NATHAN GRANNER CREATIVE

Just in time for the summertime concert season, Live Nation Entertainment has drastically chopped the price of 12 oz., domestic beers to “just” $4. More at

http://digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2012/120518beer

Hi gang. If you value the good in life, you will back this campaign for funding.

Mark is an incredibly talented artist, who lives to play. He is also one of the GulleyGranner accompanists and one of The American Tenors players as well.

Kickstarter isn’t about making a lot of dough on your back, it’s about helping someone financially start a dream. 

The project, 18th street Tangos is dear to my heart, encompassing part my and Mark’s development as artists. Throw in some cabbage to get this thing in the can!

Love,

Nate

David Ford (www.davidFordart.com) is an amazing artist. A self-described patriot, self-taught painter, a thorough and thoughtful mind that seeks truth in people. 

http://www.kcmetropolis.org/issue/november_2008/article/i_like_this_country_-_interview_with_david_ford_04

I had the privilege of participating in his Charlotte Street “Artist Walk” lecture @ the Nelson-Atkins museum. 

It was a subversive element, where I was planted in the audience to begin to sing during his lecture. The pieces were era specific to the 18th century painting and FOrd was to simply continue his speech while interrupted by me, and at a different work in another part of the museum, by a dancer.

It worked like a charm, eliciting hate-stares and sharp intakes of breath, gasps that I could be audacious enough to interrupt the artist while he is speechifying.

Then, after a few moments, they realized that I’m singing what could easily have been written on the painted page of the piece Ford was describing.

Later in a short lecture on David’s own work, folks got that that was all part of his philosophy. And that we were all a part of a new piece. 

Who says classic art has no relevance?

BTW I sang

Nina, Attributed to Pergolesi
Where’ere You Walk by Handel.  

Thanks to David Ford and The Charlotte Street Foundation

A few weeks ago I was In a cattle chute in the heart of the Kansas City Livestock Exchange District, auditioning for x-Factor, one of those big-time talent shows prevalent on television these days.

It was, for me, a bit humiliating, but also let me see just where I am, inasmuch as my own artistry is concerned. And sometimes, no matter how established i am as an artist, I needed a gut-check.

My friend Tiziano Lugli hooked me up with an invite callback to audition for The Voice, NBC’s answer to the American Idol, America’s Got Talent, yada yada. It’s interesting, there’s such a dynamic change in perspective when people advocate for me. I feel like I’m not in this alone, which happens from time to time. In reality I have had soo many people support me, family, friends, fans alike, even people who don’t like me have vouched for me all of my career. But it’s a big world and we all feel small in it, when forced to look at in perspective. Our Earth,a tiny speck of dust, and us a spark of energy on it,lost in the cosmic winds. All I’m saying is that even one person’s aid though it may seem small in comparison to our universe, is a big deal.

Tiziano, if you read this someday, thank you.

Actually, the audition for XFactor was more of a setup and prep for me to help me focus on The Voice audition. It helped me pick songs and get arrangements in my head and more importantly, face impossibility. Big song in my new repertoire was Queen’s We are the Champions. The words hit home, I’ve paid my dues…time after time… I also found Roy Orbison’s Crying’ to be quite compelling. More so than anything as a shout-out to my Walsh’s Corner Cocktail gang led by the late great Mike Murphy, yes, Mike, that one’s for you.

I’ve been learning how to play the guitar, and friends, I’m not great…by any stretch of the imagination, but there is nothing like connecting the singing experience with an outer mechanical one like playing the guitar or playing the piano. If I really want someone to play well, I’ll call My friend Beau Bledsoe to knock that guitar out, he’ s amazing. An intellect and talent and an entrepreneur, Beau is awesome.

But I wanted to do this, just to get my own feeling„ my own idiosyncrasies and peccadillos rhythm and style. So I made a new treatment of Crying, which in all honesty, I can hardly play YET.

I also chose to play my own composition And I Think I’m Gonna Make it. It’s a slightly peppy song and has a great message and… I can actually play it pretty well.
LIFE HAPPENED
Those three choices were my first choices for the big three we could bring to LA, but as time drew on and as the April Fourth date of the audition drew nigh, life happened.

