along the canal are many bars and restaurants, a large multi-plex theatre, and middle-america's longest track run haunted house, only Disney World's is longer (I intend on going on it tomorrow, when it opens). To boot, it's in 3D! It also runs along side Bricktown Park, which hosts their Triple-A Baseball team. A classic open park design, similar to AT&T park of San Fransisco (I'm mentioning this for the benefit of my wife - who knows more about baseball than most sports broadcasters do).

At the end of the canal, is my hotel, where I am currently resting up before the Canadian reception tonight at 9 PM. I plan on getting really drunk and embarrassing myself and my country.

ACDA - Oklahoma Day II

Another beautiful day in Oklahoma. My wife let me know that Edmonton received probably a foot of snow overnight, add the blowing snow to that and it was most unpleasant to walk or drive anywhere. Well, it's not the case here. It was a day to walk with out a coat on, eat lunch outside, and watch people drive by in their convertibles. That being said, I have spent most of the day indoors.

Another fantastic concert this morning, including the finale by the 8 voice "choir" from England called Voices8. A sort of King's Singers style spin-off group, this time from Westminster Abbey choristers, with two young female sopranos. This young group was quite fantastic, not quite at the standard that the King's Singers are at, but give them time, they will be an octet to be reckoned with.

I went to the Conducting Competition for a while, but left partway through, mainly due to the "heat" in the room, both the actual temperature, and also the uncomfortable feeling one gets when watching conductors in a competition like this. I may post more again about conducting competitions. Having done a few in my life, both successfully, and unsuccessfully. For example though - the candidate which I felt had the strongest "technique" of the seven that I saw did not advance. The rehearsal technique wasn't as strong, perhaps this is why the candidate didn't advance. What is a "conducting" competition supposed to judged on? Conducting? or Rehearsing? More on that another day. A quick lunch (outside on the patio as mentioned above!) followed by an afternoon interest session on doing group auditions was then followed by a spending spree at the Exhibits (I bought one of these for half-price to replace an aging and outdated minidisk recorder) I've now bought all I need, or can, at this conference. The evening interest session or Jazz choir concerts didn't spark an interest for me, so a little R&R back at the hotel was in order.

I'm now enjoying a brief rest once again, catching up on some emails and concert prep for next weekend (and watching .. ahem .. American Idol ... please don't judge me), and then I'm off to the feature concert of the Evening with the Oklahoma Philharmonic Orchestra and various choirs with a convention world premiere, and Vaughn Williams' "Dona Nobis Pacem". Mmmmm.. RVW!

Update: Back from the concert - which was great, particularly the RVW. The commissioned work had its moments, but it wasn't as inspirational as I had hoped.

I'm particularly looking forward to tomorrow's interest session on technology, i.e. blogging, podcasting etc, for conductors and choirs. It's a "Bring your own laptop" event. Podcasting is something I've always been interested in, and is something that our church is exploring. In fact, Vidcasting is what we are gearing up towards, and the more I can understand the process, the better prepared I'll be to enter the 21st century!

ACDA - Oklahoma Day I

Ever since I began my masters degree some 11 years ago, I have always longed to go to a National ACDA conference. I've been to the Canadian version, "Podium" a number of times, but never had it in the cards to go the much bigger American version. I almost went to L.A. four years ago, but it being a week before my doctoral candidacies, I thought better of it. So when my supervisor suggest I go with him to Oklahoma this year, I had to make it work. And here I am!

After a full travel day yesterday (Edmonton - Minneapolis/St. Paul ... four hour lay over ... Ten hour travel day in total) we finally made it to where the "corn is as high as an Elephant's ear". First impressions of the city is that it reminds me a lot of Edmonton. It's flat, dry, and seems to rely heavily on oil and farming as an industry. The main difference is that on the front page of their paper was a picture of a choir (you'd never see that in the Edmonton Journal). Also the entire city has been taken over by choir directors. Nearly 3,200 in total I am told. Oh, and where it is about -15 and snowing in Edmonton, it is expected to be +30 here tomorrow (that's up near 80 in the scale they use down here).

Day one began with a long line up for registration. They did have the sense to organize the registration by last name in groups of three letters. What they didn't anticipate is that the majority of choral conductors seem to have a last name beginning with B. As a result, I was late for the first concert, seeing only 3 of the 4 choirs. However, I was NOT disappointed. The highlight of the morning was the Green Valley School Madrigal/Chamber Singers, who appeared in full period costume (knickers for the boys, frilly cuffs for the girls), and sang through repertoire from Sweelinck and Monteverdi to Whitacre and Rossini with the precision and tuning of an excellent University choir. And this was a HIGH SCHOOL choir.

I then spent a few hours at the exhibits, some 200+ stalls trying to keep my VISA card in my pocket, letting it out only to buy a few scores for works I will be conducting next year (I can't promise I won't go back for a new baton though!) I met up with a few old friends both from Ottawa and Edmonton and learned of the Canadian reception which is happening Friday night, after that it was off to Concert session II.

This concert also had it's highlights, which included the Michigan State Women's Chamber ensemble, and the University of Texas at Austin Chamber Choir.

A few casual observations from the the concerts thus far:

1. It really doesn't matter how many times it is announced to turn off the cell phones, there will still be at least 3 or 4 that will ring in a two hour period.
2. Programs that end with a spiritual will undoubtably receive a standing ovation, even though the one that ended with Frank Martin should have as well!
3. Further to point 2. Even though standing ovations are not a rarity here, they are all well deserved!
4. The wardrobe of the conductors is going to be a topic of discussion just as much as the quality of the music is. (So far the conductor for the Michigan State Women's Choir wins first prize for originality).
   
5. there are some FINE choirs in this country!

I'm back at the hotel right now, skipping the reading sessions in favour of a nap. One thing I have learned is that it is impossible to get to everything, and if you did go to absolutely everything, you wouldn't eat or sleep. So I'm trying not to stress about it. There is PLENTY to see and do.

After my nap, it will be off to the first reception and wine and cheese, and that will end day one.