by Kurt Knecht | Jul 21, 2011 | brian mcmillan, Guyton Maurice, New Orleans, nose rings, Uncategorized
In the halcyon days of my late teens, $200.00 was enough money for big adventure. I had just finished playing a gig on a Thursday, and the cash was in my wallet. I found my faithful cohort Brian and said, “Hey, I’ve got $200.00. Let’s do something.”“What do you want...
by Kurt Knecht | Jul 16, 2011 | chutzpah, class warfare, piano playing, tortured artist, Uncategorized
#1 “Choot-spa” – If you are going to be a public figure, you are bound to mispronounce words on occasion. People will make fun of you. That being the case, I think if you are going to sprinkle your soundbites with a dash of Yiddish, you better have...
by Kurt Knecht | Jul 14, 2011 | childrens chorus music, kurt knecht, shalom aleichem, shalom aleikhem, Uncategorized
Last week at Friday night Shabbat services at South Street Temple, Lincoln had the pleasure of welcoming Rabbi Craig Lewis into the Jewish community. My wife and I are members at the synagogue, but we felt it would be important to attend temple services that night to...
by Kurt Knecht | Jul 12, 2011 | architecture, Frank Lloyd Wright, Guy Trainin, Uncategorized
Guy Trainin’s blog (which you can find here) asks some very thoughtful questions about architecture and education. It put Florida Southern College wandering through my brain. I had a wonderful time teaching there for about a year. The entire campus was designed...
by Kurt Knecht | Jul 7, 2011 | Uncategorized
The third and final movement of my Hopkins set is the poem “Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend”. (You can hear the 1st movement here and the 2nd movement here.) The poem deals with the perennial problem of justice in the world. If there is such a...
by Kurt Knecht | Jul 6, 2011 | eugenia garrity, kurt knecht, new vocal music, Uncategorized
This is movement 2 of my Hopkins set. (You can hear the 1st movement here.)It is a setting of Hopkins’ poem, “Spring and Fall: To a Young Child”. In the text, the poet contemplates a young child weeping over the Autumnal defoliation and, in it, he...
by Kurt Knecht | Jul 5, 2011 | Uncategorized
This week, I’m posting some of my settings of Gerald Manley Hopkins’ poems. I’ve always been a fan since T.S. Eliot recommended him to me. I think we should also encourage parents to bring back “Manley” as a middle name, but we should...
by Kurt Knecht | Jul 1, 2011 | Uncategorized
Bob Woody has recently asked for responses from performers about how they deal with anxiety. (You should follow him on twitter @Bob_Woody and see his excellent blog here.) I would like to continue some thoughts that I began to develop here. In specific, Buber suggests...
by Kurt Knecht | Jun 26, 2011 | funeral, German, gigging, kurt knecht, organ, Uncategorized
I called the funeral home and told them I was available to play the service. The woman said, “Great! Could you call the husband. His name is Hans Kraus. I will warn you, he has a very thick accent, and he’s hard to understand.” “It’s OK,...
by Kurt Knecht | Jun 22, 2011 | church work, kurt knecht, purple gift bags, Uncategorized
After the church fired me, re-hired me the following day, subsequently docked my pay and screamed at my wife over a dispute about when we actually moved out of the old parsonage, I resigned. A final Sunday of employment was set. The Methodist Book of Discipline does...
by Kurt Knecht | Jun 21, 2011 | artistic honesty, kurt knecht, Martin Buber, Uncategorized
As some of the recent posts and comments have been swirling around, I’ve once again managed to stumble on an area that seems to raise controversy with artsy types. The question is, is there such an animal as aesthetic honesty. To be sure this is a complicated...
by Kurt Knecht | Jun 19, 2011 | kurt knecht, new piano music, Robert Helps, Uncategorized
Here is a little hommage to my old teacher Robert Helps. I wrote this piece a few years after he died as a sort of memorial. Those of us who knew Bob all have stories that usually start with things like, “I remember when he came up to me one day and...
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