Some people celebrate their major birthdays with a special game of golf- or by taking in a Broadway show- or treating themselves to a porterhouse steak. But not my friend David Schripsema. For his 65th birthday, he stepped on a podium and conducted a special concert of baroque music, featuring works by Vivaldi, Handel, Bach
Last night, things were groovin’ at First Presbyterian Church in downtown Racine, thanks to a gathering of stupendously gifted jazz musicians led by the extraordinary Sam Chell. For those of you who don’t know him, Sam Chell is a retired English professor from Carthage who seems to know everything worth knowing about anybody whose ever
One week ago, the world lost a very special woman named Marion Judge - one of the most extraordinary people I have ever been privileged to know and to call friend. . . . and someone whose life story sounds like something from a screenplay. She was born in the United States 90 years ago
As I was coming home from Carthage on Wednesday and passed through the intersection of Braun Rd. and Wood Rd, I couldn’t help but notice several police cars about a block south on Wood Rd. parked on both sides of the street, with lights flashing. It looked a little strange - and actually rather spectacular
I am about to tell you about a neat surprise from yesterday morning at church. . . but I’m being very careful not to reveal who I am talking about- which is also why I chose the out of focus photo you see above. (I knew that my less-than- assured skill with the camera would
It began in mid-summer with a very unexpected question posed to me by Betty (Kyle) Peterson, a new member of my senior choir at Holy Communion: would I be willing to write a new composition in memory of her beloved parents? The hope was that the piece might be sung by the Choral Arts Society
So the first high-definition simulcast from the Metropolitan Opera was Puccini’s “Tosca” and I for one was rather skeptical of how much I was going to enjoy it. . . since the first performance of this new production, which opened this current Met season, was greeted with a sharp mix of enthusiasm, dismay, and hostility.
A.L.L. stands for Adventures in Lifelong Learning, and I absolutely love that name! It’s a reminder of the importance of continuing to learn for as long as we live- and also that learning is meant to be an adventure. I wonder if there is anything which more clearly correlates to true happiness than love of
I had a very moving experience recently while teaching a voice lesson to a student named Andrew Lenox, an exceptionally gifted young singer who is also very good on stage. I am always looking for things which allow him to flex his expressive muscles and sing as vividly in “classical” music as he does in
One of the strangest things about being on the radio (or in just about any broadcast medium) is that the audience you’re reaching is basically invisible and unknown to you. You might do an occasional call-in program where you tangibly connect with a handful of listeners out there, and of course there are occasional phone
