Non-Profit Startup 1.5- Man, I am Board!

The Mission Statement is live.  The vision is starting to clarify for what we are and what we believe.  And now, we need a board.

I have a joke in my show, "The Denver Art Song Project combines two of my favorite things, singing and PowerPoint."  It is funny because it is true.  Unfortunately, I don't get to sing when I take my pitch slide deck out to meet with potential board members.

I've been working on a 3-year plan for about 4 months and yesterday I took it out to my first potential board member.

When I started this process in January, I spoke with the founders other performance groups.  They had the nerve and chutzpah to go out and fulfill their dreams to create art.  They inspired business leaders and their community to support their vision.

Considering the amount of rejection that an opera singer can receive over the course of their life, one would think that I'd be ready for whatever lies ahead.  I think that the difference is that in the past, I would go out and audition and there were a million variables of what I sounded like, what the audience panel was looking for and the color of the sky.  In this case, I've got a very clear vision of the future of Denver Art Song Project and the vision is entirely my own without any audition panel coming with their own needs and desires.

It shouldn't surprised you that I rehearsed this a great deal with Kitty and my parents-in-law.  We worked out a great number of kinks.

In the end, I realize there is a potential for really making a difference in the artistic community of Denver through a performance group dedicated to art songs.

Oh, and he said yes!

And this afternoon I'm off to meet with potential board member #2.  We need three to incorporate.

Non-Profit Startup 1.4- Mission Control

On Saturday night, the Denver Art Song Project performed their first "experimental" show at Syntax Physic Opera.

The show included supertitles, songs paired with famous (or infamous) works of art and narration.  We featured songs with piano, songs with oboe and unaccompanied songs.

Looking to the future, to make the Denver Art Song Project a reality and a viable group to last for years, I have been reading that a "Mission Statement" is essential.  Our mission statement should encapsulate quickly and easily all the aspects of what we hope to accomplish.  It should be easy to use in an elevator pitch with donors, potential board members and concert attendees.

Probably the most important purpose of our mission statement is that every recital, project and action our group takes should accomplish some (or all) of the principles.

Without further ado, here is my first draft.

• To educate and extend the appreciation of the Art Song genre by creating both traditional and experimental performances
• Traditional: concerts of art songs in a traditional concert hall environment
• Experimental: art song performance with video elements, staging or in collaboration with artists of other mediums
• To create a library of classic and newly commissioned art song recordings by artists living and working in Colorado
• To provide paid artistic opportunities for local musicians
• To create a musical legacy for the organization and the artists
• To develop educational curriculums for young listeners to learn about music through the Art Song Genre both in person and online

Our recital on Saturday has lived up to these standards and with our work preparing our second album, I think the mission has already begun.

A Skier's Guide to Opera Singing 5. My Left Foot.

I will keep this one brief.

I was thinking back to my first day of ski season.  It had been years since I had put on skis.  After a couple of glides around the bunny hill, I thought that I had rediscovered some semblance of skiing form.  Keeping in mind that I only skied about 4 times in my life before this.

That first run down, I started off feeling confident.  As I started my first turn, my left foot entirely failed me.  I started to snowplow and I had no strength to coordinate my legs.  For the remainder of the day, I wondered what on earth could be the matter that I could not move my left foot and leg with the same skill and precision of my right leg.

In a way, I was taken back to being a young opera singer.  There were so many things wrong that I had to manage and figure out.  I'm a notoriously slow learner about some things and it took awhile for me to get some equilibrium about performing and learn the skills so that they were reflexive.

So my advice as a skier to an opera singer? Keep track of all the left feet you have.  Deal with them.  It will make the subsequent trips down much more fun.  And then don't forget to repeat again and again... that will help to fix it.

A Skiers Guide to Opera Singing 4. Insanity.

If you are on social media, you may see this meme around:



First off, it is very likely that Einstein did not say it.  Let's put that aside for now.

