Bigmacbear's Den

Musical Résumé

I'm a singer by avocation, and have been a member of a number of musical organizations over the years, including church choirs, glee clubs, barbershop choruses, etc. At one time or another I've sung all four of the major men's voice parts (first tenor, second tenor, baritone, and bass); I've settled down to a solid bass now. One of the high points of my musical career, such as it is, was performing a chorus role as a priest (baritone) in Aïda with Opera/Columbus in 1985.

I now sing with the Seattle Men's Chorus after singing with the Rochester Gay Men's Chorus for over 10 years. The RGMC released its first compact disk recording in December 1998, on which I performed one solo and in one trio, as well as with the chorus as a whole.

Also, for several years before leaving Rochester, I volunteered as occasional cantor and as a bass with the Contemporary Music Group for Dignity-Integrity/Rochester, where I used to worship most every Sunday.

I've also tried my hand at composing and arranging music. My first piece, a memorial entitled "I Am With You Always", was performed by the RGMC on June 19, 2004 in Rochester, and again on July 20 in Montreal as part of GALA Choruses Festival VIIe. I'm working on getting the piece published along with some of my other work; for now, requests to perform the piece or obtain copies should come to me here.

Meanwhile, I've become somewhat adept at typesetting music from handwritten arrangements, previously with MusicTime Deluxe and Encore. I am now working with Finale and hope to become as proficient with it as I was with Encore.
I used to keep a set of instructions for cutting and pasting music into your word processing documents. However, I've found that the instructions I gave are somewhat obsolete and sometimes seem to be more trouble than the end result could justify, so I plan on rewriting them.

Finally, I have some musical amusements here: