Category: On That Note Music Blog

After our first Interfaith Choir Festival in October 2013, I was approached by Amanda Harberg, a professional composer and friend of our Composer-in-Residence, Tom Parente. She had an idea for organizing a series of chamber music concerts with top-level performers, and she felt that UU Montclair was the perfect place for it. Amanda had a...

From time immemorial – or, to be more exact, since 1983 – the Unitarian Universalist Musicians Network (UUMN) has hosted a summer conference. This annual meeting is attended by conductors, instrumentalists, choir members, ministers, composers, and others who are passionate about developing the musical life of UU congregations.* The four-and-a-half day gathering follows a format similar to the annual General Assembly...

Several years before the beginning of my illustrious career as a UU musician, I had a job in a small health food store. I started as a part-time clerk and over the course of several years gradually assumed more authority. As general manager, I still had many of the same tasks as before (restocking organic...

As I am writing this, the internet connection at the U has just recently come back after we were offline for several hours. I had a brief chat about it with our RE Coordinator, Judith Stein-Farrall, who told me that our IT consultant was called in and simply reset the routers. Judith and I both...

Several years ago I was hired by a fairly large UU congregation in the Metro NY district as the music director for their summer services. I very much enjoyed working there and met a lot of terrific people. They invited me back the following summer, and when the regular music director returned in the fall...

Last month I conducted a concert production of the musical “Sunday in the Park with George,” one of my very favorite shows. It revolves around the painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat. Even if you were not familiar with the title, you would probably recognize the picture...