My Interview with the Kidsville News

I did an interview this week for the “What’s It’s Like To Be...” column in Kidsville News!, which explores different occupations.

QUESTION: How do you pick the kids who sing on the Kidz Bop CDs?
We did a nationwide talent search to find Kyra, Becca, Valerie, Harrison and Dana – the Kidz Bop Kids. They can all sing, dance, and do a really good job of working together as a team.









Liz Nealon at work with Becca, Kyra and Valerie of the Kidz Bop Kids

QUESTION: How do you pick the songs?
Kidz Bop is all about having the top hit songs on the CDs, so we look at what is selling, what is being played on the radio a lot, and we also listen to kids’ feedback on KidzBop.com. We try to give you all your favorites on every Kidz Bop CD!

QUESTION: What's your favorite song?
Oh, my. Having spent my entire life working with and performing music, I’m afraid I can’t name just one. BBC Radio has a program called “Desert Island Discs.” It holds the Guinness World Record for longest running radio show, and on the show they interview celebrities by asking them if they were to be cast away on a desert island, what would be the eight pieces of music they would simply have to take with them? So, if you have room, I’d like to give you my favorite eight songs!

1. “Theme from Peter Gunn” - best action music ever written. The original by Henry Mancini is still the best, but there’s also a great, new French pop version which samples the Peter Gunn theme. It’s called “Peter Gunn (Turntable Detective)” and the artist is The Killergroove Formula. You can find it on iTunes – play it for your French teacher!

2. “Theme from Twin Peaks” by Angelo Badalamenti. Twin Peaks was a dark, haunting cult television series created by David Lynch in the early 1990s. The theme song established the mood from the very first second, and when I hear it today I'm transported straight back to the dark Pacific Northwest woods where the Twin Peaks series took place (same location as the Twilight series, by the way).

3. “Pump it Up” by Elvis Costello. My favorite song from the original punk era – the 1970s! Intense, energetic, just keeps building higher and higher. For years I tried to convince another singer, my friend (the late, great) Robert Palmer, to record this song – I thought he’d really tear the roof off with this song.

4. “In the Evening” by Led Zeppelin. Robert Plant has one of the most distinctive rock voices ever; I think this is his most powerful recording

5. “Boom Boom Pow” by the Black Eyed Peas. I just love the lyric "I am three thousand and eight, you're so two thousand and late.” Wonderful.

6. “Un Bel Di,” from the opera Madame Butterfly, by Puccini. You don’t have to know (or like) opera to understand this beautiful, sad song. Madame Butterfly is a Japanese woman who falls in love with an American Naval Officer who has left Japan for good. She dreams that he will one day come back to her, and she sings this song (“Un Bel Di” means “One Beautiful Day”) about how she imagines his return. One of the most beautiful vocal lines ever written. Even if you don’t understand Italian, it will break your heart!

7. “Glad” by Traffic. No matter how many times I've heard it, this song always makes me want to jump up and dance. The person playing keyboard is Steve Winwood, who is also a great vocalist. He was first known as “Little Stevie Winwood,” and started touring and performing with famous rock singers while he was still in elementary school.

8. “Julia,” by John Lennon. He wrote it as a tribute/love song to his mother, who died when he was very young. I love it because my daughter is named Julia, so it is my love song to her, as well.

QUESTION: What skills do you need to be the General Manager of Kidz Bop?
Well, I have a pretty unique combination of skills that makes this the perfect job for me. I majored in music in college and trained to be a music teacher (though I’ve never actually taught in the classroom, I use those skills all the time). I worked for a record company for five years after college, and learned about how a record label chooses its artists, how it produces the records, and some of the important things that a company needs to do to sell the artist. Then I worked for ten years for MTV, where I learned all about making music videos and producing Rockumentaries (and of course, we do this all the time at Kidz Bop). And finally, I’ve done a lot of work producing television shows that star teenagers, so I’ve had a lot of experience looking for good young singers, dancers, and actors, and working with them to teach them how to become professional performers. All these skills are very useful in running a record label like Kidz Bop.

