Rehearsing "Midnight Clear"

I thought I'd give an update on how we're doing on "It Came upon the Midnight Clear."

Rehearsing my piece with BYU Singers has been a most interesting, and unusual experience. I am so glad Dr. Staheli is at the helm for this piece. He's put in a lot of time preparing to give the best interpretation he can. He is doing exactly what I want him to do with it. It's almost creepy how he'll say something about the piece or my intention as a composer without any sort of previous conversation, and he'll be spot on.

It's so exciting to see the way he's rehearsing it so carefully the same way he would any other piece of music. He's really paying close attention to the smallest details. I'm really flattered and almost a little embarrassed that we're taking so much time to rehearse it. It certainly has its challenges, but Dr. Staheli is relentless in making sure that we learn and perform it correctly.

One of the most rewarding moments for me as a composer has been to take this piece to Dr. Staheli and Prof. Hall and receiving feedback. When they started talking about all the images they had in their mind while listening to the piece I smiled because it's the same images I had in my mind when I composed it. Another rewarding moment is to catch people singing or whistling the piece randomly. Definitely a rewarding moment.

I'm so excited to have people here this in our concert! I'll post a recording as soon as I get one.