24 years ago, I wrote a 15-minute piece, "Appalachian Carols," for my dad, who was born in the Cumberland Mountain town of Fallsburg, Kentucky, 88 years ago today. I am back from hearing a Men's Chorus rehearsal of itwith the band . Some it was very moving; the opening violin solo was magic, and there were lovely moments of singing from the soloists and chorus that moved me. Unfortunately, there were also a couple of rude surprises, like finding the conductor without consulting me had rewritten a vocal section to accommodate two more soloists. I was not happy when this was dumped on me tonight. We had a whole skirmish in September because the Chorus had illegally committed the copy of the manuscript I wrote in 1985 to Finale without alerting me, and in spite of my protestations, what they're performing is the original version and not my revised and published version of 1987.
I haven't decided how to handle all of this. I will fight for a reversion to what I wrote and I will give up enforving the 1987 ecition but i am not certain how this affects my continuation with the Chorus. Still, for about 30 minutes tonight, I celebrated my dad's birthday.
