Since today's the first Sunday of Advent, here's the opening section of my "Appalachian Carols for My Father," which I wrote for the Chamber Choir of the New York City Gay Men's Chorus around 1984. In twenty years as their staff arranger, I wrote a lot of pieces, some for special occasion, some revisons of things I'd written earlier for them, and maybe at most ten arrangements or compositions that I am really proud of. Sadly, most of those 10 were never commercially recorded and sit in limbo. the Appalachian Carols is one of them. this is an archival tape of the piece's first performance at Carnegie Hall, conducted by Dean X. Johnson. After 30 years, it still bothers me that he had the Chamber Choir sing the piece with southern accents. Dean was a talented man and a dear friend who died far too young.https://soundcloud.com/user5614139/appalachian-carols-1-a-virgin-most-pure
I have a subtotal from the fundraiser, but not the exact total. The fundraiser made over $6,000.00
I was wrong. It wasn't $6,000.+. It was just over $8,000.!
Good afternoon. A busy day at church. It was Painfully Bad Music Day, plus folks brought their Thanksgiving leftovers and we ate that and then decorated the sanctuary for Advent. I washed the dishes after the meal.
Because I had to take my Father off the checking account, there is a hold on all transactions.....so our Social Security, Pension checks, and deposits are all put in....then taken back out....and then credited again in a day or two.It is most irritating, and hopefully it will be done soon. One lady said 60 days, another one told me 8 to 10 weeks.....so I just have to keep watching.
