Well, not so much for him as near him. He’s receiving an honorary doctorate from my alma mater (where I now teach), and I’m singing “America the Beautiful” at the commencement ceremony. I think this qualifies as the most famous musician that I’ve performed for to date.
(Just in case you don’t know who I’m talking about: Quincy Jones.)
That is awesome! Are you singing solo or with others?
I have a hard time singing “America the Beautiful” anytime without getting choked up. I’ve worked in higher ed for more than 20 years, and commencement always chokes me up.
“America the Beautiful” + commencement + Quincy Jones? I’d be a puddle of goo, unable to sing a note.
Enjoy the hell out of the moment!
That’s fabulous! Have a blast, and let us all know how it goes.
In bocc’al lupo!
Cool…
Perhaps instead of singing “God shed his grace on thee…” you could wave to Quincy and sing “Please produce my CD…”
It would certainly be a memorable version of the song.
Solo. A weird-ass arrangement too: the first verse is in G-flat, and the second (which is actually the fourth) is in E-flat, which leaves me groveling in the basement at the beginning, then screaming out the high notes at the end (hopefully not actually screaming; G shouldn’t be that high for me).
I shall.
Heh. There’ll be quite enough controversy as it is. The University, in its infinite wisdom, has decided to confer an honorary doctorate upon Phyllis Schlafly, which has pretty much pissed of everyone to no end. I’m just hoping that the ceremony manages to finish without riots.
Well, there’s your new line:
God shed Phyl-lis Schlaf-ly
I can only assume that you have an awesome set of pipes, so relax and have fun. The most important thing that performance artists can learn is that very few listeners can pick the errors.
Kick ass.
Everything went fairly well. I didn’t really get to talk to Quincy: I ran into him exiting the men’s room, where he patted me on the back and said “great job , man”, and then I talked briefly while getting his autograph where he said, “you sounded good.” Alas, he did not offer to produce my next album.
If anyone is interested, here’s the recording of the ceremony: commencement '08. I’m about a quarter of the way through: right after the procession, which takes a good half hour to forty-five minutes by itself. I’m the first bit after the procession. You can see Phyllis Schlafly and Chris Matthews watching me from stage left.