QUESTION: When, and why, did you first become interested in this profession?
I have wanted to work in music since I was a young child – singing is the thing that makes me happiest in the whole world. If I could have had my dream job, I would have been a singer/dancer in the chorus of Broadway musicals. It turns out that I don’t have a good enough voice to make a living as a musician, but I have always found ways to make music be a central piece of the work that I do. And I still go to see musical theater as often as I can!

QUESTION: What do you do? Describe a typical day on the job:
One of the best things about my job is that it’s different every day. Today I'll be in the recording studio with a wonderful 12-year-old singer named Sinai Rose; earlier this week I was in Los Angeles with the Kidz Bop Kids, shooting our next television commercial.

QUESTION: What’s the hardest part of your job?
Telling a young performer that we’re not going to choose them.

QUESTION: What is the best part of your job?
Giving a talented young performer his or her first professional opportunity.

QUESTION: What advice would you give to kids who are interested in this profession?
First, work hard in school, and get a good education. Right now, going to school is your “job,” and developing the habit of working hard and being the very best you can be is a life skill that will help you succeed later in life.

Second, if you want to be in the music business, you need to be listening to music all the time, and you should listen to all different kinds of music (see my list above!). Start to be a discerning listener. What is an artist doing to achieve a distinctive sound? How are songs different from each other? Who do you think is a good lyricist (writer of words) and why? The more you think and analyze music, the more knowledgeable you will become, and this will make you a better music executive.

Third, take whatever music appreciation classes are available to you in school. The more you learn about the “greats” and why their music has endured, the better prepared you will be to produce great music yourself!



Kidsville News! is a fun (and free!) educational resource used by teachers, parents and children to develop and promote learning, literacy and character education. Our readers include children, kindergarten through 6th grade, as well as parents and teachers. Kidsville News! is currently published in 23 states, with monthly circulation exceeding 1.25 million.

Letter from a Sixth Grade Teacher to Kidz Bop

I started my day today with an inspiring letter (see below). I wonder if there are other teachers out there who use Kidz Bop in school? We could create a section of our website where teachers and kids use our video upload tools to work on communication and literacy skills. Would love to hear from any teachers who are interested in this.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Hi Liz!
A very close friend of mine is a 6th grade teacher in California and a while ago, I told her that I knew the head of Kidz Bop (you!) and she got so excited... She asked me to pass on this letter to you which I have copied and pasted below. You and your company are clearly making a really positive impact on her and her students! :) I hope this letter starts off your day with a smile.
Best wishes,
Jane

***************

Hi Jane,
Could you please pass on this note to your friend who is affiliated with Kidz Bop? I'd love to let her know how her work is making a difference in my classroom. I teach 6th grade at a low-performing school (Ramona Elementary) in a low-income neighborhood (Montclair, CA). My students are predominantly Latino and most of them are below grade level. My colleagues and I work hard to provide quality instruction, valuable experiences, and new opportunities for the students here. We try to use music to encourage and motivate them to stay on task and work to their potential. The students are familiar with and enjoy radio music, but we cannot play it for them in a school environment. Even the "clean" edited version has inappropriate lyrical content. We download Kidz Bop versions from iTunes and play it for them during transitions, group work time, and even whole-school assemblies. The students love listening to the music while they work. Since they know any noise from them will cause me to turn it off, they are absolutely quiet when I turn it on. They have their favorites ("Let's Get it Started" by Black-Eyed Peas) and request them often. It makes my classroom a friendlier, hipper, and more enjoyable place to be. Thank you to the creators and employees of Kidz Bop for taking the time to make all of this music "clean" for my students!

Sincerely,
(name withheld since I don't have her permission)

Come and Find Panwapa Island!

These are the irresistible avatars that kids are building to represent themselves on Panwapa Island! We tested these all over the world - the appeal is universal. This avatar was designed by Geoffrey Fowler, and he nailed it.

Click on the link below to hear the title song, which, as I've mentioned previously in this space, I think is a commercial, compelling sing-a-long, which is key because we embodied the Global Citizenship curriculum in the words. I will confess, though, that I almost didn't post this because of the terrible quality - they need to allocate more bandwidth to these streaming videos. We spent a lot of time and money creating these original muppet characters - it's a shame to have them look like this. Nonetheless, enjoy the song! SONG: Come and Find Panwapa Island

A Review of my Review

A couple of days ago I posted a review of Lois Hicks-Wozniak's premiere performance of John Mackey's CONCERTO FOR SOPRANO SAX AND WIND ENSEMBLE. I am tickled that the composer not only read the review, he linked to it posted his own comments in his blog.

