written by
Our week began with a horror story on a lake and now we will end with a true ghost story on the world’s largest freshwater lake. I grew up in a small town on the western point of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, just a few miles off the shoreline of Lake Superior. This...
I can’t curate a week of Song of the Day posts without featuring my favorite composer, Stephen Sondheim, the musical theatre’s most prolific living writer. I suspect most of you know Sondheim and George Furth’s 1970 musical Company, but in case this song slipped off...
I love when great artists cover other great artists’ songs, especially when the cover version turns a pop tune into a beltress’s torch ballad. Today I present you Sara Bareilles’ piano/vocal rendition of Elton John’s 1973 hit “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.” Elton John...
Stanisław Moniuszko’s Halka is regarded as the Polish national opera and is widely performed in the composer’s homeland. However, the opera is seldom heard outside Poland despite its charming folk dances, haunting melodies, and a star turn for a lyric soprano. Halka...
We begin our week with a horror story in the Black Forest. One of my favorite things about the study of poetry and music is opening my imagination to the world in which these magnificent compositions were birthed. Take a journey with me now to Stuttgart in the 1820s...
From my very first coaching with Maestro Blier, I brought in a new American Songbook song every week. I think it’s something we both look forward to; we work on my repertoire for the first fifty minutes of the coaching and in the remaining few moments of our time...