As a new skiier, I would say that repetition has been my greatest friend.  I started out barely creeping down the green slopes and with more and more runs under my belt, I found that making the leap to more challenging slopes was not nearly as scary.

And besides, the first time I looked down from the top of the mountain I was petrified.  I thought I could see for far too many miles than was humanely safe and the bottom was completely out of sight.  That first run was a blur and it was only with repeating the runs down that I could take in more of the scenery.

Does this sound at all like singing to you?  There is a reason that I spent a month in NYC for rehearsals of my last show.  We were performing a new work that had never been staged and, in addition to giving the music the attention it deserved, my colleagues and I had to spend time figuring out how our characters would interact and what our stories were when we were not on stage.  By the end of rehearsals we were running the show twice per night.

Repetition leads to strength.  Repetition leads to the ability to recover from mistakes.  Repetition leads to confidence.  Repetition gives you the opportunity to look with a wider field of vision and appreciate different nuances.

And soon I began to realize that with repetition, the adventure was in the journey and not the destination.

Letters to my Mentors 5. Oh, oh, oh... it's Magic.

Dear Mentor,

When I met you, I did not yet have any children.  I was working as your executive assistant in a large non-profit and your background as a titan of the financial world had preceded you.  Imagine my surprise when you called me into your office.

"Find out Tannen's Magic Shop's hours today.  I need to get some shopping done," you said.

My usual office demeanor cracked with this surprising request and the questions started rolling out.  "Are you a magician?" "When did you start doing magic?"  "Why would you be doing magic?"

You began doing magic tricks at your children's birthdays when they were very small.  There was a hiatus during their teenage and young adult years, but when the grandchildren arrived, you picked up where you left off, buying one to two magic tricks a year to add to your repertoire.

As for me?  I can now do a rope trick, cut a card into pieces and reassemble it and I am starting out with card tricks now.  I have some linking rings that absolutely blew the mind of the kids who were attending The Spud's and LHB's birthdays this year.

For at least a couple more years I will be happily performing these tricks, learning more and, hopefully, making memories for my children.

Sincerely,
Eapen

A Skiers Guide to Opera Singing 3. Share the Lift Nicely.

Skiers are stupid.  Take for example the risks of riding the Chair Lift:

• You get on a chair that floats through the air 50 feet above the ground
• You share that chair with a friend or a total stranger
• If you don't drop the bar, you could fall out
• If you drop the bar and your chair mate isn't noticing it, you could hit their head and make them fall out
• You have to disembark without killing the person sitting next to you
• You have to load and unload smoothly so that everyone on the chair lift can get up the mountain as efficiently as possible

Opera Singers are stupid.  Take for example the risks of being on stage in an opera:

• You stand on a stage in front of hundreds (or thousands) of people who are looking to be entertained
• You share that stage with a friend or total stranger
• If you don't act safely, you could fall off the set 
• If you act safely and professionally and your colleague is not aware, you could still end up injuring them or negatively affecting the performance
• You have to enter and exit the stage without ruining your colleagues work
• You have to enter and exit the stage to smoothly maintain the efficiency of telling the story

Do you see some similarities?  As I was sitting on the chair lift, I tried to think of the rules that we could apply that would mitigate the challenges for both a skier and a singer:

• Practice- the first time you get on the chair lift or rehearse a scene, it's likely going to be a mess.  Keep working at both and soon you will know how to share the chair lift or stage nicely with your friend.
• Be considerate to strangers.  Sometimes you board a chairlift or share the stage with a new person.  When you do, watch and listen to them and try to communicate as much as possible to make sure that you are both on the same page.  Find compromise and you can find success, even on your first trip on the stage or up the chair lift.
• Lower the bar according to plan.  Once you are sure that you are ready to go out on stage or are safely seated on the lift, lower the bar in coordination with your partner.  It makes for a smoother experience and no hurt feelings.
• Mind your boarding and disembarking.  Both Chairlifts and Stages require that you carefully walk off stage.  For chairlifts, you are throwing yourself down a 10 foot slide.  You have to clear the way for the people behind you.  On stage, you are walking from a brightly lit proscenium to a dark backstage.  There may be people behind you who need to get off the stage quickly.  Don't dilly dally.  You aren't the star of the show (even if you are the star of the show), you are just a piece of the puzzle and other people have to do their jobs.

