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Tonight’s program, Heroes, had a unique birth. It began with my desire to work with with the four musicians sharing the stage with me tonight, a quartet of artists who are frequent collaborators and close friends. While baritone John Brancy and violinist Charles Yang...
A picture is worth a thousand words. Here’s a little gallery from dress rehearsal this afternoon. One moment of special interest: Shelén did something so touching today during one of her songs that I was suddenly overwhelmed by emotion. I thought I’d be able to keep a...
Friday’s always a tricky day in these week-long residencies. I want to keep moving the artistic process forward, while simultaneously instilling confidence and protecting the singers’ vocal resources. It’s not a great idea to exhaust them 48 hours before the show. ...
As Stephen Sondheim wrote— “Bit by bit, putting it together.” This means patting every song into place, changing the running order (just in time to meet the print deadline), and, inevitably, a raft of Last-Minute Transpositions. Today we decided to take yet another...
Wednesday is always the day of grace. The performance still feels pleasantly far off, so we’re able to keep performance anxiety at bay. Sure, the cast is concerned about memorization, I am concerned about the places where my hands are not cooperating. But these remain...
This year’s program is called “Gracias a la vida: Songs of Latin America,” chosen to show off the gifts of my two Spanish-speaking singers, César Parreño and Shelén Hughes. But our concert also includes three Brazilian songs in Portuguese, and we’d need a language...