Read Mackey's Blog Here

I particularly like the part where he writes: I’m linking to it because a) it’s well-written and she makes good points, b) even though it’s a blog-based review, her take is no less-valid than it would be had it run in the Star-Ledger or another big paper.

;-)

Saxophonist Lois Hicks-Wozniak Dazzles in Concerto Premiere

John Mackey's latest composition, the CONCERTO FOR SOPRANO SAX AND WIND ENSEMBLE, lives up to his reputation for rhythmically challenging, jazz/dance influenced, audience-pleasing pieces for wind ensemble, and then some. Local saxophonist Lois Hicks-Wozniak rose to the challenge, playing the premiere performance of this powerful work with passion, fire and virtuosity.

Lois Hicks-Wozniak is a member of the excellent Ridgewood Concert Band, which joined with consortium of 27 bands ranging from the U.S. Navy Band to the Dallas Wind Symphony, as well as a whole slew of universities, to commission the work. Dallas had the World Premiere with the composer in attendance several weeks ago, but each commissioning ensemble gets its own "premiere," as well. On Friday night Lois did the honors for Ridgewood, with a performance so electrifying that she may well have recorded the definitive performance of this memorable new work.

Lois and I have been friends for a number of years (and in the interest of full disclosure, I should say that on occasion I sing with her in a vocal trio ensemble). One of the things I love about her as a saxophonist is the range of tone and styles that she handles with ease, ranging from classical to jazz and beyond. The Mackey piece enabled her to exhibit the full extent of her formidable technique.

The Concerto is in five movements, and between the Prelude and the Finale are three movements whose elemental titles suggest that we might be in a Zen monastery rather than an acoustically-optimized church sanctuary in Ridgewood, New Jersey: (II) Felt, (III) Metal, and (IV) Wood. To my ear, the Prelude was the least successful of all the movements, with Mackey writing a dense wall of sound for the wind ensemble that obscured the sound of the soprano sax. It was evident, looking at Lois, that she was playing a series of complex, powerful runs on the saxophone, but it was impossible to hear. She told me later that she said ruefully to the composer, “John, you can’t write quadruple Forte for a wind band — that’s like throwing meat to the lions.”

Fortunately, the Prelude was brief, and then we were into “Felt,” a jazzy movement that allowed Hicks-Wozniak to showcase the smoky, sultry edge that she can bring to her tone. This movement was also striking in its technical demands, as she appeared to be grabbing big handfuls of notes that covered the full range of the instrument in a single run. It ended with an abrupt, ascending run by the sax and the wind section that was almost a throwaway — seemingly casual, perfectly executed…and then silence. If there is an award for sheer numbers of notes on the page, Mackey may have garnered it for this movement, and the quality of the playing by this ensemble was flawless throughout this very difficult piece.

I suppose “Metal” received its title because it opens in classic Mackey fashion with percussion in the dominant position, in this case metallic instruments such as chimes and xylophone. However, “Metal” is an odd name for a movement that opens up into a hauntingly beautiful, heartbreakingly lyrical series of musical “conversations” between the sax and several soloists in the orchestra. The thematic statements were powerfully emotional, but never sentimental. Particularly moving were the exchanges between First Clarinetist Richard Summers and Hicks-Wozniak’s plaintive soprano sax.

As I listened to “Metal,” I began to feel that we were experiencing a breakthrough for composer John Mackey. He is still quite young — just 34 — and when music historians look back, I suspect this Concerto for Soprano Sax may be a turning point. I heard significant differences from his previous, signature work (award-winning, popular pieces such as Redline Tango and Turbine). Mackey’s earlier work is characterized by intricately difficult rhythms and huge, percussion-driven walls of sound, but to me, they are somewhat lacking in lyricism….bereft of memorable themes or melodies. That is no longer an issue. Listening to these memorable, affecting themes, I felt as though we were hearing a maturing Mackey.