Letters to my Mentors 4. When you screw up, Improvise.

Dear Mentors,

Back when I was a senior in undergrad, I was having a pretty bad year.  My young voice was still pretty unstable.  I pegged my heart on a couple of roles that I did not get because my voice was a mess.  I turned down opportunities because I had my heart set on roles that I did not get because my voice was really in a bad place.  It was a snowball of challenges that I made for myself.

About a quarter into the year, I realized that I had to make some sort of opportunity for myself.  Outside of my senior recital and required courses, I had absolutely no performing opportunities.  For a music performance major, that is a death knell.

I ended up collaborating with a young conductor to organize a production of Mozart's Requiem.  The vision was to have a student run, conducted and performed full production that would be performed on a weekend when high school seniors would be visiting.

And that is where you all came in.  When I conceived this project, I was feeling pretty bad about myself.  I didn't know what I was going to do with my voice and career and I had watched myself destroy my performance opportunities both by circumstance and action.
You all completely believed in this idea of making this performance.  You agreed to conduct the show.  You joined the chorus.  You played in the orchestra.  You agreed to be the organization sponsors.  You were my fraternity brothers who showed up to set up the room and listened to my fears and concerns in our weekly meetings.  And in the end, all of you combined your efforts to make this the highest attended concert at our school that year.  There were people sitting in the aisles.  The president of the college was in attendance, front and center.

I think that our group made an impact on those future college freshman and it was your generosity of time and talent that helped me turn around my attitude and think that maybe I could make a career in music.

Thank you for being there for me at one of the darkest moments of my career and helping give me the push to keep going.

And so, I am sharing this recording of the full performance.  It is far from perfect and the tenor soloist sounds like he is a very young tenor (pro-tip: it's me).  Besides that?  It is one of my proudest moments of my career, even all these days later.

Sincerely,
Eapen

A Skiers guide to Opera Singing 2. Give up the Poles

It all began when we arrived at the mountain and Kev-lar said, "Why don't you leave your poles?  Helmet Jim has quit using his poles and so have a lot of the rest of the gang."

Keep in mind, the few times that I've skied, I used poles and almost every skier who I watched go by had poles except for the little kids who were snowplowing down the mountain.  My heart went right to my throat.  It seemed impossible to imagine going down such a steep hill without something to aid with balance.

Of course, I remember my poles getting tangled in my skis as I got off the chairlift as a kid.  And then I fell and they had to stop everything.  I also remember falling and getting all tangled up with my poles knocking into my skis and having to trudge around the slope collecting all my gear before I could continue on.

When Kitty went with it, I joined in as well and left the poles leaning against the lodge.

After a few runs down the little bunny area, I started to get the feel of skiing back into my body.  Kev-lar stayed with the Spud and patiently watched her come down the hill and sometimes carried her up the little hill so she would not have to side-step up.

Kitty and I left them behind and crossed a steep intermediate.  From then on we were going down a curvy, relaxed hill.  Yes, I snowplowed like a kid.  But I did not fall.  When I came close, I could just drop my hand, push off and reset myself.

It got me to thinking, what are the poles that I carry in my singing career?  What are the artificial tools that I use to support me?   What are the steps in my learning and studying and performing that I think are completely necessary, but, if I gave them up, would make me a better singer?

What are the poles that I need to leave back in the lodge when I walk out on stage and sing?

Non-Profit Startup 1.3 When the world throws the spaghetti at you

I've been spending the month in NYC doing a show and I'm trying to get my feet under me for our DASP conversion to a non-profit.

