Tish Oney's Music Blog

 What inspires singers? Toward whom does a singer glance when searching for musical ideas? Where do singers travel to fill their wells with creativity? When do singers reach for outside inspiration and why do they turn where they turn? I am delighted to investigate some of these direct and rhetorical questions in a new podcast I will host on WGJC radio called "The Singer's Muse."  Singers from all genres and styles will be invited to contribute their thoughts as podcast guests. As we share our journeys, stories, and experiences, we will learn from one another and hold each other up at a time when singing in public requires considerable modification or postponement. Whether hailing from the opera house, jazz festival, Broadway stage, church choir, baroque ensemble, or pop music scene, singers from all walks of life and masters of many different styles of music will provide thought-provoking dialogue and encouragement for our fellow musicians yearning to heal the world with...

For several years I have been entertaining the idea of authoring a book on a topic I researched extensively when I was a doctoral student at the University of Southern California. The book is finally here! Peggy Lee: A Century of Song , I am pleased to announce, is available for purchase at the website of my publisher Rowman & Littlefield. This volume celebrates the one hundredth birthday of Peggy Lee, a pillar of twentieth-century American popular music, jazz, and blues. It recounts her expansive work as a film composer, actress, radio host, songwriter of 270 songs, voiceover artist, live performer, and recording artist of 1100 recorded masters. Lee's contributions to American music run the gamut from a large catalog of recorded music and original songs (many which became hits), exceptional stagecraft and performance practice, exemplary musicianship, nuance, authentic style in a wide palette of genres, music advocacy, and much more. Her pioneering work as a female bandleader/...

Last week I had the time of my life singing a centennial tribute performance honoring the great Ella Fitzgerald. What a special moment in the career of this singer to formally and publicly pay tribute to the one performing artist who had provided the greatest inspiration... who served as the primary model after which my own voice developed. To say that I grew up listening and singing Ella's songs would be a gross understatement. Most jazz vocalists have several influences. I had Ella. While yes, I was also enjoying the beautiful radio voices of Olivia and later, Whitney, my truly formative years were spent learning every nuance, pitch, smear and syllable sung by the First Lady of Song herself. In preparing my show last week, I dusted off several transcriptions of Ella's arrangements that I had written very early in my career. Those were, after all, the first songs I wished to learn how to transcribe when I was a jazz arranging student. I have been singing them in public for so...

Over the past month I have spent many hours churning out arrangements for a new live show and a new studio album... Neither project duplicates any songs, so the volume of new material I am performing while in southern California this month may well be setting a new record! My new tribute show, "Going My Way! The Songs of Jimmy Van Heusen," contains sixteen arrangements of Van Heusen goodies like "Swinging On a Star," "Moonlight Becomes You" and "It Could Happen To You," as well as practically unknown songs from the various films to which Van Heusen and his best-known collaborator, Johnny Burke, contributed scores of ditties and tunes. I highly recommend all the "Road To..." movies that Bing Crosby filmed with Bob Hope for those seeking to enjoy these beautiful and witty songs in their intended comedic medium. "Going My Way," "The Bells Of St. Mary's" and "And The Angels Sing" are other golden oldies wi...

As I put the month of November away, I am glad to see some promising things and experiences on the horizon... December will bring an always-welcome opportunity to return to the gorgeous island of Oahu to enjoy Christmas Eve singing at the First Baptist Church of Honolulu! In February I will perform my inaugural jazz concert at the Chapman Cultural Center in Spartanburg, SC with the wonderful commercial music faculty from University of South Carolina Upstate, of which I am now a proud member. I'll return to that stage with my Peggy Lee Project in April, following a soprano soloist appearance in Schubert's Mass in G at the USC Upstate Performing Arts Center. June will bring more touring, this time in Nashua, NH, among other places, and the summer promises some new recording possibilities. Reviewing the year enables a working artist to reconnect with her goals and aspirations, revisit her career priorities and solidify yet-unmade plans to keep moving forward. Life can and w...

...is usually the title of my solo touring show when I spend the evening alone on a stage behind a piano (most of the time) singing and playing. My upcoming concert on September 11 will be a bit different... instead of going solo I will be joined by four wonderful musicians--Dr. Gregg Akkerman at the piano, Adam Knight on guitar, Shannon Hoover on bass and Tony Christopher on drums. We have set out to give the University of South Carolina Upstate community a taste of my various touring shows--there will be selections from "Jazz Seasons," my NYC cabaret show performed at both the Metropolitan Room (twice) and the Triad Theatre in Manhattan, "The Peggy Lee Project," performed nationwide at performing arts centers, regional theatres, jazz festivals and university concert series, and "Sweet Youth," my latest critically-acclaimed CD of originals and a few standards. We'll be trying different permutations of the band which will be fun... I'll be doing...

