by Daniel Hathaway

TUESDAY MUSICAL SCHEDULE CHANGES:

First the pandemic, and now the vaccination schedule for artists, has changed two dates in the spring lineup for Akron’s Tuesday Musical series, to be held in-person at E.J. Thomas Hall.

Bassist Edgar Meyer, originally scheduled for March 4, has moved to Tuesday, April 20, so that he can complete his COVID vaccine shots. Meyer’s concert will range from bluegrass to Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1.

Chanticleer, originally scheduled for April 20, has moved to Tuesday, July 27, to give the San Francisco-based “Orchestra of Voices” more time to rehearse together in person.

The remaining three concerts will proceed as scheduled: pianist Emanuel Ax on March 25, clarinetist Anthony McGill and the Pacifica Quartet on May 4, and the Sphinx Virtuosi on May 26. Visit the TMA website for health protocol details and other information.

CIM’S MUSIC FOR FOOD:

The annual Music for Food concert, sponsored by the student government association of  the Cleveland Institute of Music and featuring both faculty and student performers, will be performed online this year. All proceeds will go to the Kosher Food Bank. The concert will originally be live-streamed from CIM on February 24 at 7 pm. This performance will be repeated on Music for Food’s YouTube channel on the 28th at 7:30 pm and on The Violin Channel’s VC Live on March 2 at 5 pm. Details about performers, repertoire, and how to donate here.

ON THE WEB TODAY — iCELLISTI:

Round Two of the Cleveland Cello Society’s “iCellisti! 2021” tonight at 7:00 pm features cellists Sharon Robinson, Dmitry Kouzov, and Dane Johansen with pianists Anita Pontremoli, Yulia Fedosseva, and Evan Solomon in an all-Beethoven event: his Sonata in g, Op. 5, No. 2 (Robinson and Pontremoli), Sonata in A, Op. 69 (Kouzov and Fedosseva), and Sonata in D, Op. 102, No. 2 (Johansen and Solomon), live streamed from the Bop Stop. Click here at start time. Free but donations welcome.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

There are two major British composers to celebrate today, one adopted, the other very much a native of “England’s green and pleasant land.”

George Frideric Handel was born in Halle, Saxony on February 23, 1685. Details of his life are so well known — except perhaps his recently documented financial involvement with the slave trade — that a few random references may be welcome.

Like the British monarch at the time, Handel’s native tongue was German, which didn’t prevent him from becoming an English musical icon — but still gave him a bit of trouble when composing. In his book Handel, Christopher Hogwood relates this story told by John Taylor in 1832:

I heard [Morell] say that one fine morning he was roused out of bed at five o’clock by Handel, who came in his carriage a short distance from London. The doctor went to the window and spoke to Handel, who would not leave his carriage. Handel was at the time composing an oratorio. When the doctor asked him what he wanted, he said, ‘What de devil means de word billow?’ which was in the [libretto of the] oratorio the doctor had written for him. The doctor, after laughing at so ludicrous a reason for disturbing him, told him that billow meant wave, a wave of the sea. ‘Oh, de vave,’ said Handel, and bade his coachman return, without addressing another word to the doctor.

In 1723, Handel moved into rooms at 25 Brook Street in Mayfair, where he remained until his death in 1759. Some 230 years later, Jimi Hendrix moved into No. 23, and now you can visit a joint museum featuring the two musicians. Imagine if those two had been occupying adjacent digs at the same time.

When tastes changed away from Handel’s main source of income, Italian opera, he applied his dramatic gifts to oratorio. One of the most dramatic of those — and one that has in fact been performed as opera — is Belshazzar, performed here by René Jacobs and the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

ONLINE THIS WEEKEND:

Saturday’s events feature violinist Leonidas Kavakos in his alter ego as conductor with the Rotterdam Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra on the Radio featuring violinist Thomas Zehetmair in the Stravinsky Concerto, and Austin Chamber Music’s 18th Annual Black Composers Concert with four premieres and a celebration of the legacy of Samuel Coleridge Taylor.