Do you know how sometimes the world puts signs at you?  I was connected up to a fellow Rochester native who is our fabulous conductor for Astronaut's Tale.  He has experience running a non-profit in Chicago.  For the low price of taking him out for dinner (feed your local artist), I get to pick his brain on how to approach this particular challenge.

A good friend in NYC connected me up to the founder of an early music group.  I had a very focused conversation with her to get more details about how she started her group and what were some of the challenges.

Finally, I've been chatting with my director and producer to get hints as well.

So what are my big concerns?

• What is it like to get direction from a board?
• What do you do to get your board to help you get funding?
• What kind of mission has the possibility of becoming sustainable?
• How can I help lift up as many Colorado artists as I can with this project?

I'm still collating all of the information I have received so far and continue to get.

For now, they all left me with some key tasks:

• Get a lawyer to help get started (hat tip to a Young Families friend from Mass)
• Make sure someone on your board is an accountant and can help with the financial statements and bookkeeping
• Make a mission statement that is clear and sums up our goals in an elevator talk to potential board members

Future blog posts will document the journey started by these tasks.  It looks like I have some work to do when I get back home to Colorado.

Letters to My Mentors, Part 3. Generosity and Hospitality.

Dear Mentor,

We met when I was a young artist.  You needed a driver to get you around town and I needed a job to help keep me fed.  It is funny how age did not make much of a distance because we ended up spending a great deal of time together.

We would have lunch at your place and then go on trips to multiple grocery stores to shop the sales.  You were buying way too much if you were only buying for yourself.  This is where I learned one of the many lessons you quietly demonstrated: Feeding artists.

Opera singers, when starting out, generally have a whole lot of similarities with each other. We are all generally broke and hungry.  This is where you came in.  For every single rehearsal and performance, you would provide a buffet of crackers and cheese, cookies, apples and pears sliced up and whatever else might have been on sale.  It was hugely generous and it was a way that you gave back to those who performed out our little opera company.  I would bring the buffet over every day and set it up and then tear it down to bring it back for you to refill.  Your generosity was a gift that is missed to this very day back at that company.

In spending all that time driving you around, I also helped you out with entertaining friends and guests.  You had a huge supply of beautiful china and silver and could invite friends over for an evening of dinner.   I would help set up and, thanks to you, I think I set a pretty mean table.

For Christmas one year you gave me an olive spoon 
and I still have it today after so many moves across the country chasing my dreams.

You never had children and were only briefly married.  I wonder if I, and some of the other guys who drove you around, became the sons you never had.  I wonder what kind of father you might have been.

I still think of you often and the endless hours of volunteering that you did for so many organizations in the town where we met.

Thank you for sharing your gifts and time and talent with me.
Sincerely,
Eapen

Repost: Silence in the City

Just after Superstorm Sandy, I wrote this post about getting to work in the city:

As you all know, Kitty and I have spent the last few years living and loving our life in New York City. Our brownstone has been our base of operations for the past five years and many of our adventures have been documented on this blog.

On Monday, our family lived through our very first hurricane.  We were abundantly blessed as we did not have any damage to our home, loss of power or even internet service.  Seeing the devastation of lower Manhattan and New Jersey was an experience is cognitive dissonance.  Our lives have been normal in almost every way, while the lives of friends and co-workers have been disrupted beyond anything I wish to imagine.

Despite our blessings, life has changed dramatically for us in New York City.

On Wednesday I had to get to an appointment and then rehearsal in the city.  As you know, the trains only go so far as Brooklyn near the bridges.  From there, you have to get a shuttle bus to go across a bridge and then get to points in Manhattan.

When I came out in the sunshine of the day at Jay Street Metrotech station, I was greeted by the largest crowd I had ever seen.  All were waiting on line for the shuttle.  I could see the line was moving fairly quickly, but I could not find the end.

