Orchestra Hero?

I was reading the New York Times this morning and came across a pretty cool opinion by a composer, Michael Gordon. Why not have Orchestra Hero? There are two video games out there that are captivating people and working their musical minds in various ways: Guitar Hero and Rock Band. So why not have a game that connects with one of the most influential ensembles of the past 4 centuries? Well, it sounds like something I would love to get my hands on, but I'm not sure if it's got the amount of influence needed to involve game developers. Here's the article I was reading: Orchestra Hero.

And here's the thing. I felt that, after reading the article in its entirety, it was advertised somewhat falsely, since about 3/4 of it was about the history of the orchestra and Michael Gordon's compositions. But then I listened to the sound bite of Gordon's "Rewriting Beethoven's Seventh Symphony" and was captivated with it. First off, that's the actual title of the piece. Second, I COULD hear the connection between Beethoven and "Rewriting"...and I don't even know Beethoven's Seventh that well. I've heard it a couple times, but for some reason I understood where Gordon had wanted to go with it, and it made sense to me.

That doesn't excuse the fact that the article was SUPPOSED to focus on the concept of Orchestra Hero...I sort of wished he had been able to make a great case for it, because you'd probably be right with your money if you bet on the fact that certain members of Cantus, if not the whole ensemble, would pick it up. But even if he didn't make a great case, the concept was mentioned. And it will probably continue to be for a long time.

Tim Takach's and Matt Tintes' reasons to support Cantus on the Give to the Max day, November 17.

It's Easy Bein' Green!

As we prepare to bring our Elemental program to the Twin Cities, we wanted to let everyone know the ways that Cantus strives to stay green as we tour, rehearse, and even create our CDs!

Biking or bussing to rehearsal is my usual M.O., along with refilling water bottles I acquire many times. My wife and I decided to remain a one-car family, choosing to live near a transit station when we relocated here from San Francisco (a very green town). Reusing is better than recycling, so if I can repurpose anything, I will: medicine bottles can become a flight-friendly hair gel container, and I haven't taken notes on a new sheet of paper in 5 years! -Gary

Here are testimonials from some of the other artists:

Aaron:

I ride my bicycle to the rehearsal and to the office as much as possible. We often use public transit to get downtown and always use public transit (Shahzore and I) to get the the airport for tour. I also volunteer for Transit for Livable Communities.

Shahzore and I also have a "Nature Mill" composting machine on the balcony of our condo. This machine can take up to 5 pounds of food and paper waste a day to make compost. Up to 25 pounds a week! It turns it into compost that we use in our herb garden in the spring and give to friends to fertilize their gardens.

We switched to GPS to avoid printing huge packets of paper directions.

On tour I carry my own water bottle and we've discussed getting "Cantus" bottles with our logo to use on stage.

You could also talk about gas mileage per person. We have 4 or 5 people in a minivan (usually) that gets about 21 MPG. So that's a pretty good per person mileage. It's taking 1 gallon of gas to transport 4 or 5 of us 21 miles-. Most commuters are getting that kind of mileage for one person.

Chris:

Sometimes I ride my bike when the weather is nice. And I use a stainless steel water bottle instead of plastic ones.

Tim:

Whenever I print off scores of my own pieces for the singers, I print them on the reverse side of used printing paper. When we get our scores, none of the pages looks the same! Some of them have holes punched in the wrong side, some will have one sheet of random resume paper, and some have copied magazine articles on the back. Furthermore, if we ever are done with a one-sided copied score (public domain, of course), meeting agenda, or board report, a

couple of us will collect the pages and just stick them on our personal printer trays at home.

Whenever we travel somewhere in the metro area, we carpool to the fullest extent. If you see two four-door sedans caravanning around with nine guys in them, you can bet it's Cantus!

"While You Are Alive," our latest studio album, used recycled packaging. The cardboard sleeve was post consumer content, we used soy-based inks, and the plastic tray for the disc was made out of 100% recycled pop bottles.

Last tour (Allied) Aaron insisted that we use the stow-n-go part of the minivans (under the floor) for recycling. We would throw cans, bottles, and other recyclables down there until we found an official collection bin at a performance site. Then we'd empty the van and start all over again.

