This past Sunday, I traveled to Sacramento with fifty members of the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles for a historic performance.

The chorus was invited to perform for the swearing-in ceremony of California’s first openly gay State Assembly speaker, John A. Pérez. The chorus sang America the Beautiful, followed by Brand New Day from The Wiz. Amazing song choice for the occasion, don’t you think?

Governer Schwarzenegger was there. Mayors Gavin Newsom and Antonio Villaraigosa (of San Francisco and Los Angeles, respectively) were there. There were TV cameras and countless other high-flying government officials in the room. And, for the first time in a very long time in a live performance setting, I got extremely nervous!

My hands got cold and my heart started racing. A couple of years ago, these physical reactions would have completely crippled me, preventing me from being able to deliver a successful performance. Nowadays, however, there are two factors working in my favor in situations like this.

1. I have performed in live settings so much over the past couple of years, and each time it becomes less of a ‘big deal’. Also, I’ve done a couple of live performances where things have gone horribly wrong. Once that happens to you a couple of times, you realize that the world doesn’t actually come to an end when something goes wrong in performance. Then, in future performances, you worry less about things going wrong, and so fewer things go wrong. It’s a Zen thing. Like, how many babies fit in a tire.

2. Nowadays, when I perform, I don’t consider myself to be making the music; I consider myself to be embodying the music. This is even more of a Zen thing. When I shift my focus in live performance from doing to being, I find that my left brain quiets down a bit, my right brain takes over, and I am free to let the music flow from me uninhibited. This only works, though, if I am truly 100% prepared for a performance. If I’m not, then I have to switch back into think-analyze-do mode to get through unscathed.

Well, I’m back in LA now and these days am occupied with preparing arrangements for Reverse Osmosis. I just finished an arrangement of I See You by Leona Lewis – it’s the credits song from Avatar – and am currently working on Black and Gold by Sam Sparro and the well-known standard Killing Me Softly.

2010 is off to a running start! Urinetown at USC closed about three weeks ago, and I’ve been so busy that I haven’t had much time to post an update until now.

Urinetown (a production of the Musical Theater Repertory of USC) was fantastic. We had a short run — one weekend, six shows — and it was a blast. I as a musical director could not have asked for anything more out of the extremely talented cast. And a special thanks to my pit band — Eliana Athayde on bass and Christopher Payne on drums — for helping me fill the Massman Theater with beautiful music.

Urinetown was my second music directing job; my first, See What I Wanna See by Michael John LaChiusa, had a cast of five and a pit band of six, whereas this show had a cast of about 20 and a pit of three. I think that what I enjoyed the most was the opportunity to work with a really big cast and a score that had a lot of really exciting musical/vocal moments. One of my favorite parts of the show is the frantically fast section of the finale of Act I, where there are a ton ofthings going on both in the music and on the stage. The cast performed it beautifully, and it never failed to bring a smile to my face,every single performance.

In other news, I’ve recently begun work on Starmites, a production of the Ensemble Theater Company, directed by my friend Steve Edlund. We’re working on casting the show right now, so expect more updates as we move into rehearsals!

Thank you for visiting my site. Check back soon for updates, as I’m just getting started!