The Blackburn College Choir explored the theme of what makes for a meaningful life in our concert today. I’m so proud of their thoughtfulness, hard work, and excellent performance!

It was so good to spend a couple of days rehearsing and performing with my friend, Mathilda Edge. She sounds amazing, gave a great masterclass at Blackburn, and Oberlin is lucky to have her starting this fall! Congratulations on a great recital, Mattie!

Blackburn College Choir on tour! We loved visiting North Mac, Springfield Southeast, and Raymond-Lincolnwood High Schools and hearing the great work happening in these programs!

Tonight was the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra IN UNISON Showcase! It was fun to share the stage with eighty of my closest friends, including these wonderful people.

OTSL’s Artists in Training performed their first live recital since 2019 today. There was so much great singing! Congratulations to Katie Furby, this year’s Bayer Fund Prize Award Winner!

We had a great opening night of Songs of Cole Porter at Blackburn!

After Songs of Cole Porter, it was fun playing a house concert for Opera Edwardsville with Cole looking over my shoulder! The 2022 season will be a great fifth anniversary for OE!

It has been so fun preparing “Family” with the In Unison Chorus! I really love this new work by Nathalie Joachim and was so excited for the SLSO to share it with St. Louis. The cancellation was a reminder of the grip covid still has on us. Looking forward to revisiting it soon!

Artists-in-Training is such a remarkable program. Students finished a three day retreat where they put up a very fine seven minute performance with just eight hours of preparation. Direction was by my new friend, Doug Finlayson. The students looked and sounded great!

I spent the week with some of my favorite people at SING OUT! Camp! I get to hang out with some ridiculously cool people - students, colleagues, and friends. We know how to make a scene!

“Goldie B. Locks and the Three Singing Bears” was a hit! It’s been a great week putting this together with an excellent cast and creative team. What a fun way to start Opera Edwardsville’s 5th season!

It’s beginning to sound a lot like Christmas… Opera Edwardsville wrapped their 12 Days of Opera Edwardsville yesterday! Make sure you’re following OE and signed up for their emails so you catch these videos in December!

Last month, Blackburn hosted its first Sing Your Song! workshop for high schoolers. We focused on working the repertoire these students already love and sing in one-on-one lessons and a group scene. We’re already looking forward to next year!

Is this really the beginning of my tenth year of teaching?

At Monday night’s In Unison Young Artist rehearsal, Maestro Denève offered to turn pages for me. We ended up improvising four hand accompaniments. It was so much fun!

The weather was perfect Saturday morning for the Gateway Arch East Music Teachers’ picnic! We had a great time sharing our favorite studio resources and visiting over some delicious food!

Tonight was so much fun! Moving the Blackburn Music Showcase to Homecoming weekend made for a wild eight rehearsals to get to tonight, but it was all worth it. So many people pitched in to make this a success. Congrats to everyone involved!

It was a cool and beautiful evening for Opera Edwardsville’s second outdoor concert! There was so much amazing singing on this program and we had a great audience. This is one of my favorite gigs!

Today was another beautiful day for an outdoor concert! This one was with the SLSO In Unison Young Artists at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation’s Spring Church. This is such a cool space with a fascinating history!

So glad I was able to see some of the excellent presentations at the ISMTA Conference this year!