[Perform-Talk] Finding pop repertoire for my recital

Kaiti Shelton crazy4clarinet104 at gmail.com
Fri Nov 13 05:16:00 UTC 2015


Hi all,

I know this division is chalk full of creative people, so I'm hoping I
can take my writer's block of sorts here and find some help with it.

I'm starting to plan the logistical matters for my senior recital
(tentatively April 1st or 8th next year but I am not quite ready to
schedule the hall).  I know what I'm playing for the portion of my
recital which I need to do on my primary instrument, and even what
I'll be playing as a back up if the ensemble I'd like to put together
doesn't pan out soon (I'm currently in talks with my studio teacher
who is also the ensemble director to try to get an early head count so
I'll be able to know what's going on before the next semester).  She
wants me also to do something on piano and guitar with voice because
I'm a music therapy major.  I like the idea of Vienna by Billy Joel
because I think it summarizes some life lessons I've learned in
college pretty well thus far, plus I love Billy Joel, his piano stuff
is nice, and it sits well in my lower range.  I'm struggling to find
something I could play on guitar, though.  I'm looking for something
more upbeat to close the recital, with a message about growing up or
music that is positive.  I've had Time of Your Life by Greenday
suggested a few times already, but I don't want to do it because the
song is so overplayed around anything having to do with graduations.
I'm also interested in looking into the world of musical theatre for
songs, but there really doesn't seem to be anything popping out at me
other than For Good from Wicked, which is also grossly overused in
these kinds of situations.  Any ideas would be really helpful in
addition to my own research, I'm just not seeing anything I like so
far in my own web searches.  Someone most recently suggested I play
Happy by Pharrell because I play that one a lot for fun and am good at
it, but that's not quite professional enough for my taste.  However,
my theme is "From Paris to pop," because I have such a wide range of
music here, but I guess anything goes.

Thanks,
-- 
Kaiti Shelton
University of Dayton-Music Therapy
President, Ohio Association of Blind Students 2013-Present
Secretary, The National Federation of the Blind Performing Arts
Division 2015-2016

"You can live the life you want; blindness is not what holds you back!"




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