A Personal Word from Michael Roy

 

This site, stocked with photos and sound files, is a montage of my career in music. Take heart: mercifully, only the high points are listed.  On the other hand, there have been so many high points that the site is labyrinthic. <---this adjective occasionally changes.

 

I trust that my friends who sang and played instruments alongside me in life will find their way here and savor the same heartfelt recollections that I bring to mind daily.  

 

"Who will like this site of music?" is the question and my guess is:

• The singers and instrumentalists who are on these recordings with Jan and me; they are a good guess to enjoy the audio files and photos.  I hope this is true, and that each person who labored with us down the years will drop us a line. See "Contact" in the above menu.

• Singers and instrumentalists in general, especially those in church music ministry, may like some of the audio files, esp. the unusual ones, and there are plenty of unprecedented performances with rarely heard instruments, surprising idioms of music (esp. for a church choir!), and provocative arrangements.

• Bass singers. Since I am a bass-baritone, I naturally hold that the bass range is blessed and as one might expect, my arrangements tend to accentuate the vocal bass line. Furthermore, I always sang (and never did not sing) as I conducted the choir, acting as my own bass section leader. One can hear my voice slightly in front of the section (Norman Luboff favored this kind of choral concept: one section leader in each voice, slightly out in front of the sound).  For recordings and concerts, I mic-ed each section leader (often two in each section), including myself. 

• Aficionados of early and historic music, including players of ancient instruments. This site has a robust compliment of early choral and instrumental music. It's spiced in on almost every page. 

• Lovers of the choral arts.  This, more than any other style is represented on this site.  I am in life foremost a singer, and therefore, singing is the watchword.

• Other singers, choir directors and choral arrangers will hopefully stumble upon this site, and I have confidence that in their intuition and empathy, they will enjoy the music and understand in their hearts just how much pure fun it was.  Choral folk are good at plugging into the joys of others: they know the truth: singing is the best, and singing with friends is even better than best.

 

As a pearl of great price, God has given me this full life of music along with hundreds of matchless friends who were also accomplished singers and players. I think about it and I cannot imagine how it could have been more joyful: the music was always fulfilling and the friendships were always steadfast and trustworthy.  

 

Many musicians never come by the rarest of opportunities: to do music and ministry at a high level of excellence, and I have had three such situations: the first was The Michael Roy Singers who held forth concurrently with my master's courses at U of M during the '70's; the second was The RCC Choir, for eleven years through the whole decade of the 90's; and the third was The Immanuel Choir, from 2003 until 2008 (if you are feverishly adding up all these years with a calculator, let me hasten to add that I was born during a leap year and all totals must be divided by four). 

 

To these three stellar vocal ensembles, I add the studio work I have enjoyed with my wife Jan.  Back in the day, I'd keep her up until all hours overdubbing vocals and instruments on some new song I was laying down.  It would have been less rigorous with the ease of digital recording, but we managed to do it all: vocals, brass, woodwinds, keyboards, guitars, bass and percussion on reel-to-reel tape decks. I suppose it was good for the soul. 

 

 

 

 

It was an extra blessing that I was able to capture the essence of my career in photographs and video and audio recordings, which I can now stuff onto this biographical site. I still preserve the moments, of course, but now with digital photography and digital recording. The times, they are a-changin', and before I go to glory, one wonders what will come next? 

 

I thank each singer and instrumentalist with whom I collaborated down the years. Listen to these audio files (with a good pair of stereophones clamped over your ears) and remember the good times. They were good indeed, and most of us who shared in it never saw the like before or after.  It was a perfect confluence of the Providential stars given to us as a generous gift from the Creator of the music of the spheres.  It happened, it was so much fun it hurt, and we were there. Praise the Lord.        

Michael Roy

 

                                                     A Chronology of Events

 

1963: MR goes on national tour with the professional vocal group and band, the Spurrlows, and during this 15 months, he observes music being arranged and orchestrated (by David Ayers, the on-tour arranger). Seeing the creative process up close is a mind-expanding revelation to MR. While traveling all over the country, this year becomes a time of life-changing influence: it directly leads to his decision to pursue arranging, composing and orchestrating as his principal area of music study... that is, if he ever scrapes up enough money to get into some school. He leaves tour days by hitchhiking home from Detroit to Miami —  with not a dollar in his pocket, or elsewhere. 

 

1964: MR secures a full tuition scholarship to the music school at the University of Miami. He becomes the first music student in U of M's 40-year history to major in theory/composition with voice as his declared principal instrument. Further, he pursues a bachelor of arts, rather than a bachelor of music degree, again establishing a first: he becomes the first student to major in music from the School of Arts, rather than the School of Music. As a result of this "double major" in arts and music, he secures minors in logic/philosophy and forensic speech. He also takes two years of Koine Greek, and he and his classmates translate a third of the New Testament. 

