I just heard the news tonight of the death of an incredibly dear man named Jerry Moe, a good friend of mine from the Weston Noble Alumni Choir. A few weeks ago, Jerry called me to let me know that he had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer and given no more than six months
It was an incredible thrill for me to speak with actor Alan Alda, even though I was never an especially rabid fan of the television series M*A*S*H*. Despite my mixed feelings about the show, I certainly admired Mr. Alda's impressive abilities as an actor and director, and the fact that he had been so richly
Saturday, October 24 5:20 a.m. - Alarm Goes Off ..... for the first time. 5:47 a.m. - After hitting the 9-minute snooze button twice, I haul myself out of bed. There's a lot to do before I can be out the door and on my way to Solo & Ensemble at Muskego High School. There
It wouldn't be halloween at Carthage without the music department's annual Monster Concert, which is our fun-loving take on what's actually a fairly long-lived tradition in music. The term Monster Concert refers to a concert involving multiple keyboard instruments combining to produce a thundering amount of sound. It was back in the mid 1800's that
This is an excerpt from the interview I was able to record with Usha Gandhi during her visit to southeastern Wisconsin several years ago for a Bridges of Peace event. It was an extraordinary honor to be in the presence of someone like that- but also hugely intimidating. Never have been more afraid of saying
Here is a fun one from the Morning Show archives: my conversation with comedian Bob Newhart. I would have loved to have talked with him all day long, but even a few minutes with such a legend was a great pleasure and honor. One side note: After we finished the interview, I thanked
It's not been often that I've been able to do Morning Show interviews about comic books- but this is one of those occasions. Roy Thomas was one of the right-hand men for the legendary Stan Lee, the genius responsible for creating so much of the distinctive Marvel universe. I've always been more of
It scarcely seems possible, but the calendar does not lie. It was twenty years ago this month that I first unveiled to the good people of Holy Communion Lutheran Church a folk liturgy I composed for them titled "O the Joy in Knowing Jesus" - or "O the Joy" for short. Pastor Jeff Barrow (our
It's an inescapable reality that when it comes to booking radio guests, there is typically an inverse relationship between the fame of the guest and the amount of time they will yield for an interview. Most of the biggest names I have interviewed have been available to me for ten minutes or less- which is
A week ago, "opera buddy" Marshall Anderson and I began our 30th season of attending the Lyric Opera of Chicago. It's a milestone that's both exciting and bewildering, especially when I realize that we've been going to the opera ten years longer than most of my Carthage voice students have been alive. When we first