I knew that this would be a possibility and I had left the house in running gear and with the minimum supplies for the day.  Armed with that and an opera-singers almost pathological need for self-determination, I turned left and followed Jay Street to the pedestrian entrance to the Manhattan Bridge.

I picked up pace to an easy run and it took about ten minutes to cross the bridge to Canal Street.  Following the vacant thoroughfare of Chinatown to Broadway, I saw every shop gated at 11 a.m.  What should have been a packed street was almost devoid of cars, trucks and people.

I followed Broadway up to East 8th Street, running through the hollow streets to East 8th where I cut west to Greenwich and then up to 8th Avenue and 14th Street.  No traffic lights or significant number of people presented themselves to slow my pace.  In daylight, the city was serene and silent but for the occasional sirens or police convoys.

Only at 31st Street, did I start to see lights of the city again and by 34th Street, the city was almost completely back to normal.  There were more police, but otherwise, business carried on as usual.

I spent the rest of the day alternating between my day job and rehearsal.  I walked out of the rehearsal space at 7:50 p.m.  Darkness had settled over the city and the lights and life of the Lincoln Center area and Broadway prevented any real running pace to be achieved.

I alternated running and walking through the crowds of Columbus Circle, down 8th Avenue where I saw the crane dangling over Carnegie Hall.  The trip to 34th Street and 8th Avenue took almost a half hour because of the crowds and occasional police barricades.

It was again at 31st Street, south of Madison Square Gardens, that I felt the scourge again of the hurricane.  I ran, lit only by the headlamps of cars down to 23rd Street where there was a large police lighting system set up.

On the dark sidewalks I could pick up my pace and I ran by occasional people trying to live a normal life- walking dogs, going for walks with flashlights and talking on their cellphones on the way back to their homes.

The run down 8th Avenue was lit by flares that marked intersections.  Police officers guided traffic.  I retraced my steps down Greenwich.  The whole street was pitch black, there were no flares and the street was completely deserted.  The only lights I saw were Gusto and Fiddlesticks, bars lit entirely by candles.  They were so empty and strangely beautiful and inviting that I nearly stopped to go in.

From there, I continued down the flare-lit Sixth Avenue until Canal Street.  It was near pitch dark as I followed Canal East to the pedestrian entrance to the Manhattan Bridge.  As I moved up the dark west side of the bridge, there were a few more people making the commute in both directions.  Almost halfway across, I met the first lights of Brooklyn.

I finally ended up at the Jay Street Metrotech station where I walked onto a train that then took my the last stretch home.

All in all it took about 1.5 hours each way to do the commute.

In my next post, I'll tell you a bit about my Thursday commute.  Following that, I'd like to share some of our families reflections on how this experience has colored our experiences of New York.

Not the Worst

If you had not heard, we are getting a little snow in New York City right now.

It is still early in the morning and I am getting ready for our "sitzprobe" for The Astronaut's Tale.

 "Sitzprobe" translated from German means "sitting rehearsal".   I swear, I will lay off the quotes for now.  Let's just call it The Sitz.

The Sitz is one of the most important rehearsals because it is an opportunity for the singers to collaborate with the conductor and instrumentalists without moving around on stage and wearing costumes.  A good Sitz gives the musicians an opportunity to fix musical issues in advance of the stress of tech and dress rehearsals.

As I look back the window, I wonder if this is the worst weather I have ever experienced on the day of a rehearsal.  I see a white out of wind and snow and I have to travel on the 7 train (above ground) to the G train (below ground) to get down to BAM by 1 p.m. today.  The walk to the 7 train takes at least 10 minutes and I will have to stand on the platform for awhile before the train arrives.

As bad as this is, I think that the worst day was losing multiple rehearsals with Chelsea Opera to Superstorm Sandy for our production of Abraham and Isaac.  During that run, I was stranded at my apartment in Brooklyn and had to put on my running shoes and run across the Manhattan Bridge, through lower Manhattan and up the West Side to get to rehearsal on 68th Street.  It was a surreal experience.