Sunday’s schedule begins with 16 premieres in the latest Bang on a Can Marathon, and brings you no fewer than four pianists: Aaron Diehl (above) on the Tri-C Classical Piano Series playing music by Black composers, Leif Ove Andsnes from Georgia’s Spivey Hall, the sixth episode of Daniel Shapiro’s complete Beethoven cycle, and Daniil Trifonov from Baltimore’s Shriver Hall.

Details in our Concert Listings.

THIS WEEKEND’S ALMANAC:

Two debuts and two finales to celebrate on Saturday, beginning with the birth of Austrian pianist and composer Carl Czerny on February 20, 1791, who became one of Beethoven’s star pupils and was said to be able to play any of his master’s works from memory if merely requested by opus number. Czerny is remembered today chiefly for his piano etudes, but his more than 1,000 compositions include such interesting works as the Piano Concerto in C for Four Hands, Op. 153, and the Symphony No. 5 in E-flat. 

Belgian composer and violinist Henri Vieuxtemps was born on the 20th of February in 1820, and enjoyed an international touring career that included concerts in the United States before returning to Brussels and suffering a stroke in 1873. There, he was the teacher of Eugène Ysaÿe, and when Vieuxtemps returned to Paris, Henryk Wieniawski took over his class. A second stroke in 1879 ended his performing career.

Vieuxtemps was a prolific composer, but as might be expected, wrote chiefly for the violin. Watch Hilary Hahn here in a performance of his Fourth Concerto with Paarvo Järvi and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen (and stick around afterwards to enjoy two Bach encores).

Australian composer and pianist Percy Grainger left the scene on February 20, 1961 in White Plains, NY, at the age of 78. Grainger joined a group of musicians in a lifelong quest to rescue British and Scandinavian music from central European influences, largely through the use of folk music, though he also dabbled in mechanical music-making (including recording piano rolls of his compositions and arrangements.)

Among Grainger’s most popular arrangements are wind band versions of Lincolnshire Posy (listen here to the Cleveland State University Symphonic Wind Ensemble’s performance at a Trinity Cathedral Brownbag Concert) and Irish Tune from County Derry (aka “Danny Boy,” performed here by the University of Michigan Symphonic Band). As a high schooler, I looked forward to hearing Irish Tune at the end of each of the University of Kansas summer music camp concerts, and still get the chills in the last verse when the horns suddenly soar out their counter melody.

And on February 20, 1996, Japanese composer Tōru Takemtsu died in Tokyo. His nature-based compositions are popular and frequently performed — especially at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Click on the links to listen to Water-ways, Rain Spell, Toward the Sea, and And Then I Knew ‘Twas Wind, and join the CIM New Music Ensemble live stream on February 28 for his Stanza II.

Sunday’s honorees begin with French organist and composer Charles-Marie Widor, born on February 21, 1844 in Lyon. Widor is most famous for the organ symphonies (really suites) he wrote during his tenure at Saint-Sulpice in Paris, and among those, for the Toccata that closes out No. 5. But try out Widor’s Sixth Symphony, played here by Brian Wentzel on the new Paul Fritts organ in First Lutheran Church in Lorain. (Pressed for time? Fast forward to the finale at 31:25.)

And on February 21, 1996, American composer and arranger Morton Gould died in Orlando, FL at the age of 82. Active in all areas of stage, concert and commercial music, Gould served for a number of years as president of ASCAP. Start with an interview Gould conducted with conductor Leopold Stokowski — who championed his music — and listen to his Second Symphony in a vintage recording by the New York Philharmonic at its premiere in June, 1944. And for a taste of Gould’s expert arrangements, watch the U.S. Air Force Symphony perform his American Salute (based on “When Johnny Comes Marching Home”). Many of us will remember experiencing the work from the inside in high school orchestras and bands.

by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY’S EVENTS AND ALMANAC:

CityMusic Cleveland and the CIM Orchestra both go online tonight, the former with chamber music by Villa-Lobos, Rebecca Clarke, Mozart, and Schumann, the latter with music by Peter Warlock and Grieg. And the Jupiter Quartet continues its series from the Krannert Center in Urbana-Champaign with works by Mendelssohn, Haydn, and Dan Visconti.

One of the few items to pop up on a search for events that took place on this day in classical music history was the death of Italian madrigalist Orazio Vecchi in 1605 at the age of 54 in Modena. That got me thinking about alternative ways of observing some historic milestones.