 

1964 - 1969: This era encompasses MR's undergraduate career in theory/comp. In these five years, he makes two international trips with the Univ. of Miami Singing Hurricanes, founded by nationally known choral conductor, Glenn Draper: a two-month tour of Europe, and a two-month tour of the Far East. During his senior year, he is assoc. editor of the U of M yearbook.

 

1969 - 1970: MR goes back on the road with the Spurrlows. He is ordained by the Evangelical Church Alliance.

 

1970 - 1973: Returning to Miami in '70, MR meets Jan, who subsequently becomes his wife. He founds a professional vocal group, the Michael Roy Singers, with Jan as the alto. During these three years, he is a full-time grad student and completes his master's course work in theory/comp. as a graduate assistant at the U of M music school. Also during this period, he and Jan are working as vocalists in professional studios, singing jingles and radio station I.D.s. MR does the arranging.

 

1973 - 1980: The Michael Roy Singers continue to be one of the leading vocal groups in Miami and give many well-attended concerts, which also attract U of M choristers and jazz vocalists, some of whom attend as a class. MR adds church choir directing to his musical résumé. Hidden to him in 1980, he does not know yet that the formulative years now at hand will refine his choral arts for a high calling to come in exactly one decade.

 

MR begins to collect and play ancient and historical instruments. He joins the Miami Recorder Society, and begins to acquire his collection of early instruments, which is now the largest private collection in South Florida. He and Jan travel to England, Germany, Italy, Austria, and the Great Northwest seeking out craftsmen in early instrument-making. He commissions a number of instruments in these travels. He acquires many "ancients" from other players and from early instrument shops, of which there are less than a ten in the nation. 

   

the '80s: MR hones his directing skills and choral techniques with various choirs. He is singing roles in musical comedy, operas, and oratorio. He stars as Curley in a professional production of Oklahoma, to six audiences, each of 4500 attendees. In this era, he sings with the Miami Beach Symphony, with several opera companies, and on the "condo circuit," with his soprano singing partner, Sheila Marchant Barish. MR continues to collect and master the playing of early instruments. He now plays over 20 historical instruments and another 10 "moderns." 

 

the 90's: The appointed time has come for choral music on a high level: MR takes the position of director of music at the Redlands Community Church and raises up one of the most versatile and accomplished all-volunteer resident church choirs in the area. Jan is right there beside him, singing alto in the choir and playing trumpet on occasion. She even learns how to play recorder, but maintains her contrary opinion that krummhorns "sound like June bugs and mosquitos." At RCC,  MR meets Diane M. who becomes his long-time church-based and personal accompanist and remains so to this day. During the next 11 years, even in its remote location in the far south of the county, RCC becomes an important center of the choral arts in South Florida and attracts concertgoers of every stripe and musical taste. The RCC choir sings such varied idioms as Handel's Messiah and bluegrass gospel concerts with equal skill and stylistically accurate interpretation. MR founds the "Ancient Music" concert series, and presents 10 full-production concerts in early music, using only period instruments and historic instrumental and choral music. These are the only ancient concerts being produced in South Florida: unique and provocative, they are immensely popular and well-attended.

 

2003: MR and Jan come to Immanuel Presbyterian Church (along with accompanist, Diane) and there ensues a second great happening in choral music. In the next four years the Immanuel choir offers 7 full production concerts, equal in excellence to the over 30 presented by the RCC choir in the '90s. Once again a choir emerges that is equally adept with Handelian oratorio, high and low church choral, and bluegrass, mountain, and country gospel. The ancient concert is also revived. The Immanuel Church is much more centrally located and this results in the concerts being standing-room-only.  

 

2007: This last year at Immanuel, the choir presents The Ancient & Celtic Concert, which fills the church-as-concert-hall to the rafters. The St. Andrews Pipe and Drum Band of Miami are guest performers, and with 9 pipers and 10 drummers, they thunder into the church like an aural Apocalypse. It will not soon be forgotten by those fortunate enough to get into the over-crowded building. A seven-member early consort and a 23-voice chorale collaborate on the evening with motets, madrigals, and Gaelic and Celtic music. The concert's finale is 'Worthy is the Lamb," from Messiah, accompanied by organ, harpsichord, recorders, sackbut, violins, cello, and violas da gamba.

 

2008 to the present:  Michael Roy, Jan and Diane continue to perform in the area. MR has expanded his arranging and orchestrating to computer-based technologies but continues to play the historical instruments, maintaining the dichotomy of edge-of-technology and the ancient world. Now, of course, it is all recorded on a digital multi-tracker and mixed inside a computer. One presumes that Dufay, Palestrina and Bach would have loved it in their day.