Hello readers! This week I open a new doubleheader show in two cities--the show is called "Tish Oney--The Peggy Lee Project/Tish Oney's Swingin' Christmas." This pairing came about because a couple of venues could not decide between the two shows and were looking for something for the Christmas season... so we opted to combine them with a short intermission in between. The doubleheader will be presented Friday, December 2 at Fryeburg Academy (Fryeburg, ME) and Saturday, December 3 at Mt. Lebanon High School (Pittsburgh, PA). Guitarist John Chiodini will join me for both shows. Bassist Nick Walker and drummer Greg Evans will meet John and myself in Pittsburgh to play as a quartet for the second show. When undertaking the writing of a new show I am attentive to two sets of criteria: my interests in performing certain repertoire as well as the audience's interests in hearing something familiar balanced with something new. The manner of arranging varies from s...

This week begins an Artist-in-Residence stint at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina. The big event for the week will be my concert with the Furman University Jazz Orchestra under the direction of Dr. Matt Olson. We'll be collaborating for my touring big band show, "Tish Oney's Big Band Excursion" and the Furman Jazz students will open Friday's show with music performed by a number of small jazz combos and instrumental works for the entire 18-piece jazz orchestra. As the evening unfolds, listeners will be treated to a program of wonderful jazz works I've compiled by award-winning big band arrangers including Grammy-winner Chris Walden and Hall-of-Famer Joe Riposo. This show begins Friday, November 4 at 8pm in the Daniel Music Building's Recital Hall on the Furman University campus. Admission is $3 for students and $5 general and the public is heartily invited! Earlier in the day Friday I will be teaching a master class for singers in an in...

Welcome to another installment of my blog! It seems the months fly by... This past month has been busy--I started it with a wonderful and fun recording session at Red Rock Recording Studios near Stroudsburg, PA with Alfred Music Publishing. I am honored to sing with some of the finest session singers in the country a couple of times a year to update the Alfred choral music catalog offerings. I plan to return for more recording at the end of October. It's a nice diversion from touring and teaching and gives me a chance to periodically refine my sight-singing skills! Session singing moves very quickly--for this session we rehearsed each song once through (if that) and then recorded it, and I (along with a few other singers) performed all the women's parts on separate tracks (first and second soprano and alto). Having several excellent singers with well-developed ranges and sight-singing skills is crucial to make the session run efficiently. Each "take" must be ...

Blujazz, my new record label, has announced that my new CD, "Sweet Youth," recorded with the incomparable guitarist John Chiodini, will be available for sale worldwide on August 16 with a jazz radio release date of August 29! We are very excited about this coming month's events and look forward to sharing our new music with all of you. To order the new CD, you can find it in the coming weeks at www.blujazz.com ... In conjunction with the new album release, my concert schedule will begin to get busy throughout the fall...I'll be performing August 20 at First Baptist Church of Honolulu (7 pm), September 9 at The Master's College in Santa Clarita, CA (7:30 pm) and September 29 (The Peggy Lee Project) and 30 (Tish Oney's Big Band Excursion) at Ithaca College School of Music (Ithaca, NY) at 8:15 pm in Ford Hall Auditorium. For information about these and more concerts, please see my website, www.tishoney.com .

The discipline of practice can be elusive for the busy artist... but as the virtuosic pianist Vladimir Horowitz famously said (and I paraphrase): "When I miss one day of practice, I notice a difference in my performance. When I miss two days, my fellow musicians notice. When I miss three days, the public begins to notice." When it comes to singing, muscles necessary for precise musical execution don't take long to atrophy, and so require regular workouts on a daily basis. Add to that the responsibility of performing a completely memorized program and the necessity of practicing becomes intensified. Further, the fact that I am constantly writing music, arranging songs and creating songlists or programs tailored specifically for each performance requires a regular investment of practice time in advance of each concert. Over the years I have found ways to view my daily practice session as special time for me, like an hour spent at a spa, rather than an hour of drudgery...

I love being what some refer to as a "crossover artist." All it really means is that you are good at more than one thing: you excel as a singer in multiple genres. Being one such type of performer gives me the opportunity to stretch different vocal mechanism muscles (really!), hone my precision and technique, challenge myself musically and intellectually, and keep from being bored singing in one style. The main thing I keep in mind is that I strive to be an expert in whatever style I'm singing, rather than dwelling on the "C" word ("crossover"). I sing "classical" or "legit" soprano repertoire (baroque and contemporary art music mostly, but also classic and romantic period material in 6 languages) from the standpoint of being a specialist in those genres rather than as a jazz singer dabbling in crossover. Likewise, I sing jazz from the perspective of a specialist in that genre, calling to mind the greats who have gone before m...