Laurie, my wife of fifteen and some years lost her job. It was a blow to us, as she was ensconced with good ratings and a healthy fan base, as well as going over and above the call of duty for her former station, plus her talent level is unparalleled, she having bested Rush Limbaugh in ratings a few times. So there we were looking at yet another trip to Hollywood, but this time without the safety net of Laurie’s performances keeping some sense of base as we make our way in the vastness.

Like any married couple, we’ve been through a lot. As a friend at Village Presbyterian counseled long ago in our young singles class, “It’s like first starting to ice skate. You fall down quite a bit when you start, but at some point you both start gliding together. Your steps intertwine and soon enough you start to dance.” we’ve been gliding for a long time now. When the news came, on the very same day of the XFactor audition, we were both surprisingly calm.

Slowly we let the word out and all responded with love and warmth.

I’m actually cool with it. Laurie is a damn fine DJ, yet it is her voice/over chops is where she shines. As an actor with intellect and pipes, I’ve always said that she is far more talented than I am, and I’ll stand by that. And… Instead of being restricted in her time, she can work full time on her passion.

This is how it is folks. You have to find something that you can strive for every day, “every damn day”, as Jon Stewart said. Because when you have to myriad and plentiful days of trudging through the dirt trying to make it, you know that at the end, there is happiness; that every time I get a gig, or Laurie gets a voice over spot (a voice over, or VO is a narration, character or endorsement spot for a commercial, production or something) it’s a really great day, and if we are lucky enough to land a regular gig, that pays, that’s real quality of life. The days, weeks, months, years that one works to reach this goal, pain sacrifice, loss all seem to either go away, or magnify the effort and the reward. Does this make sense?

I think of it as actually buying a lottery ticket every day. The odds are stacked against you, but if you keep playing, there is opportunity to win. Each day is a new ticket, offering sunshine or clouds. Laurie has a great ticket to play too.

In all of this, Laurie has kept her resolve to support me in my journey. I am gratified and have even more resolve to find more success.

The Voice… Success here is like finding the golden fleece, it seems no matter the preparation, I am faced with adversity, gut wrenching turns and moments of sunshine that seem to shine through an immense palate of stained glass.
MUSICAL MONDAY

My buddy Tim Scott, a talented actor/singer and face of Royals Baseball Fandom asked me to sing for the organization I helmed as Artistic Director for a couple of years, Musical Theater Heritage. I though at first he wanted a song, and I was happy to comply (for a couple of stipulations). It was not long though that I realized my commitment was four songs.

Well, my The Voice audition pieces needed to be in front of people, so I was happy to be able to bring a couple of them to a familiar and loving audience.

Musical Monday came around. April 2, 2012. For weeks I’d been in my studio, practicing, focusing, making every attempt to hone these songs so that they were not just rote, but flexible to the moment. So that I could lean into the maelstom.

But there was one wild card. LesMiserables, “Bring Him Home”. I needed to have this song in my life. But it couldn’t be on the Voice audition. I had to take time away from that to put Bring Him Home into my head. At first learning the piece was a welcome imposition, but an imposition all the same. I fought with it. I put it off, I played video games to delay the time when it would finally earwurm into my head.

But one day, I picked up the guitar and started strumming. Soon enough a new vision started to unfurl, to bring me rapturously to a new piece, where we could talk to each other. This is what a guitar can do. There was no way I could take the song to The Voice… Was there?

More later, friends on the next installment.

He started out traveling up and down the east coast in his beater car in the 40’s conducting opera in tiny theaters and over the course of his massive career, showed on the best stages in front of the best orchestras and singers in the world and was conductor of the opera scene in The Godfather. His only opera premiered in 2001, when he was 83.

Just now setting down his baton a decade later, the warm glow of the footlights of Opera Tampa reflect the character and celebrate the retirement of Maestro Coppola, first artistic director of the company.

His gruff tone and customized pencil batons will echo in many theater workers’ memories, as this sweet, sweet man walks off the stage.

Personal reverence aside, Maestro Coppola’s absence from the stage marks the loss of practical history, where a great, who is connected to the very roots of classical singing and operatic production will have to speak his peace from outside the pit.

“Hey, I did my best, you know,” my line as Celestiano Madieros, a convicted murderer, who testified on behalf of Sacco and Vanzetti in Coppola’s opera comes to mind.

Maestro, you were exquisite! Thanks for the start, and for you, the finish.

Nathan

To write to Maestro, follow this link to say a few words before these last couple of concerts.

http://www.operatampa.org/MessagetoMaestro.aspx