Normally, we recommend recordings as tributes to those who have begun and ended careers on the date in question, but Vecchi suggests a more interactive approach. How about a madrigal sing-along?

Gather whatever voices live in your pod, click here, and have go at Vecchi’s alluring little canzonetta Fa una canzone. The performance comes with a scrolling score, and here’s a translation.

Write a song with no black notes
If you ever wanted my favour
REFRAIN: Write it so that it will bring me to sleep
Make it end sweetly, sweetly.

Don’t put any harshness into it
Because my ears are not used to that…
Don’t write numbers, or counterpoint
This is my main design…

Just a few comments. “Black notes” refers to the Italian nota nere practice that began around 1540 of denoting sad music with filled-in note heads. The speaker also doesn’t want expressive dissonance, figured bass indications, or polyphony. Keep it simple!

If you’re ready to move to something more challenging, Vecchi’s 1597 L’amfiparnaso — one of his full-length comedy entertainments made entirely out of madrigals — might be just the thing. A modern score is downloadable for free from the Petrucci Project, and a 2003 performance by I Fagiolini at England’s Darlington Hall (photo above), directed by Robert Hollingworth and narrated by Simon Callow is available here. It’s well worth an hour of your time, whether you choose to sing in with the cast or not.

Come to think of it, why not plan a madrigal sing for a few musically inclined friends once the health authorities signal all clear? You’ll find a lot of material on the Petrucci site, or you can search out copies of The A Cappella Singer, that collection of slightly Bowdlerized madrigals and part songs published by E.C. Schirmer in the 1930s, which was the bible for my high school madrigal group.

Or dialing things down slightly, host an evening of catches and rounds like I experienced in London back in the 70s when I swapped churches with an organist in Kensington and was invited to the monthly meeting of the Aldwych Catch Society. Its members gathered in a private home on a Sunday evening with their own manuscript collections of tunes and sang them lustily all evening — with a break for supper. The newly appointed 11 year-old Head Chorister at Chester Cathedral was inducted that evening and beamed when presented with his own blank book to fill up.

But there is one more historical event to mention: the birth of Hungarian composer Gyorgy Kurtág in Romania on February 19, 1926. Kurtág is often compared to Anton Webern for his proclivity for writing brief, epigrammatic pieces, like the 40 movements of his Kafka-Fragments and his highly miniaturized piano pieces.

In 2017, ChamberFest Cleveland violinists Alexei Kenney and Yura Lee and joined soprano Laura Eberwein in Kurtág’s “Like a Pathway in Autumn” from the Kafka Fragments (film by Kasumi), and pianists Zoltán Fejérvári and Roman Rabinovich performed selections from Játékok (“Games”).

by Mike Telin

Welcome to Thursday the 18th of February.

Thursday, or “Thor’s day,” gets its English name after the hammer-wielding Norse god of thunder, strength and protection. The Roman god Jupiter, as well as being the king of gods, was the god of the sky and thunder. “Thursday” comes from Old English “Þūnresdæg.” (Livescience.com)

Today’s events of note begin at noon on WCLV 104.9 Ideastream with “Lunchtime with The Cleveland Orchestra.” Franz Welser-Möst conducts music by Brahms, Bruckner, and Debussy.

At 7:00 pm, the Local 4 Music Fund “Tuning In” series features George Pope, flute, Lisa Whitfield, viola, and Emily Laurence, harp, in a live-streamed performance from Pilgrim UCC. The playlist includes works by Arnold Bax, Joseph Boulogne (le Chevalier de Saint-Georges), Valerie Coleman, William Ferris, Claude Debussy, and Sydney Guillaume. (Free)

A half-hour later at 7:30 pm, Les Délices debuts “Games & Grounds.” The imaginative program includes Lully’s Chaconne from Phaëton, Marais’ Folies d’Espagne, Rebel’s Caprice and Caractères de la danse as well as musical versions of Aesop’s Fables in English translations by Larry Rosenwald. The ensemble is Debra Nagy, Baroque oboe, Julie Andrijeski, violin, Rebecca Reed, viola da gamba, Elena Mullins, dancer and soprano, and Jason McStoots, tenor. Read our preview here. (Tickets required)

Also at 7:30, Oberlin Stage Left streams a Black History Month Faculty Concert, hosted by Katherine Jolly. Performers include flutist Alexa Still, bassoonist Drew Pattison, pianist James Howsmon, organist Christa Rakich, and violists Peter Slowik and Kirsten Docter, as well as recent alums Troy Stevenson and Marlea Simpson, violas. The music is by Valerie Coleman, Allison Loggins-Hull, Maurice Arnold, Edmond Dédé, and William Grant Still. (Free)

See our Concert Listings for details.

