The Concert of Honor part #2

Well, after two months of searching for a location (church of school) to have my Choir Project rehearsal, we hit a road block. All churches are too busy or do not have the time or space to allocate for this project.

I unfortunately have decided to put the project on hold until June (when I can pick up the search for a church space again). I do not want to have this project cost $40-50 per singer (to rent a space and buy their music), I rather find free (donated rehearsal space) to keep the costs down to $20 per singer. Keeping that in mind, I also feel that the cost of this project to each singer will either harm the number of singers I can get (I already have 25-30, but I need 45-50).

Further information on this project will come to light in my next post.

Thank you

A concert of HONOR

I am embarking on a project that is very close to my heart. The project is to form a mixed choir to perform a concert (in July or August). Now I know that I am not fully-trained yet as a choral conductor, but I am putting for a great effort, because this concert is to honor my mother (Darlene Davis) since she passed away on March 20th 2010 with cancer.

I realize that it will be a tough process to get the choir prepared for the music, since my rehearsal skills (outside of being a section leader) are at a beginning conductors level.
So far the process has been somewhat smooth. I have found 25-30 singers, and will continue to seek another 10-15 singers (for a near total of 45). I have begun to score study the music (with rehearsals starting in a couple of weeks (rehearsing weekly on sunday evenings from 6-8) with music that will be at a medium level, because my choir is new and a lot of singers have not sung in a couple of years (all singers ranging in age from 18-27).
Now to aquire a rehearsal space is still an obstacle. I have called and asked a dozen churches if they could host this choir project only until our concert (and then the choir will dissolve), but I have been met with "NO" from all of them.

However, if luck is on my side, today I will have a church to host these choir rehearsals.
Also, since I am a young/beginner conductor, I have found that asking for advice from my professors at Pacific Lutheran University, and other conductors I have met over the past 10 years has been rather helpful. Advice for choral literature, rehearsal techniques and forming a program, has been the main focus of these conversations. Now, I just hope everything can fall into place, so the choir and I can begin this "Choral Journey".

New Website

My new Website www.alanmusic.com is officially launched.

I have a section for my video series "The American Choral Journey" and a section for the Grad Schools with NEW links (for all those that want to research graduate choral conducting programs).

I hope you all enjoy my new site, and I will be posting my blogs on both my NEW site and this blog (until I get everything completely moved over).


Thank you.