Songs of Love & Murder!

One more concert behind me.

Last night my 60 music students presented "Songs of Love & Murder" at the Practice Gym at the College of Micronesia in Palikir. We had a good sized audience and I was generally pleased with the students' performance. A few students slipped back into their bad habits during the concert, but they were the exception.

This concert might not have been as glamorous as the times I directed and performed with big orchestras, prestigious choirs and in impressive venues, but in many ways it is even more rewarding. I was exposing many of the students and audience members to music that they normally would not have heard, and most of the songs they grew to enjoy.

I especially got a kick out of "Moon Over Agaña." It's not the greatest song in the world, but I found it years ago in the back of a file cabinet at the Micronesian Area Research Center at the University of Guam. It was written in 1962 by Don Sherwood Mayo, and I cannot find any information about him. I'm fairly sure that this piece hadn't been performed for three or four decades until last night.

This was the program...

"Let Me Sing and I'm Happy" by Irving Berlin
"I Got Plenty of Nothin'" by George Gershwin
"I'm Just a Lucky So-and-So" by Duke Ellington
"Moon Over Agaña" by Don Sherwood Mayo
"Mack the Knife" by Kurt Weill
"The Ballad of Sweeney Todd" by Stephen Sondheim
"Killing Me Softly with His Song" by Charles Fox
"Miss Otis Regrets" by Cole Porter
"I'll Never Fall in Love Again" by Burt Bacharach
"Ain't Misbehavin'" by Fats Waller
"My Funny Valentine" by Richard Rodgers