New Year reflections

With December in the rear view mirror, it's good to look at Atlanta Young Singers' first installment of kid-managed interactions with very-much-alive composers.As a teacher watching the kids talk with our featured composer Paul Carey in December, it was great to see how they began to change their view of music itself. I think they have greater excitement and healthy curiosity for the notes and rhythms on the page as they relate to a breathing human being--one who has a family and home, and is, for all intents and purposes, a pretty normal guy.

The kids thoroughly enjoyed performing Paul Carey's music and I think they had a greater sense of pride in performing it because they had some sort of connection with the composer. After performing Carey's Unending Flame and Come Christmas the Morn, we heard lots of "Can we do that again next year?" Introducing new music at a holiday concert can be tricky, but this music was inspiring and fresh--especially the treatment of "Now Every Child"  from Silver, Sand and Snow by Eleanor Farjeon (1881-1965), the text used in Come Christmas the Morn.

Speaking of text, the latest entry of Paul Carey's blog has great insight on the texts that he set for 2012-2013 commissions.