Dec 15th, 2011 I had a great morning at Hope UMC playing a Christmas Show for the 3M's group. I recall telling Dani that the 3Ms name stood for "More Mature Members". She quickly asked, "Why do they think they're so great?" (hahaha - she was pretty young at the time. ) :) Today was the last show of the tour. We started the day early and went to the last show the Rainbow Gospel choir did in the morning. Pretty good turn out; about 150 or so. The choir gave their best show yet. I was offered a chance to do a solo for “Jesus be a Fence”, but didn’t want to because I couldn’t remember the words and didn’t want to take away from Kirsten’s solo, plus I felt tired and didn’t feel good. Dani was also offered her solo for “Salvation” but also bowed out. We met up with the Martins to have Joachim drive the big van in the narrow downtown streets, and had lunch at a local shop. Good food, but afterwards I didn’t feel good. We walked to the venue where we were playing, and I sat down. I didn’t feel like getting up… Heike came to hang out with us, but didn’t plan to stay for the show; she had another program she wanted to go to. As I write my journal, I feel bad that I wasn’t better company for her when she came. She helped me call Tante Trude which was nice. I love Tante Trude, but can never understand what she says… ooof! Although I felt bad – I made up my mind that when it came time to do the show – I would get up, put on a face and do my best. As the time drew near, I felt a bit better, and when the show started I was okay. I must have had a case of nerves, but didn’t recognize it as that. Weird! The final show at Kirchentag was a good because it was pretty well attended, and fun to play with good lighting and interesting fog. I can’ wait to review the video! J Mom’s friend Ingrid and her husband came to see us which was really nice. I think she’ll give Mom a good review! J One lady sitting in the front row approached me after the show with tears running down her cheeks. She’s bought both CDs and asked for autographs. She was so sweet and let me know that the music had been healing for her. I really appreciate that kind of feedback. 5-14-2010 Friday we had a show in the morning at a church on the northern part of town. It was raining and cold again and I felt like we were in the middle of nowhere. Thank goodness Heike and Christa came to our show; it sure boosted my moral. The church had a staff to run sound which was nice, but again we only had a few people in the audience. Musically, it was one of our better shows and I was really pleased to find out that a father and his teenage daughter who had seen us the day before at the exhibit center liked us enough to find out where we were playing and come see us. Wow! That really made my day. One older gentleman told me “Holy Moments” made him cry and we sold a few more CDs. Afterwards we found an Italian restaurant around the block and had lunch as a group. Once lunch was done, Joachim and I headed back to the Exhibit Center (Messelgelende Ost) to do a radio show with Lui Knoll. Heike came along, which was great. We met Lui just before my segment started and he asked about playing some of my songs from my CDs. Too bad we didn’t have any CDs with us! Luckily, I had arranged to have my music for sale from my website and Lui was able to buy 2 songs with PayPal for $1.98. WhooHoo! That’s almost four dollars an hour if you keep adding it up! Hahahaha! Minutes later, we were hearing “Matter of Faith” and “Sing and Dance” (or “Sing and Pray” as Lui introduced it) on the air. We did an interview where Lui asked me some questions too bad my answers weren’t always to the questions he asked! Ooooof! Next I sang live to a couple of the tracks I’d prepared before we left for Germany. I chose “O Come Emmanuel” and “Hosanna”. Lastly, Joachim joined me on the stage and we did a couple of live songs with the two of us playing acoustic guitar. Joachim played some great lead on “Desert Blues” and we finished the show with a hammed up version of “Folks Like That”. We did draw a small crowd in spite of the continuing rain. What was amazing was that anybody came to hear us. Angela Merkel, the German President was also at the Messelgelende in the next area over from us! I had to smile a little because if there was any taping of President Merkel’s speeches – there was a chance that you could hear Anne Rowland music in the background… probably not loud enough for anyone to hear it – but were seriously close to the action! Fun!! Although our show outdoors was small due to the weather, I still felt like we had good impact with those who came by. I had some tearful “thank you’s” and even sold a few CDs. 5-12-2010 Wednesday, Andy, Marla and I took the BOB (Bayern Oberland Bahn) from the stop in Agatharied to Munich to look around and eventually to meet up with my cousin Heike from Duesseldorf. We just considered it an adventure. Heike was coming to Kirchentag with a big group on a bus and wasn’t sure what time they’d arrive or where. Andy and Marla wanted to get some items at the Hard Rock Café – Munich, so we headed for the Altstadt (old town, or downtown). We did make our way there and had lunch at the Hard Rock and got some gifts and souvenirs. We got texts from Heike along the way and met her at a concert for a group called “Die Wise Guys”, an all make rockapella type group. They apparently were well known by the Germans and drew a big crowd. We ran into Heike’s step-mother and her friend and all headed for someplace to get coffee. I was amazed at how many people were attending Kirchentag and felt a little overwhelmed at being part of such a big event. 5-11-2010
I am nearly done getting ready for Christmas and have been able to get past all the hustle and bustle of the season to remember to celebrate the love God showed us by sending the gift of His Son, Jesus, the Light of the World. I hope we all have a chance to feel that love during this season.
