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A farewell to my “Brothers in Song” Triangle Gay Men’s Chorus. This was my last performance with them.

The Crystal Phantom


I often long for the quiet of my youth
Back before all of the concerns and cares
Created long and winding monologues
Of all of the things I must remember to do
All the things I try to forget
And Everything that I am learning
From day to day
A time before the muses filled my head with music
Well into the night, into the early morning hours
Until from hand to piano to pen to paper
Their voices had been transcribed
A time before all the busy-ness and
noise of my hectic life drowned out
the birdsong and fregrant smell of roses
But most of all back to a time before
The sound that is no sound
Came to me
I don’t know when that may have been
I think it just crept up from behind
Like some phantom seen
from the corner of my
Left eye
Or was it the right?
What I do know is that it will never stop
Except, perhaps for one brief moment
When we paused
In the middle of the desert
To get a picture of you and me
In front of a Joshua tree
And there was a stillness
I had not known since I can’t remember when
But it was only a moment

A Modest Proposal – Performed in Denver, CO at GALA Festival 2012.
This is performed a bit faster than I would prefer, but there were time constraints.

Recital!

See the Facebook Event HERE
The Chapel Hill Contemporary Music Ensemble presents its second concert of 2014: “Electro-Acoustic” with the UNC Composition Studio. The premieres of electro-acoustic works by the composers will be performed:
Griffin Allen
Sarah Mae Chilton
Richard Drehoff
Henry Stewart Engart III
Eliana Fishbeyn
Edgar Harrell
Stewart McCullough
Dasean Nardone-White
Kevin Tillman
Shuhei Tsurumi
We’ll be streaming the concert live at our website (www.chapelhillcme.org) and we hope to have a great audience in the hall and online!
8:00p (EST) in Kenan Rehearsal Hall on UNC’s Campus.

Crooked Creek

https://youtu.be/AV27GW54Zw4%20

This video is a performance by Crooked Creek at United Church of Chapel Hill.

Bainbridge Ferry

Piece written for composition class (MUSC-166) for Professor Steven Anderson, UNC-CH.
I am planning to record this piece with string trio this summer.

CVNC: An Online Arts Journal in North Carolina | Vocal Arts Ensemble – Choral Singing At Its Best.

“This chorus under this conductor knows how to sing from a whisper to overwhelming intensity, how to shape a phrase, how to build to a climax, how to sing so well pitched that they take the audience into realms of possibility beyond the ordinary. . . .The concert was simply choral music at its best sung as it should be sung: artfully, precisely, meaningfully. What can top that? Next year, I suspect.”

 

Here’s my submission:

Kevin Michael Tillman’s Cover of “Take it Away” by Karmin – Used with permission.

Produced View full article »

Special thanks to Shawn Northcutt for recording and producing this video for us!

Winter Before the Fire is dedicated View full article »

DCIM100MEDIAI’m torn.
Do I just drop Facebook “Friends” that keep insisting that they are biblical/religious experts that feel free to condemn one type of sin while they enjoy their shrimp, lobster, and pork; While they cook everything in one pan on one stove; while they wear Poly/Cotton blended cloth; while they work on Saturday – or Sunday for that matter?
Do I continue to be “Friends” with someone who insists it’s “nothing personal?” (No, really, this was actually said to me by someone that said that homosexuality is a sin and that we need to change and that overturning DOMA was declaring “Good evil and evil good.”)
They seem to be experts on how I live, on how my love and relationship for David is somehow wrong and they want it to be outlawed while not doing the same for divorce and re-marriage – (One-up for the Iron Rule of the Catholic Church, BTW. They do a really good job of pitting families against each other Just to live in the Dark Ages.)
These “Friends” think that my life is lived just to “feel good.” (again – this was actually posted) It didn’t feel all that good while I sat there and watched my first partner die while I sat up sleepless by his bedside.
I will no longer sit here and take the bullshit that gets bandied about by anti-GLBTQ religious moralists. What it really is is a group of people that insist that the Law applies to us, while little if any of the rest of the Law applies to them. All they have to do is declare Jesus as their Lord and Savior and you get a “Get out of jail free” card.
This is not a statement about outright anti-organized-religion or anti-religion at all. It is about having someone impose their religious beliefs, whatever they may be, on others. It’s especially a worse offense, in my eyes, anyway, when they do so while decrying that anyone should happen to try to impose anything on them. While to most sane people this would sound just simply silly, to them, they are being oppressed in the name of God, all the while not realizing that an attempt is being made to enforce what Thomas Jefferson called the “Separation of Church and State.” (enjoy)
Here are 35 Quotes Conservative Christians Will Hate.
In addition, even Jesus recognized that the Kingdom of God was not of the world and said so to His apostles. When Jesus was asked about taxes and if they should be paid, he said “render unto Ceasar…”

Mat 22:20 And he saith unto them, Whose [is] this image and superscription?
Mat 22:21 They say unto him, Caesar’s. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.

Yes, Jesus is talking about who should get the physical money – God wants us, not our money (hint-hint) but he was also making it clear that he did not come to rail against the current government or change Roman law to fit his vision of what it should be.
Yes, there are real problems that should be addressed: Poverty, hunger, inequity, and injustice. But it boggles the mind that there are so many overly vocal anti-GLBTQ people out there that could make such a tremendous difference if they focused all of that energy on the real things that need fixing.
If heterosexual marriage is in such dire straits, why not address the real issues? Why are divorce rates among heterosexuals so high? In my opinion, and that of a great many others, divorce is the leading threat to marriage! If this isn’t quite clear to you, perhaps you might want to go back and do the math. In addition, a large number of couples who could get married, and yes, I mean heterosexuals, are choosing not to get married for various reasons. Are you worried about the sanctity of marriage? Well, then perhaps you should try to actually talk to people without accusing them of sinning first – trust me, the best way to end a dialog is “The Bible says you’re living in sin, so why are you doing that?”
And so, we come back to my initial question. I am really tired of the BS, but then if I slam the Facebook “Friend” door in their face, well then there won’t be any dialog.
That being said, a good friend of mine once said, “There’s no winning with an ideologue. Once you get to ‘God says…’  or ‘The Bible says…’ that is pretty much the end of the real dialogue.”
Sometimes I feel like I don’t have the energy to deal with the ultra-conservative anti-LGBTQ evangelical ultra-mega-church-y pounding over the head “Well, the Bible says it’s against God’s will.”
Then I ask “Which Bible” and they say “The Bible,” I mean, really, with Lord knows how many different versions and languages the Bible is in and they can’t answer a simple question? (Sigh)
See? There I go again…
So, tell me, which is it? To “Unfriend” or not to “Unfriend?”