“Wood” opens with a hushed, sultry exchange between the soprano sax and marimba, and it is simply an extraordinary tango. Listening, it was easy to imagine that Mackey was born and raised in Buenos Aires, rather than in New Philadelphia, Ohio. Hicks-Wozniak played the sensual melodies with relish, seeming at times to dance with her instrument. She laughed later, telling me that “For a minute, I considered bringing a rose with me onstage, to hold between my teeth.” The illusion was there, rose or no rose. And again, rather than typical Mackey fireworks, this movement ends quietly, with the marimba and double bass restating the theme a final time. Hicks-Wozniak would like to see this movement published as a reduction for piano and soprano sax. “It will get played, over and over.” She’s right.

Like the second movement, the Finale was an exercise in virtuosity, with huge cascades of notes for the entire ensemble. It appeared that balance would again be an issue, but conductor Dr. Christian Wilhjelm did a masterful job, his sensitive conducting enabling the soprano sax to be heard over the signature Mackey wall of sound. It was at times humorous to watch him — with one hand urging the ensemble into a crescendo, while the other hand, palm outstretched, gingerly pushed them back. It was an exercise in “come here/go away” that was ultimately quite successful in fine-tuning the sound.

The cadenza was brilliantly played, and in a surprising moment, ended quietly, on a half-tone dissonance held by the sax & a single, E-Flat Clarinet — a dissonance so exquisite that I felt as though I had bees buzzing in my ears as the sound gradually died away. The concerto ended with a huge, saucy blast of sound from the entire ensemble.

As the audience erupted in applause, Hicks-Wozniak turned to the band, her arms thrust above her head in triumph, acknowledging each section by pumping her fists in the air. Her instinct to acknowledge the tremendous accomplishment of her bandmates before accepting her own accolades from the audience was spontaneous and touching.

Check out Panwapa Island

One of the most exciting projects that I worked on when I was with Sesame Street was a new project called "Panwapa" - a sprawling undertaking for 4- to 7-year-olds, introducing them to the idea of worldwide citizenship (not an easy concept for this age group). Because the target audience was older than Sesame Street's audience, we created a whole new cast of muppets, an older-skewing illustration style, and interactive broadband experience, all designed to appeal to older children. The original music is appealing and catchy, carrying the message of the curriculum right in the lyrics. And to pump up the degree of difficulty, the whole thing was created in five languages across all these media - Arabic, English, Japanese, Mandarin and Spanish! it was extremely challenging, but our intrepid, multimedia Panwapa team persisted, and the outcome is quite wonderful.


I particularly like the "create your own avatar" feature. These little characters are absolutely irresistible....this is the little "me" that I made when I was on the project. Jump online and create one yourself!

Panwapa Island

Merrill Lynch funded the whole project and were hands on throughout the process - this is a topic they are passionate about. Merrill Lynch Global Philanthropy - Whoopi Goldberg and Elmo Help Unveil Panwapa Program in New York

And by the way, "Panwapa" means "here on this Earth" in Tshiluba, the national language of the Democratic Republic of Congo. A perfect name for the project!

Silence

Dateline: Seattle. Tallis Scholars Summer School

We're wrapping up - checking out of rooms, returning music, exchanging addresses. It is going to be very hard to go back to my regular choir. I have loved working with such an accomplished group of singers...and what a joy to rehearse without all the parts being banged out on the piano.

I know it sounds crazy, but I loved the precision of the diction. The air was full of spittle as we enunciated the concentrated words of the Miserere....and 59 singers articulated two precisely placed "t"s in the phrase "et tibi dabo" from Tu Es Petrus.

After the concert last night, we walked back to the chapel to sing Compline for the last time. At the end, Andrew asked us to sing the 8-part Crucifixus again. It was far better than what we did in the concert - powerful and charged with emotion. Omar and I talked about it later, and he put it best: I left my heart there, with the Crucifixus.

I think we all did.

Tallis Scholars Summer School Gala Concert

Dateline: Seattle. Tallis Scholars Summer School

It's hard to give an actual review, since I was one of the performers. But I can say that the concert was very well received, we felt as though we did very well, and our tutors were smiling. It was actually easier to sing the new music that we've learned in the last few days than it was to sing the Mass, which we hadn't sung since Tuesday. It was solid, but I will admit to having a few "where are we again?" moments!

