What is the sound of one geek clapping?

Got bored. Sat down at the piano and played for a while, then got bored with that. Started playing a piece by Schumann that I like and decided that today would finally be the day that I record it. Did just that.

That’s the short version. :)

Longer version is: This piece is called “Ich Grolle Nicht” (translation available in that link) and is from Schumann’s song cycle Dichterliebe, and it’s all about how love is a cruel bitch. My kind of stuff.

Ich Grolle Nicht

(Oh, and yes, I’m also playing the piano. It’s a really fun part to play.)

One of my favorite Broadway composers of the last decade is Jason Robert Brown. I’ve long had dreams of performing in one of his shows, professionally (yeah, right) or even in a local theatre group. In fact, last year I wrote about auditioning for a show (and later about not getting the part). That show was one of his.

Anyway.

Last week, he posted an entry to his blog stating that he had found a few rehearsal recordings he’d made for a production of one of his shows (Songs For A New World, a song from which I sang on my senior recital), and thought that it would be fun to host a little Jason Robert Brown karaoke contest. He posted the recordings of him playing the piano and asked people to record themselves singing the songs.

I decided that this would be a lot of fun.

So here are the two entries that I posted. And here’s the deal: If you listen to these and you like them, then I ask you to send an email (before August 10th, mind you) to jrbkaraoke2008@yahoo.com, and in the Subject line, put “I Vote For Andrew Coutermarsh”. I don’t hold any delusions that I would win the competition, but it would be nice to be a finalist. It’s hard to tell, with some of the fan clubs that people have online.

The songs:

(If you can’t use the flash player, the title of the song is also a link to the MP3. The flash player is for ease of use.)

She Cries

King of the World