Paul:

I do ride my bike to rehearsal when I can, but I guess the greenest thing I did when I moved here was start to live in a place near downtown so I could just walk to work. I've lived for over a year near Loring Park, which has allowed me to basically walk everywhere, and use public transportation for whenever I needed to get outside of my immediate vicinity.

We invite our audiences to join us in conserving, reusing, and recycling, both at the office and at home. Please also join us next Friday night at St. Olaf Catholic Church, downtown Minneapolis, or Sunday afternoon at St. Bartholomew's in Wayzata. Visit http://cantusonline.org/ for times and tickets.

See you there!

Alaska!!

So all of you folks probably wonder if we actually made it to Alaska. Of course you know the answer if you've been on our Facebook page--but we haven't said much on the blog!

Alaska has been absolutely incredible. We started the tour with educational outreach in Anchorage followed by a sold out show. Here's a shot of the view from our hotel in downtown Anchorage.

Then, we headed over to Fairbanks for a concert in the lovely Davis Concert Hall. Great acoustics and a terrific crowd. It really felt like the audience was right with us for the entire show. After the show--they wiped us out of CDs!!

We also had the incredible opportunity to take the show "on the road" to Delta Junction and Healy, small towns on opposite sides of Fairbanks. The 2 hour drive in either direction was just stunning. Here's a shot from our drive to Healy, AK.

Now, we're in the city Kodiak on Kodiak Island. Kodiak is sometimes called the "Emerald Isle" because of it's lush vegetation and beautiful vistas. We have our final show tonight in Kodiak--we're looking forward to meeting some of the folks here. I'm sure they will be as receptive as the everybody else we've met in Alaska.

Just in case you're wondering what it looks like in Kodiak. Here's one last shot. Enjoy!

On to Alaska!

Cantus heads to Alaska later this week (Oct. 8th) and for yours truly it will be the 50th State visited...an 'accomplishment' I attribute almost exclusively to my wonderful job as a Cantus singer. I also luckily had a chance to do a good bit of travel as a member of the St. Olaf Choir, a premier college choral ensemble that tours every February. In fact travel has been a big part of my life, as I first jumped (crawled) on a plane as a toddler, and later undertook some significant trips as a pre-adult, including visiting a number of countries as a Spanish immersion student in elementary and middle school.

I'm sure that is enough of a travel biography of me, but truly we are excited to see the beautiful landscapes of Alaska, and very hyped to sing for the classical music fans of Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Kodiak. It will be wonderful to finally delve into our 'Elemental' program, and feel how the pieces we've chosen to represent the Earthly elements interact with the audience. Programming can be such a chore, but, at the same time, it can illustrate your true artistic self. The pieces you choose, as an individual or as an ensemble, offer a small window into your psyche/personality/intelligence/research/etc. A favorite college professor of mine once said that programming is truly an artform. I'm excited to see how our new program hits audiences in Alaska.

Well, off we go to the 49th state. See y'all soon!

Gary's Official Tour Endorsements (Fall 2009)

So, as we travel throughout the country and world, we come across places, people, food, and services that just rock. We'll try to keep a running tab on these types of things throughout the season.

All these get a five star rating from the last tour:

Health/Wellness

Glenwood Springs, CO

Glenwood Hot Springs

http://www.hotspringspool.com/

Sheboygan, WI

Ginger Miller - Massage Therapist

http://www.therapybythelake.com/

Restaurants

Bozeman, MT

Montana Ale Works (fish and bison recommended)

http://montanaaleworks.com

Sheboygan, WI

Nine 21 Bar & Grill (Get the Maple Bacon Mozzarella Wontons!!!!)

1501 S 8th St

Sheboygan, WI 53081-5830

Quick change on tour!

Shahzore suggested I show the obvious differences between where we woke up this morning (Glenwood Springs, Colorado), and where we ended up (Joplin, Missouri) through a couple of pictures.

But it's more than that. This is priceless.

This was hour 1 through 2 of our drive today:





















...This was hour 3 through 13:




What a difference!!