December 12
Both John Carden and I are conservatory-trained musicians: John, North Carolina School for the Arts, voice degree; Performer's Certificate, Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, voice; myself, BFA's in both piano and music education+voice, Carnegie Mellon University; MA, Duquesne University.
Both of us work in the music world but also work at other jobs: A scenario that is repeated a lot with conservatory-trained musicians. Every once in a while, a musician will get lucky/have great connections/have the talent of a Pavarotti---and doesn't have to think about anything but their music.
THE CASTRATO DIARIES was the product, in part, of an evolvement in our thinking: How can we create a "niche" that people would be interested in hearing? So we began with taking regular classical music that was originally written for the castrato voice (Baroque opera, etc.) and/or music that was originally written for the female voice, and re-scored the pieces for John's male counter-tenor range. That was the basis for THE CASTRATO DIARIES in Concert CD.
Then we began to experiment with taking not only classical vocal music, but original music written by John and myself, and re-scored these pieces for John to sing in BOTH of his ranges (he's a bass-baritone in addition to counter-tenor) and/or for electric instruments in the accompaniment, in addition to the usual acoustic instrumentation. "Missing You at Christmas" is one of the products of this aspect of the evolvement.
It is an enormous amount of fun and hard work combined---
Leave a Comment
December 12
This is M.E. Forbes, the music partner of John Carden of THE CASTRATO DIARIES. John and I have a new Christmas song that was written as a gesture of support for our men and women of the US Armed Forces: "Missing You at Christmas". John wrote the piece after a friend of his said, Why don't you write a Christmas song?---so, since John and I are working on our latest CD, the timing was great. The song was written, arranged, recorded, and ready to go in less than 2 weeks; it was a wonderful experience.
John and I would like this song to be played, shared, and downloaded at no charge.
For me, working on this song helped to bring a little closure (if total closure is ever possible with the death of a parent): my beloved father, a World War II veteran, died this summer. While arranging "Missing You at Christmas", I kept on hearing in the back of my mind, that WWII song, "I'll Be Home for Christmas"...Dad, you'll be "home" this Christmas---you're with Mother now; and you'll be, in spirit, home with each of your children. Love you, Dad.
And to the troops in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and all over the world where US Armed Forces are stationed and deployed: Thank you. Thank you.
Leave a Comment
