A long-missing song from the Immanuel 2007 Country/Bluegrass Concert, was found and digitalized on this site om Jan/ 10, 2022. It is "Proud Mary," from the "Southern Rock Medley." You can find it under The Immanuel Choir - then click on Country/Bluegrass - 2007 - The Last Concert.

 

A new category, Music Videos, has been added to the Master Contents Page (You click "Enter" to get there from the opening page). Music videos made by MR are being added as we speak. 

 

 

A new concert page (of an old concert) has been added to the Early Music and Ancient Instruments page. It is the 1990 Sunday of Ancient Music, at Redlands Community Church. This was in fact the very first concert of the large productions that were advertised citywide. Another 42 concerts followed this one in the next 18 years. This first concert, was interestingly, an all-instrumental concert, with no choral music whatsoever. The concerts to follow were choral concerts all, with instruments being the seasoning, and not the entree. This was Michael Roy's first year at RCC, and this was the beginning of a long and adventurous concert series that switched to Immanuel Presbyterian in 2004. Go to the master contents page and click on the Early Music button. Scroll down to "other links to early music." June, 2020, during the pandemic!

 

Added to the music list: an historic recording of "Lead Me to Calvary," by the fine vocal group in the West Kendall Presbyterian Church, which existed only between 1987 and 1990. See "Michael Roy's All-Time Favorites" on the master contents page. This song by this same vocal group was sung at RCC three weeks after the West Kendall church ceased to exist, and paved the way to Michael being hired as the Redlands music director.

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Also added is an excellent studio recording of Michael and Jan's duet of "Lord of the Dance." It has complex folk-style guitar finger picking, record solo, and piano/organ backing up the guitar.

 

Newly added also: "These Proceedeth," a song MR wrote and recorded with Jan back in the '70's. It is a tour de force of complex overdubbing, creating a thick, canonic blanket of background vocals behind the duet leads. Also, hear guitars in stereo, elec. bass, flute and bass flute: It's worth a listen Go to "The

Singer," and then "Vocal Bands." 

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Sept. 23, 2019: I posted a couple of interesting songs from a Country/Bluegrass Concert at RCC in 1998. The choral piece "Cool Water," and the vocal duet for Jan and me: "Daddy Sang Bass," which segues into "Will the Circle Be Unbroken," with full bluegrass band storming in. This is good pickin' and grinnin'.

Go to -->The Choral Man -->RCC Choir --> Country/Bluegrass Concerts --> Country/Bluegrass - 1998

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In June, Glenn Draper, the man who gave me my music scholarship, passed away and was greeted by the Lord. In 1964, Glenn put me in the University of Miami, a wildly expensive private school, and one I could have never afforded to attend on my own indigent means. As it was, I ate coconuts and salvaged rolls from turned-in cafeteria trays to stay alive. Glenn taught me the choral arts and took me all over the world with the University of Miami Singing Hurricanes. He virtually set me into my calling as a sacred musician and church choral director. I cannot possibly overstate the influence Dave Ayers and Glenn Draper had on my life, and they both went to God within a month. And I shall make that journey at my appointed time.

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Feb, 2018
 

Jada West became a FB friends, and I added "Shepherd's Pipe Carol" to the RCC list of Christmas songs. Jada sang that solo (of the little shepherd) in 1997 when she was 12. Go to ---> RCC Choir ---> Christmas Choral Works and scroll down.  As of 2019, Jada has disappeared from FB. 

 

 

 

 

 

Sept.  2016

 

A solo by Jan, from 1991, the RCC Church, has been added to the mix: "Early American Trilogy."  It features her sumptuous alto voice accompanied by the mountain dulcimer (and piano).  Go to "The Singer," and then to "Solo Performer." Scroll to the end of the list and read about the pentatonic hymntunes in this unusual medley. 

 

 

 

I am working on a comprehensive directory listing all singers and instrumentalists (and actors) who have participated in the choral programs under my direction over the aeons.  This Personnel Directory can be found on the opening page and other places, like here:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Our dear friend and fellow chorister, Peggy Hunt, has gone on before us, and awaits the great reunion, when we shall all sing together in the heavenlies.  She was one of us at the Redlands Church as well as a guest singer at Immanuel. She was so loved that her Facebook page continues, and many friends post comments on it often, expressing their remembrance of one who was always joyful, and always ready to sing, to eat Thai food, and to laugh uproariously.  Soon and very soon, Peggy-O. 

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A new song for the Christmas season has been downloaded

to "The Singer." Then click on Vocal Bands and go to "In the Middle of the Night."

 

Also, two new instrumentals have been added: Come Thou Long Expected Jesus, and Come Thou Fount.  Find both under "The Instrumentalist."  Flute, bass flute, clarinet and piano are featured. 

 

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New essay under construction:  "Pantheon of Straw Men."

 

New essay completed: "Rage."

 

Another new essay: "The End of Civil Debate." 

 

Another essay on the full and provocative 

definition of hypocrisy is finished:

 

"Hypocrisy: What Is It Exactly?"

 

Go to "The Poet and Essayist."    

       

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MR's Facebook account is up and running. Every page of this vast site has a FB icon at the very bottom. Click on it and go to MR's FB pages. To date, singers Adalaide Gonzalez, Katie Burdick, Jill Richard, Becky Spence, Peggy Hunt (R.I.P.), Rita & Kent Pettigrew, Lou Rose, Suzanne Shirrell, John Flynt, Troy Terry,  Claudia Springer, Sally Baron, Peggy Cuevas, Chris Moore, Colby Leider, and Art Miles have joined the friends list. I have also added several friends from the Spurrlows and Connie Clement, from the Michael Roy Singers of yore. 

 

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                                             Singers and Players

 

We offer our condolences to the Burdick family in the passing of Katie's husband, Calvin, May 2016. This last Saturday, May 14, City Church in Homestead was standing-room-only in honoring Calvin, beloved by so many for his extraordinary life as husband, father, grandfather and coach. 

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We grieve, but "not as those who have no hope," (I Thess 4:13) as we bid goodbye in this life to Elliot Hurwitt. He passed away in CA after a long battle with cancer. Elliot leaves his wife Doris, who was a member of the RCC choir for most of the '90's until the end of Michael Roy's tenure. Elliot was an elder on the RCC session and was a steadfast friend of the music program and choir, often helping out with the concert recordings.  After MR left RCC, the Hurwitt horse ranch and estate (which we called "Horseywood") became the HQ for the para-church chorale, "The Redlands Singers." We extend to the Hurwitt family our deepest sympathies, and await the day when we will all be reunited in the Lord.