Paula (one of the sopranos who sang with us on "In Pace In Idipsum") and I were talking this morning about coming back next year. The best way to describe this remarkable week is that it's a once in a lifetime experience that you can repeat over again. I can't wait.

The Pilgrim's Progress

Dateline: Seattle. Tallis Tutors Summer School

At the beginning of the week, I was counting madly to find my entrances, just trying to stay alive in the flood of polyphonic sight singing. By mid- week, I was a better reader and counter than I’ve ever been before. Now, at the end of the week, I’m working on doing less counting and more listening. I am familiar with these compositions now, and if I listen to the singers around me and watch the conductor, I should know where to come in as part of the musical line moving forward.

This means, ironically, that I’m making more mistakes now than I was a few days ago, when I was counting every bar very precisely. But, I know that I am singing more musically. I’ll try to keep the mistakes to a minimum tonight!

Final Concert Tonight

Dateline: Seattle. Tallis Scholars Summer School

We've all been remarking that our sense of time is completely off this week. Often, when you're doing something really pleasurable, time just flies by. This is different. Although we all are certainly enjoying the experience, time moves very, very slowly. Perhaps because the days are so full, things that happened in the morning feel like days ago by the time we reach Compline in the evening.

So, as we come to Friday evening and our final performance, we're all feeling as though we have been here forever. And, although it seems impossible that we would have learned that huge folder full of music, we have. I am really looking forward to singing tonight.

Notes from Rehearsal

Dateline: Seattle. Tallis Scholars Summer School

We've been working on a second arrangment of the Lotti piece, Crucifixus à 10 (ten separate voice parts). Peter Phillips was very excited - well, excited is not quite the word for this very measured and thoughtful man - but he was eager to hear us read through it. He had just found this version, had never heard it performed nor found a recording of it. So we sang it aloud, allowing everyone to hear it for the first time. Phillips decided that it is interesting enough to perform along with the 8-part version. "I think Lotti was having fun when he wrote this - it sounds like an experimental piece."

Yesterday, as we rehearsed it, Peter was conducting and tutor David Woodcock was observing and listening from a seat behind him. Finally, his face like a storm cloud, David strode to the podium and whispered furiously to Peter. Phillips turned to us and said "He's really cross. He doesn't like the crescendo/decrescendos in the brackets, nor the ritard marked at the cadence." Woodcock retorted "It goes against everything we have been saying all week. Where's the phrase going?!" Peter said plaintively, "Well, it's the only edition I could find, anywhere in the world."

I had not understood, before working with them, why this group calls themselves the Tallis Scholars. In fact, these kinds of passionate but good-hearted debates go on all the time, as they struggle to determine what is truly an "authentic" score as the composer would have written it, and which are "unauthentic" markings that have been added later, by editors. Several of the pieces we will be singing in the concert are editions edited by Peter Phillips or Andrew Carwood, who have researched the pieces and reached a determination of how they believe the score should read.

Twice today, Peter said "Well done." High praise. We're getting there.

The Sharing

Dateline: Seattle. Tallis Scholars Summer School

I had been feeling very nervous about the Sharing, where we all gathered in the Chapel and sang the "small group" pieces that we have been rehearsing on our own this week. I was worried that our two pieces were imperfect, not musical enough, not "ready for primetime."

In fact, there was a wide range of pieces, some much more difficult than others, some more polished than others. The room was unfailingly supportive. It truly was a non-judgmental "sharing" among people who have worked together all week and who appreciated each piece for the accomplishment it represented.

And "Duo Seraphim," which we just started rehearsing this afternoon, was very well-received. Click on this link to hear the performance. Duo Seraphim

I've had very different experiences in the past. The classical music world can be very competitive and terribly unkind, and this is a roomful of high achievers. I shouldn't have worried. The warm acceptance of all of us, warts and all, was wonderful.

I really hope that I can come back next year (and ideally, for years to come). This is a rare musical experience.

Random Bits Part 3

Dateline: Seattle. Tallis Scholars Summer School

• A Palestrina discussion, after a question from the 2nd Altos about whether they could move the syllable “num” to a different note, putting them in synch with the rest of the choir. Peter Phillips finally said, “Feel free to ignore that because I’m here now……” His voice trailed away as we all mentally finished the sentence, “….and he’s not.”