In the latest edition of Conversations with Carl, Cleveland Pops director Carl Topilow catches up with baritone Michael Preacely. Click here to view on demand.

In other news, on Wednesday, March 3 at 5:30 pm, the Akron Black Artist Guild will hold a virtual event. Black artists and creatives are invited to join a discussion that includes questions such as: “What are our priorities? What do we need to achieve them? And how do we activate as a collective?” Click here to register.

The group is also seeking input and data. Black artists in Greater Akron are encouraged to submit responses to a short survey that will be used to inform plans for networking, advocacy, education, and collaboration for the Guild. Click here for more information.

We begin today’s Almanac by celebrating the birth of Greek conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos in Athens in 1896.

The young Dimitri exhibited musical talents at an early age and by his early teens hosted Saturday afternoon concerts at his home.

He studied at the Athens Conservatory as well as in Brussels and Berlin, where his teachers included Ferruccio Busoni. During the early to mid ‘20s he assisted Erich Kleiber at the Berlin State Opera.

The conductor made his U.S. debut with the Boston Symphony in 1936, and from 1937 to 1949 he was principal conductor of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra (now the Minnesota Orchestra). In 1949 he became co-conductor — with Leopold Stokowski — of the New York Philharmonic and in 1951 was named the Orchestra’s music director.

In addition to making numerous recordings for Columbia Records, Mitropoulos and the Philharmonic sought out new audiences by making appearances on television and giving performances at the Roxy Theatre.

During his tenure, he expanded the Philharmonic’s repertoire by commissioning new works and championing the symphonies of Mahler. Upon his departure in 1958, he was succeeded by his protégé, Leonard Bernstein. Click here to listen to Mitropoulos conduct the New York Philharmonic in a performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 5. [Read more…]

by Jarrett Hoffman

BLACK HISTORY MONTH: CALENDAR ADDITIONS & ALBUM RELEASES

At the beginning of February, we recommended several events and attractions highlighting either Black History Month specifically, or Black musicians and composers in general. Some of those events are still on the horizon, or still available on-demand.

Here’s one addition to that list: the three-day Triumph Over Adversity Festival, presented by California’s Philharmonic Society of Orange County, and held online beginning on Thursday.

The three concerts take place February 18-20, each day at 10:00 pm Eastern Time. The lineup includes artistic directors Anthony McGill (clarinet) and Demarre McGill (flute), as well as the Sphinx Virtuosi, playing works by Valerie Coleman, Adolphus Hailstork, William Grant Still, Jessie Montgomery, Kareem Roustom, Philip Herbert, Astor Piazzolla, Michael Abels, James Lee III, Tyshawn Sorey, and Gabriela Lena Frank. Admission is free, but tickets are required.

Other events involved in the festival include Q&As with the artistic directors and a roundtable with several of the featured composers. Those are also free, but you’ll need to fill out a reservation form.

We’ll top off the list of this month’s offerings with four recent, intriguing albums featuring Black musicians and/or composers: the Imani Winds’ Bruits (released on Bright Shiny Things), baritone Will Liverman’s Dreams of a New Day: Songs by Black Composers (Cedille Records), the Catalyst Quartet’s Uncovered Vol. 1 (Azica Records), and — already featured in a previous Diary entry — composer George Lewis’ The Recombinant Trilogy (New Focus Recordings).

EVENTS ONLINE TODAY

At 2:00, Tuesday Musical and the Ohio Alliance for Arts Education host a webinar titled “Entry Points to Music Careers” featuring three panelists from the Sphinx Virtuosi (register here). Moving to this evening, the Pipino Performing Arts Series offers a presentation featuring composer Du Yun at 7:00 (preceded by a 2:00 master class), the Met Opera continues with its Nightly Streams at 7:30, and the Baltimore Symphony highlights composers who were suppressed by Nazi censorship in a program at 8:00. More details in our Concert Listings.