I expect that today will be one for the record books as well.  I will give myself plenty of time and wear my new ski jacket to keep warm.

For all of you on the East Coast, I hope you are home, drinking cocoa and watching Netflix.  I'll be snapping pictures as I go through this exciting day.

A Skiers Guide to Opera Singing 1. Go down a Mountain

Based on my inspiration of mentor, I'd like to introduce you to a new, brief mini-series on this blog: A Skiers Guide to Opera Singing.

I did some work at Opera Colorado as a young artist.  At the time, I was amused that I had a clause that I would not go skiing or do any "extreme sports" during the length of my contract.  I believe I was the only person in the cast who actually followed that through that point in the contract. That is not a judgement, I was just paranoid about messing up the gig.  Hey... I was young!

When we decided to get season passes to a lovely little mountain this year for our family here are some of the general worries I had:

• I have not skied in years.  I'm too old to try.
• I don't have any gear.
• I have a big singing engagement coming up in NYC, don't break your neck.

There were a million more reasons.  I pushed through them with the help of Kitty and my relentless brother-in-law, Kev-lar. (Congratulations! You scored a code name.)

Just after Christmas, the three of us went up to the mountain and brought along The Spud, who was anxious to try out her new skis.  Kev-lar gave me and The Spud some pointers.  Kitty was ready to get out there and hit the slopes.  While Kev-lar patiently trained The Spud on how to turn and how to stop, Kitty and I left the training area and went down one of the beginner slopes.

A lot has changed since I last went skiing.  I had never skied on real snow.   From the first trip down the mountain, I immediately learned that this was an activity that I could relate to and enjoy.   You might say that skiing is my new golf.  One of the first things I'm going to do when I get back from my gig in NYC is to get back to our little mountain and do some more runs. I'm learning a lot about myself and I want to learn more.  I want to go down the mountain again and again.

Non-Profit Startup 1.2 Hardly Original

Many of you will notice that there is absolutely nothing original about this series of blog posts.  I'm aping the style of Gimlet Media's brilliant Start-up Podcast.  While the similarities are obvious, I think that starting a non-profit is different than a traditional for-profit enterprise.

The output of this project is not to make vast amounts of money or have a large staff producing different shows, but rather to focus on one of the smallest niches of the Classical Music genre, art songs.

My goal is to tell you the story of art songs, get you excited about these short, pretty pieces of music and create employment for Colorado-based artists to perform, experiment and collaborate on Art Songs.  I'll expand on these goals as I share with you the new Mission Statement for the Denver Art Song Project as we convert from a small side-project to a registered non-profit.

Do you know what an Art Song is? (tip: click the link to the left)

I'll be reposting some of my blog entries to get you caught up if you are new to this site and the Denver Art Song Project.

Please share your thoughts and ideas about these posts one one of our many social media sites like Facebook or Twitter or the comments below.

Letters to my Mentors 2. Swing.

Dear Mentor,

 I could extoll the experimental aspects of your choral direction that incorporated movement or your patience with me as I went through the personal toils and petty tribulations of the very early stages of my music education.  Recently, I was reminded of one lesson that pervaded our entire time together: golf.

Golf seemed to be your obsession.  During the countless hours that our choir worked with you, there were comparisons to swings, slices and the joys of being out on a beautiful day.  There were explanations about being in "the zone" and hitting ball after ball down the fairway only, the next day, to be out of the zone and butcher the game on the same course.  We heard about the nuances of stance and preparation and how, once you swung the ball, that preparation

I remember being amazed at your capacity to apply your love of golf to the art of making music and, despite my lack of knowledge on the sport, make it relevant and meaningful to me.

My background did not include much sport.  There was a soccer team briefly as a child.  Swim Team happened.  I did long-distance running in early high school. I think the gap was that I never had a physical activity that was wholly a part of my life and that I looked forward to.  Everything was a function of getting exercise and rarely did it happen with a whole lot of joy in my heart.

