| | It's been quite some time since I've done any serious blogging. I would really love to be doing more of it, so we'll see how that goes this spring. I think there are several major reasons I haven't written much lately, the first being that a certain lady in my life definitely takes priority during spare time. Secondly, last year when I was choir directing at the Methodist church in Modesto, I wrote regular columns for their newsletter. I think that sucked up most of my serious writing energy. However, since that is long over, it would be nice to get back to writing more. I read several great books over Christmas break...perhaps I can review them a bit at some point.
Anyway, for those of you who don't know, I'm happily teaching in the Midwest currently. It's been interesting to be back in the Midwest at specifically at Bethel after being gone for several years. I miss my job at MJC, but things have worked out well here. And I have a delightful community choir which gives me a good weekly podium fix.
One of the highlights of being here is that I have also received the wonderful mentorship of my college voice teacher. He's a choir director as well and I'm singing in his semi-professional choir. We did a Holocaust Cantata last fall for the anniversary of Kristallnacht, did a sing-along Messiah with a full orchestra in December (I conducted the Hallelujah Chorus), we're doing a pops concert of sorts this weekend (I'm conducting a Manhattan Transfer piece), and we'll be doing several large choral/orchestral works later in the spring. Wishart (the conductor) and I get together each week to discuss repertoire, rehearsal/conducting techniques, score study, and anything else we feel like talking about. We did a workshop before our Messiah performance in December which I got to present in, so he helped me with doing research and preparation for that. And he's currently helping me prep my repertoire for my upcoming doctoral auditions (more on that in a moment). Aside from being able to be close to Sara, working with Wishart has been the biggest blessing of my time back here in Indiana.
The next month or so holds an abundance of craziness for me. I applied to four graduate schools last fall. Hopefully, I'll be starting work on my doctorate in choral conducting next fall. Of the four, three have invited me to audition. They are University of Illinois (Urbana/Champaign), University of Washington (Seattle), and University of Arizona (Tucson). I'll be traveling to all three over the next three or so weeks. People keep asking me which is my first choice, and I honestly don't know. I imagine after visiting and auditioning, I'll have a much better idea of which I like best and how well they might fit me. As far as location goes, I think Seattle is our first choice. But Tucson has been growing on us (Sara loves working with Hispanic students, and they'd be in abundance down there.) However, Illinois has a very strong and nationally recognized program. So, we'll see...
In addition to the auditions, Sara and I will be traveling to California in two weeks for my brother Cyrus' wedding, and then I'm going to Oklahoma City for five days the first week of March for the national convention of the American Choral Directors Association.
So, with all that busyness, I may not be on here blogging much over the next month, but I'll try to keep you posted as grad school things develop.
Wedding plans are going great....just bought wedding bands, picked up the bridesmaid's dresses, and an abundance of other small details are in the works!
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| | Posted 2/3/2009 12:44 PM - 16 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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