After a week laid up with a pretty nasty cold, I really should be getting some rest before tomorrow’s concert, but I’m not exactly sleepy.

I am instead awash in mixed emotions, bittersweet nostalgia and excitement and who-knows-what’s-next, with a wistful dash of just wishing I could have it all, and all at the same time.

The past two years with Choral Chameleon have been a labor of love (lots of labor. and lots of love) and although this day has been a long time coming and the choice made long ago, still does it have to be just now already? It feels something like moving away from home: you’re full of angst and know you need to make the break, so the plans are set and then it’s time and as you pack everything up you suddenly start to see it all with new eyes, with just love, and now that the days are numbered it’s all more poignant than before, and the attachment and resistance are gone so who really cared about all that annoying stuff anyway? I just love you guys. And without drifting too far to the maudlin, it’s true. I do love this group, and everything it stands for. I am extraordinarily proud of my work as President and the foundation I helped to lay for its future. I’m twenty times the musician I was two years ago. And now it’s time to go.

Tomorrow we will premiere a truly stunning work by Jeff Parola and Tony Asaro, aptly titled Such Beautiful Things. We’ll round it out with another great big contemporary work by Conrad Susa, and two sets of fairytales by Irving Fine and John Rutter. We’ll be musical chameleons. We’ll be twenty voices singing together, not just at the same time. We’ll sing of the hidden value of the downtrodden; we’ll sing of God’s all-seeing Eye; we’ll sing a song of sixpence. We’ll be led by a brilliant conductor with an exceptional gift and vision, without whom none of this would exist.

And then I will say goodbye to all that, and keep walking North to the Open Country, where I may turn Musician as well… (you’ll just have to join us to get the reference.)

There are any number of little clips and quotes I could finish with, many of them lyrics I will thrill to sing tomorrow. But perhaps it’s apt that at the moment I’m finding solace in Sondheim:

White: A blank page or canvas. His favorite. So many possibilities.

Don’t miss the third and final Choral Chameleon season concert – and my last appearance as a Chameleon – coming up next Sunday April 18th!

An evening of metaphor, fables and fancy — lessons of adult morality told through children’s fairytales and stories. With the WORLD PREMIERE of Such Beautiful Things, an oratorio based on “The Traveling Musicians” by the Brothers Grimm, with music by Jeffrey Parola and libretto by Tony Asaro; as well as Conrad Susa’s Hymns for the Amusement of Children; Irving Fine’s Alice in Wonderland Songs and John Rutter’s Five Childhood Lyrics. This is choral music like you’ve never heard it before!

Sunday 4/18 — 5 PM
Fourth Universalist Society – 76th & Central Park West
Tickets on sale here.

Choral Chameleon kicks off its second season this Sunday, November 1st, at 5 PM with DAY OF THE DEAD: A MUSICAL SEANCE at the Fourth Universalist Society on 76th & Central Park West in Manhattan.

Works include the WORLD PREMIERE of “Sempiterna” by 2009-2010 Composer-In-Residence, Jeffrey Parola as well as Berlioz, Schütz, Talma, Tori Amos and Edwin Hawkins, among others.

Join us as we celebrate this life and the next and everything in between…

Tickets on sale here – and they’re cheaper in advance!

(pssst: you can also check out my singer profile on the chameleon blog, here.)

This morning I went to the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts to get some music — songs I’m considering working into my upcoming cabaret (more on that to come).  Sondheim and LaChiusa in hand, I decided to stop on the way out and check out the current exhibition on the main floor about the New York Choral Society (“The First Fifty Years”).  I’m big on learning from our predecessors and standing on the shoulders of our ancestors — either that or I was procrastinating going into the office…

Anyway, included amongst the flower-child/psychedelic playbills for Bach and Brahms was a typewritten fundraising letter from what must have been the very first years of NYCS’ existence.  I really should have taken a picture.  The letter described the organization’s dedication to quality music and programming, and the JOY of choral singing — and went on to say that it was that dedication, along with good, realistic business sense (I’m paraphrasing) that allowed the Choral Society to flourish and grow during a time of economic difficulty when many other similar [arts] organizations were struggling and even folding.

You can see where I’m going with this.

Having just started a chamber choir in the midst of a recession (our very first benefit event was scheduled for early October 2008 – ha!) I was particularly struck by this little bit of history, and stood there for awhile to soak it up.  I’m not sure I can brag about my business sense (that’s why I’m supported by a fabulous Board) but I can certainly speak for joy! and for the quality, innovation and accessibility of our musical programming.  I’m always inspired to read about the Group Theater in the ’30s and so many other similar stories of artists and organizations, now considered to be mainstream, that began with a dream and two pennies to rub together.

I can only hope that Choral Chameleon is able to forge such a successful path in the cultural landscape of New York City.  Here’s to the first fifty years!