The printed music comes with little or no dynamic markings, and the performance notes I’ve marked in my copies say things like “gentle,” “suppressed excitement,” “very, very spacious,” or at one particularly big moment, “pile in like a rugby scrum.” This is something that Peter Phillips feels quite strongly about. In his words: I don’t like the rigid thinking that goes along with dynamics. You go suddenly into a 19th century sound world when you start thinking about the music that way.

• On our struggle to maintain the pitch as three separate units (the 5-part choir, the 4-part small group, and the men doing the chant) rehearsed the Miserere: I’m sorry about the pitch crisis that just infects this piece. When Mendelssohn heard it performed at the Vatican, he recorded the fact that the soprano was singing high “C”s, and he also noted that it sank a minor third – so we’re in good company.

Desert Island Disks

Dateline: Seattle. Tallis Scholars Summer School

We've had an informative lecture each afternoon from one of our tutors. Today was something different. Andrew Carwood and Janet Coxwell did a live version of the venerable BBC 4 Radio programme, Desert Island Disks. The format of the program is simple - the interviewer (played by Jan) asked the guest (played by Andrew) to imagine that they are going to be left on a desert island. The guest plays excerpts from the ten recordings he must have with him, as well as naming the book he would take (in addition to the Bible and complete works of Shakespeare, which are already magically on the island!), and a single inanimate, totally useless item.

We learned a lot about Andrew and his journey to where he is today, and the end was quite bittersweet, as he is leaving the group to take the post at St. Paul's.

Andrew Carwood addresses the group. (Photo by Bill Pannill)

The exercise got me thinking about my own choices. My ten disks would be:

1. Monserrat Caballé 's recording of Puccini's Tosca, so that I'd have the heartbreaking aria "Visi D'arte."

2. The Fauré Requiem. The imploring lines of "In Paradisum" are so powerful. Can't sing it without crying.

3. Traffic’s 1972 album John Barleycorn Must Die so that I can dance to “Glad.”

4. The Who: The Ultimate Collection so that I can sing “Who Are You?” when I want to get my circulation going.

5. Benjamin Britten The Ceremony of Carols. I love the mix of Medieval and Contemporary in this cycle.

6. Mendelssohn Elijah. What great drama in this oratorio! And, I love to sing the a cappella SSA trio “Lift Thine Eyes.” Guess I'll have to do one part at a time on the desert island.

7. Stravinsky Oedipus Rex. I know this isn’t his most brilliant work, but what a dark, moody, brooding choral piece. Love it.

8. Chopin Nocturnes, as recorded by Artur Rubenstein. Sometimes you just need to weep, and this will do it.

9. Leonard Bernstein’s Chicester Psalms. For me, Bernstein is the quintessential American sound (and will endure better than Aaron Copland, whom I also love, on my desert island).

10. The Theme from Peter Gunn, by Henri Mancini. Absolutely killer. One of my favorite pieces of music to drive by. This masterpiece was our inspiration for the theme song of The Upside Down Show, a preschool television series that just won the Emmy for best title sequence.

My Book: Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson. This remarkable book has been described a transcendent novel about fathers and sons, loneliness and love, faith and family. I see it as an exploration of what it means to be in a state of grace. Every word is chosen with care – worth reading and re-reading.

An inanimate, absolutely useless object: A tiny Miraculous Medal, given to me by my grandmother. The edges are beveled in alternating directions so that the metal glints in the light. When I was little, I thought the Blessed Virgin was surrounded by jewels.

A Gathering of Different Lights

Dateline: Seattle. Tallis Scholars Summer School

When we gather to sing Compline at the end of each evening, we sing in the Chapel of St. Ignatius, a unique space designed by architect Steven Holl. His guiding idea for the design of the chapel was “A gathering of different lights."



He has also described it as “seven bottles of light in a stone box.” Fortunately, it sounds as good as it looks.

