Four tickets. 😀 I love that joke.

A discussion of the current state of music theatre in general and the opera Detroit

I await with terror every one of these long musical evenings.–Friedrich Nietzche re. Wagner’s Ring

I just got my complimentary ticket for the annual ‘Wagner Competition’. I still receive stuff like this for some tangential reason because the Seattle Opera was one of the places I got a bit of money to write Detroit The Opera. And that reminded me. Now that some time has elapsed, I’ve been meaning to mention a few things regarding ‘Detroit’ as well as the state of music drama in general. I’ve been reluctant to talk about this stuff until now for fear of burning bridges. Well, that boat has sailed. If burning bridges can sail (on a sea of chocolatey metaphors.)

Like all arts organisations, the Seattle Opera faces an existential crisis. It has been led by Speight Jenkins for so long no one can remember ‘life before Speight’. But now […]

I’ve put together a medley of three bits from Detroit in a simple promo video. This contains the Overture to Act I, where Eddie Powell introduces the neighbourhood, the aria ‘Tear Down The House’ which ends of Act II and the finale to Act III ‘Evergreen’.

Evergreen is a mix of live tracks from rehearsals summer 2012 with a number of studio overdubs. You’ll note the vocal track has slightly different lyrics from the libretto.

There are a lot of sections with loooong notes. Hiiiiigh notes. Unfriendly to those who have to breathe to make noise. Whenever I get this stuff rehearsed it’s either with pros who tell me to what I can do with my chop destroying stupid parts (unless I open my checkbook—in which case they’ve never heard anything quite like it.) Or, I can get unsuspecting children.

God Bless The Future Of Our Children. Who Are Our Future.

The great thing about young people is that, despite what you may have heard, they will happily […]

Official video from JCHMusic for the new album Songs From Detroit The Opera by JC Harris.

This is from Act II. The son has returned from WW II and is obviously depressed. Father meets him at a local bar and encourages him to snap out of his depression. Thinking to commiserate, he recounts his own suffering upon first coming to America. He then reveals that he has a ready-made business opportunity to share with him. Instead of being excited, the son explodes with anger. Father is clueless and turns away in horror. He now realizes just how truly damaged his son really is.

Just a quick note if you haven’t been to “the brown site” for a while. Obviously, I’ve moved things over here. The old site was good, but frankly, it got too frickin’ difficult to keep up with all the spam. (I wish ‘consolidating’ the actually city was as easy.)

I have yet to find a way to have organised discussions that don’t get outta control and it frustrates me no end because I actually believe in dialogue. But as I’ve said before, I fear that’s gone with Web 1.0. If you take a look at Facebook or Twitter it’s all ‘140 characters’ and more ‘look at this video I just saw.’

Anyhow. I’m gonna post the best threads as soon as I have a minute. Some good history and ideas there which really helped me during the writing. Big Cheers!

The next news I expect to have is getting the score prepared for school orchestra. The idea has always been to be doable by less than pro level players. Given the current dreadful […]