LOVE & MUSIC FROM QUIRE

In a newsletter, Quire Cleveland director Jay White sends a message of love, as well as three recordings from the ensemble’s “Journey Home” program, presented last year on February 29. Listen to two motets by Mikołaj Zieleński (In Monte Oliveti and Vox In Rama) and one by Jacob Handl (Miserere Mei, Deus).

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

February 17 in music history brought the death of composer and ethnomusicologist Nikoghayos Tigranian (1951) and conductor Bruno Walter (1962), considered one of the greats of his field in the 20th century. Those who have entered the world on this date include cellist and early music pioneer Anner Bylsma (1934), as well as two composers who also became key figures in the development of the violin: Arcangelo Corelli (1653) and Henri Vieuxtemps (1820).

Here’s one more figure born on this date who, unlike those names, is still around to make some noise: composer and hornist Michelle McQuade Dewhirst (1973), a professor at the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay, whose music has been heard in Cleveland on two memorable occasions. Last October, No Exit presented Transient Canvas in an online concert that included her piece shenpa. And going back a few years, she took Second Place and the Audience Choice Award in the 2014 Iron Composer competition.

Iron Composer is of course a totally different beast. She and her fellow finalists were given an instrumentation and a “secret musical ingredient” in the morning, then had five hours to write a new piece, and thirty minutes to rehearse it. That year’s compositional specifications? A low string trio (viola, cello, double bass) involving a sound map of downtown Cleveland, with recordings from locations within a mile of the Great Lakes Science Center.

What I still wonder, given my conversation with contest director Joe Drew in 2014: when is the live gerbil going to be tossed into the mix?

by Daniel Hathaway

SNOW DAY! MARDI GRAS!

Big snowstorms used to mean that you had the delicious opportunity to stay in your jammies all day, a situation that the pandemic has now made all too routine. Since today is Shrove Tuesday or Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras in French), this would be the perfect time to nosh on pancakes, a tradition that dates back to medieval dietary prohibitions during the Christian season of Lent, and the need to use up meat and animal products before Ash Wednesday introduced 40 days of fasting. Bon appetit, and remember the parades that used to happen on this day in New Orleans, Rio, and other carnival-minded cities.

ONLINE TODAY:

Akron’s Holy Trinity Lutheran Church will mark Shrove Tuesday with a Mardi Gras concert and happy hour featuring Guy Van Duser, jazz guitar, Billy Novik, clarinet, and door prize drawings (read our preview article here). New York’s Miller Theater reminisces about the JACK Quartet’s first concert ever with Helmut Lachenmann’s Grido and other solo works. The Cleveland Cello Society’s iCelisti part one celebrates Beethoven from the Bop Stop. And another happy hour, this one from California’s Salastina Music Society, features violinist Augustin Hadelich and pianist Orion Weiss. Details in our Concert Listings.

INTERESTING READ:

Philadelphia Inquirer critic Peter Dobrin reports on the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society’s experience with producing digital shows and charging for them. Moving online “brought something unexpected to PCMS, one of the nation’s busiest presenters of string quartets and piano recitalists: a new and viable business model.” Read “Digital shows have brought in 10 times the audience for Philly’s PCMS, real money, and maybe a new business model” here.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Today’s a bit lean in the Almanac — only one birth and one departure to note.

On this date in 1938, American composer John Corigliano was born in New York City, the son of John Sr., who served for 23 years as concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic. Although he came late to composition, Corigliano was the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize, five Grammy Awards, the Grawemeyer Award, and an Oscar.

Cleveland pianist and interviewer Zsolt Bognár featured Corigliano in Episode 60 of Living the Classical Life, and CityMusic Cleveland celebrated his 80th birthday in 2017 with Tessa Lark’s performances of his Red Violin Concerto, for which the composer was present.

