Judith Clurman has been a wonderful friend in collaborator.  We met in 2013 when the R&H folks gave her my name as an arranger for a Sound of Music choral medley (I had just done Sound of Music Live! on NBC.). She then said she needed a Christmas choral arrangement to fill a spot on an upcoming album, and that was, as they say, the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

I had sung in choirs all the way through college (under the baton of the great John Ferris), but it had been almost three decades since I'd really thought aut choral singing and writing. I loved diving back in, and it has been an incredibly fruitaul collaboration. I'm particularly proud of The First Noel, which has been sung numerous times at Carnegie Hall and across the country. We collaborated on the song cycle Washington Women, which uses quotes from various First Ladies, Congresspeople, Supreme Court Justices, and the like to create a wonderful musil tapestry. Appalachian Stories was my chance to look deeply at my West Virginia roots, as well as to work with the amazing violinist Tessa Lark.

It can't be repeated enough that if we all sang together more, we'd forget our differences. Music heals. M<usic bridges divides. And choral music is perhaps the most divine and visnceral form of music-making there is. We are, each of us, sacred harps.