The Hills of Tomorrow

On September 26, I sang a duet with my colleague tenor Dr. Gregory Rike for the Inaugural Concert in honor of UE's new President Thomas Kazee. Doug Reed accompanied us on the organ as we sang "The Hills of Tomorrow" from Merrily We Roll Along. Sondheim seemed an appropriate choice since Dr. Rike was conducting UE's excellent production of Assassins this weekend. As the song lyric says, "may we come to trust the dreams we must fulfill."

Yoga for Musicians (and Monkeys)

Today I broadened my focus to present Yoga Breathing and Meditation for Musicians at UE's weekly music major seminar hour. I introduced pranayama techniques as well as mudras to help in meditation and to combat performance anxiety. The students especially enjoyed my slide of a meditating lemur, although he seemes to be indecisive about his mudra.

Fun at the Faculty Gala

I made my UE debut at the annual Faculty Gala. It was great fun to sing Norina's aria with an appreciative and responsive audience. But I was overwhelmed by the variety of the program: harp, euphonium, guitar, woodwind quartet with harpsichord, brass quintet, sexy Piazzolla for violin, cello and piano. I am excited about my new instrumentalist colleagues. Still I can't escape Shorter. A Shorter grad from the 1970s was in attendance. A biology major turned Episcopalian pastor, this gentleman from Owensboro, KY was there to remind me of my former colleagues.