Listening Again and Again: Updates on While I Run This Race, July 2024

Work continues on my CD/streaming project, While I Run This Race. Recording sessions were held in 2023 in several locations, including the University of Wyoming, Stone Soup Studios in Maumee, Ohio, and Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Cincinnati. Mark Bunce, my recording engineer has supplied takes from all three of these recording sessions; together, we are compiling the best performances that we can produce for you to hear in the not-so-distant future!

I enjoyed the recording sessions, and the opportunities to work with my friends and colleagues. The editing process is somewhat more…..tiring…..

There are five takes of a crucial passage, measures 177-191. Which one features the ensemble at their best? Listen again, listen again, listen again, while you write down your impressions. Keep your concentration up! Listen to take 182 one more time, just to be safe……Mark takes the fragments that I recommend and splices them into a complete performance that never actually took place in one sitting. Some folks take exception to this approach, but it often produces wonderful results. Recordings will never replace live performances, but this project will allow more people to hear my music.

While I Run This Race features three compositions of mine that honor the musical traditions of Black American musical culture. The title work for the CD was commissioned by the Helios Piano Trio and the Wyoming Music Teachers Association, a programmatic theme and variations work based on the spiritual, Guide My Feet While I Run this Race, a song that was also used during the Civil Rights era. My thanks to the members of the Helios Trio for their stunning performances (both live and recorded) of this challenging work: John Fadial (violin), Beth Vanderborgh (cello), and Chi-Chen Wu, piano.