This winter season, everything changed and I was reminded of your obsession with golf.  With my recent relocation to Denver, I bought season passes for my family at a mountain very close to the city.  It is very small (only about 5 slopes), but it is a great place for kids to learn to ski.

As for me, I went skiing for the first time since, well.. after a choir tour that you led.  It was exhilarating and it was my very first activity that I had where I could relate.  Each run was practically the same and yet totally different.  Skiing out west was a revelation compared to my east coast skiing.

For now, thanks for sharing your love of a sport and for teaching me that you can apply an experience like that to music.  I had to hold on to that lesson for a number of years, but the lesson was learned.... eventually.

Sincerely,
Eapen

Golf Swing... Obsession with Sport. Only now Many years later, am I getting it.  (Skiing to follow)

Non-Profit Start-up 1.1

"Are you thinking about turning the Denver Art Song Project into a non-profit?" my friend asked.

I paused for a moment and my mind raced through all we had accomplished in 2015--  A successful release on Bandcamp led to our digital release of a full album on iTunes, Spotify, and many other digital platforms.  The Denver Art Song Project's first recital which incorporated songs, a piano solo, supertitles and curated art paired with chatting with the audience and a Q&A followed the release.  A third trip to the studio to begin our next cycle of releases for 2016 had already begun.

"Yes," I said, "I have thought about it.  But I don't know where to begin or how.  I suppose I should take a stab at it."

"Well, if you do, please add me to your mailing list.  I would love to support your next projects."

"And that is the kick the pants that I need to get started.  Thank you." I replied.

And so today, I start the first step in moving the Denver Art Song Project from a strange little business to something else.  I am starting with a whole lot of googling.  In this series of posts, I'll be sharing with you as much as I can about the process.  I'll talk about the process of getting registered with the State of Colorado, the IRS, developing By-Laws, enticing victims volunteers to be a part of the Board of Trustees.

At the same time, I'm going to... take a deep breath... share my feelings about the process of setting up a non-profit that is dedicated to the niche of the niche of Classical Music.  I'll open up about my fears of fundraising, the complexities of grant writing and all of the joys that keep me going and the small failures that will make me want to give up.

Thanks for following along and thanks for supporting the Denver Art Song Project and Eapen Leubner's opera career.

Letters to my Mentors, Part 1. Starting Out.

Dear Mentor,

When I was still a boy, and a child soprano, I was featured on the radio singing Silent Night with my choir.  This solo, and what happened subsequently, planted the seed in my mind that perhaps my calling was music.  I followed this path to where I am today and I am grateful for the journey that started as you offered me my first paid, professional position.

As it turned out, you studied and performed American Parlor Songs, and enjoyed the novelty songs from the turn of the century.  You had many Victrola and shared with me crackly music on wax tubes.  I had never heard anything quite like that before and I still enjoy old recordings and dream of owning my own Victrola or record player.

After contacting me via my choir director, my mom took me over to your place where the three of us looked at your song, "Sandy the Christmas Cat."  I learned it quickly and after the session you asked me if I would like to record the song to help you get published.  You offered me my first paycheck, a hundred dollars.  At the time, it was a shocking amount of money.

During the next year, I had my first studio recording session with professional musicians from the Eastman School of Music.  We recorded the song a bunch of times and then you edited it and sent me a cassette tape (now lost).

Later that year, you gave me the opportunity to record "The Sandy Cat Walk."  I was in 5th grade and very shortly after, my voice changed.  I am profoundly grateful that I have these records of my childhood voice.  If I can find the tape, I'll add it here.

It was during 6th grade that you died of a heart attack.  You had already had several heart attacks but the last one was too much for you to recover from.

Your wife welcomed us one last time to your home and I was able to see those Victrolas one last time.  She gave me a small paper weight that I still keep in my office. 

The pennies suspended in it are a reminder of my time with you and my first opportunity to earn money as a professional singer.

Sincerely,
Eapen