Small Groups and "The Sharing"

Dateline: Seattle. Tallis Scholars Summer School

Tonight is the “Sharing,” in which all the small ensembles which have been forming all week will sing for each other. I am in two of these groups, one a mixed (SATB) group doing ‘s “Ave Regina Coelorum,” and I also formed an all-female, SSA group (that’s my passion – I sing a cappella with two good friends back at home). The SSA group is doing Orlando di Lasso’s “In Pace In Idipsum” (In Peace I will Sleep) and because the text is about sleeping peacefully knowing that the Lord protects us, we’ve been invited to sing at Compline (the chanted Evensong) tonight. Jan coached us last evening, and was a tremendous help in shaping the lines of this hushed, gentle piece.

At the last moment this afternoon, our SSA group was asked to join another group of four women who had been working on Victoria's "Duo Seraphim," and felt they needed more voices. So, with just two rehearsals before and after dinner, we will sing that, too.

Last evening, a tenor came up to me and said “If I come back next year, I’d like to sing in one of your small groups.” Flattered, I thought that perhaps he liked my singing, or had heard that we are making beautiful music. Instead, he added, “I hear your groups are really well-organized.” Ah, well. Props for being a good producer.
Figures…….

Janet Coxwell: Bright Vowels, “Brighter” Warm-Ups!

Dateline: Seattle. Tallis Scholars Summer School

Jan has started us off at 9:00 every morning with a warm-up that includes not only stretching and vocalizing, but also dancing….this morning we were grooving to the Scissor Sisters. Nothing like a little disco to get your body into gear! Her energy and enthusiasm are infectious, and since she’s a singer who clearly knows what shes doing, it seems crazy not to jump in and dance along.

She has been giving individual voice lessons all week, and also has been coaching the choir as a whole. Her particular challenge has been to get us to sing “bright vowels.” We’re getting better, though shaking off years of American training in "proper" vowels sounds is quite a task.

More Random Bits

Dateline: Seattle. Tallis Scholars Summer School

• Peter Phillips conducted the rehearsals this morning, as we worked on new music including Palestrina's "Tu est Petris" ("You are Peter and upon this rock....."). We were reading through and he stopped us, saying "Basses, you are leading us into a new section of the text and I can't understand you. The words here are important - et portae inferi non praevalebunt (and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it). Cheerful voice from the bass section: "Gates of Hell coming right up, sir."

• (Pleadingly) "Sopranos, there was a sound in the middle of my daylight moment....."

Minor Regret

Dateline:Seattle. Tallis Scholars Summer School

I had hoped there would be more interaction between the “young” (under 25) students and the rest of us. When I’ve been able to grab one-on-one moments I’ve enjoyed each of them, and they are certainly holding their own as members of the choir. I understand how difficult it is - they’re feeling the hip peer pressure – that they’ll somehow be uncool if they’re seen consorting with us old folks. And, I think we (the older ones) could have reached out more.

It’s a missed opportunity, because there are some fascinating people here this week – a Law Professor from Columbia University, an astrophysicist who just spent 2.5 months living at the South Pole installing a new telescope, a physician who specializes in high risk pregnancies, an engineer who is filing for a patent on a wind turbine that he has invented…..the list goes on and on, through all sorts of fascinating people at the top of their professions.

It’s not surprising, when you think about it. I mean, how many people would choose to spend 13 hours a day sight reading 8-part, polyphonic, sacred music, in Latin? It’s a unique group of people who seek out intense creative challenges, not only for this “vacation,” but also in the work that they do.

Special Moments from the Palestrina Mass

Dateline: Seattle. Tallis Scholars Summer School

The day that we sang Palestrina's Missa Laudate Dominum was the Feast Day of St. Ignatius Loyola. The Priest declined to give a homily, saying that he would let the music of Palestrina speak instead. He told us briefly that St. Ignatius traveled to Rome shortly after his ordination, and said Mass in the Sistine Chapel. One of the choir boys would have been Palestrina, who was 10 or 12 years old at the time. And in subsequent decades, Loyola certainly would have known and heard the work of the great polyphonic composer, Palestrina.

Knowing this made singing the work, in this beautiful cathedral and on this specific day, even more special.

One of my fellow altos, Joseph Adam, is also the organist at the cathedral. He played a spectacular postlude, Widor's "Allegro maestoso" from his Symphony #6 in G Minor. Dark, rolling fireworks....a fantastic ending to the evening.