In 1980, the Metropolitan Opera commissioned a score from Corigliano — his first opera, and the MET’s first commission in 30 years. After a delay, Ghosts of Versailles finally had its sold-out debut in 1991. Watch the complete show here. Other compositions memorialized those who perished in the AIDS crisis (his Symphony No. 1, written in 1987 when he was composer-in-residence at the Chicago Symphony), and in the 9/11 attacks (his One Sweet Morning, 2011).

And on February 16, 1968, English-Canadian organist, choirmaster, and composer Healey Willan passed over the great divide in Toronto at the age of 87. While known principally for his Anglican Church music, Willan composed more than 800 works during his lifetime, in all forms from opera to band music. Watch a December 1966 Canadian television interview with him here (continued here).

Contemplating Willan’s life and career reminds us that many “consumers” of classical music encounter the genre from sources other than concert halls, and that young people brought up in British choral traditions have gone on to a variety of distinguished careers in music.

Here are three snippets of Healey Willan’s art: His motet, Rise up, my love, my fair one (sung by the Sydney Chamber Choir), an anthem, The Three Kings (performed by Tom Trenney and the choir of First-Pilgrim Church in Lincoln, Nebraska), and a hymn and improvisation recorded at the Church of St. Mary Magdalen in Toronto when Willan was 86. The tempo is stately.

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING ONLINE THESE TWO DAYS:

The temperatures in Northeast Ohio this weekend only inspire outdoor activities among the intrepid, so here’s a pretty rich list of musical events you can enjoy from your cozy bunker.

Local events on Saturday include a recital from the McDonough Museum by Youngstown State University cello professor Kivie-Cahn Lipman and a performance from the BOP STOP by the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra’s Little Big Band featuring trumpeter Dominick Farinacci and percussionist Jamie Haddad. Pianist Richard Goode plays Bach and Debussy from the 92nd St. Y, Chinese pipa virtuoso Wu Man is featured in a Chinese New Year program from Bard College, the Catalyst Quartet performs music by Black composers from Chamber Music Northwest, and soprano Stephanie Blythe and her blue ukulele host a Valentine’s Day weekend special featuring a selection of songs from the American Songbook.

On Sunday, Stars in the Classics will release a special Valentine’s Day video for on-demand viewing, and organ enthusiasts can tag along with Trinity Cathedral associate organist Nicole Keller as she travels to Worcester, Massachusetts to play a program at Trinity Lutheran Church, or catch a recital by Curtis Institute professor Alan Morrison from Spivey Hall in Morrow, Georgia. And if you haven’t yet heard The Cleveland Orchestra’s In Focus 5 program, WCLV, 104.9 Ideastream will broadcast the audio only version on Sunday afternoon’s “Cleveland Orchestra on the Radio.”

Details in our Concert Listings.

THIS WEEKEND’S ALMANAC:

February 13 marked the baptism of Spanish composer Fernando Sor in Barcelona in 1778, the birth of American composer George Kleinsinger in 1914 and the departure of German composer Richard Wagner in Bayreuth in 1883.

Sor is well-known to classical guitarists, who have probably improved their playing technique through the composer’s pedagogical works. Watch Jason Vieaux here giving a lesson on Sor’s Etude No. 6 in D, which requires “a spidery left hand.” And listen to Judicaël Perroy, who teaches at the San Francisco Conservatory and has performed in Northeast Ohio, play Sor’s Fantaisie élégiaque, Op. 59.

Wagner’s music is so ubiquitous that it hardly needs an introduction, and probably the less you about the composer’s personal life, the better. Fans of Wagner’s Ring Cycle of operas who would prefer hearing the music without singers have former Cleveland Orchestra music director Lorin Maazel to thank for assembling The Ring Without Words. Reviewing Maazel’s Telarc recording with the Berlin Philharmonic, a Gramophone critic wrote, “…audiophiles who like blazingly spectacular sound and plenty of adrenalin flowing in the music-making, should find this worth trying. Certainly the heavy brass sounds are very tangible.” Listen here.

And George Kleinsinger, who was born on this date in 1914 in California, was responsible for writing an unforgettable tune for the children’s classic Tubby the Tuba. Paul Tripp wrote the story in 1942 while serving in the Army, and Kleinsinger supplied Tubby’s luminous melody for a recording in 1946 that sold eight million copies. Read the story behind the story in a Library of Congress publication, and sing along here.