Musical Assumptions

Subito Music, the publisher of my 2003 opera (revised in 2006) Sister Beatrice, asked me for audio and YouTube links for the pieces I have in their catalog, so I revisited this piece recently.

I spent the better part of a year on this opera, and, as with the other operas I have written, have never had a chance to see or hear it performed. It is published, but ...

It's the concert from June 19, 2026 that includes my arrangement of Florence Price's "Adoration."

The local PBS station, WILL, has an article about it in their Clef Notes blog. You can find it here.

DOLLY PARTON SAW EVERYONE [written by Michael Jochum, guest blogger]

There are entertainers, there are stars, there are icons, and then there are those rare human beings who become part of the emotional architecture of a country. Dolly Parton was one of those people. Today, August 25, 2026, Dolly passed away peacefully in Nashville at the age of 80, and the lo...

It is so easy these days to fall into the trap of feeling that the real world is online, and that everything that happens of value is documented by social media posts (or advertisements) about it. And then it is easy to take that concept a step further and imagine that something (like a performance) that isn't documented on social media might not have value.

We all kn...