Oct 2, 2011 WoW! Gotta try to blog a bit more often!! I just got back from a wonderful Walk to Emmaus Retreat. I had a great time bonding with my team and watching the ladies attending the retreat build friendships and deepen their faith in Christ. Awesome! :)
Nov 11, 2010
Wow! I'm so behind on blogging! I seriously need to be more consistent! So much has been going on and I seem to be playing more and more. WhooHoo!! I recently played at 1st United Methodist in Castle Rock, CO with some good friends Nick and Tony Molieri along with a new guitar player, Vince Hubbard. So fun!
One new project I've agreed to help with is the new family oriented service at Hope UMC called "The SandBox". It's been started by the new Associate Pastor at Hope, Stephanie Price. I've agreed to help out a couple of Saturday nights each month and Andy and Marla have agreed to help out as well. Our first time to play will be this coming Saturday at 5:00pm. Should be fun.
Next bigger project is a short benefit tour in Farmington, NM. A local church there, the Lighthouse Church, was burned down by vandals and I've agreed to help raise money to get them started on rebuilding. I'll be accompanied by the More Faith Band, led by my new friend, Greg Schiller, and joined by my cousin, Allen Eaker.
Of course there are many other music projects I'm working on, but will blog about that soon. I hope you can come to some of these shows. If you'd like to donate to the Lighthouse Church rebuilding effort - contact me and we can coordinate that. :)
Oct 2, 2011 WoW! Gotta try to blog a bit more often!! I just got back from a wonderful Walk to Emmaus Retreat. I had a great time bonding with my team and watching the ladies attending the retreat build friendships and deepen their faith in Christ. Awesome! :)
May 15, 2010
5-13-2010 Thursday was our first show at Kirchentag at the Munich version of an exhibit center. We actually had a decent time slot and location to play, but unfortunately it was raining and cold. No one wanted to stay outside. We did manage to draw a small crowd who were enjoying the show and participating, which was nice. Just before we started to play my mom’s friends from Kisselbach showed up. Rosie & Wolfgang Geiss live in the Hunsruek area of Germany where Mom spent her summers as a girl and babysat Wolfgang and his younger brother. Rosie and Wolfgang have a daughter, Manuela, who lives in Munich and the three came to see the show. So fun! I spent the day with them and they came with me to see the Gospel Rainbow Voices show later in the afternoon.
The last few days have been really busy and time on the computer and internet has been hard to make. We traveled to Weissenburg for our show at St Andreas Saturday night. (May 8th) It was a pretty small turn out, only about 26 people. Publicity was apparently pretty slim. Still, the people who did come seemed to have a good time. They were a little slow to warm up to us, but we were able to win them over. By the time we finished, they gave a standing ovation, and we did 2 encores. We sold about 7 CDs, so a pretty good percentage of households bought CDs.
The church paid for our dinner and for our hotel, which was nice. We made plans for the morning’s worship service in Roettenbach at the Catholic church, St. Mauritus (May 9th). That church’s building was a more modern building, but was really cold inside. The service was officiated by a very young chaplin by the name of Christian Klein. There were about 175 people in attendance. They were pretty stoic during the service itself, but we did “Matter of Faith” for a postlude and they began to clap along. The next thing I know – they’re calling out for an encore! at a church service! Amazing!
We had lunch at a restaurant in a nearby restaurant with Joachim & Christiane’s friend Gabi Pirner. The whole time we’ve been in Germany – the menus have had daily specials of fresh asparagus. Apparently it’s the time of year for tons of asparagus and this restaurant had an “all you can eat” asparagus buffet! Unfortunately, I don’t care for asparagus, so I have been missing the real fun of the season… hahahaha!
Sunday May 9th in the evening, we played at St Nikolaus, another Catholic church, this time in Spaelt. This time there were about 125 people in attendance. Again they were slow to warm up, but again we ended with an upbeat song, “Sing & Dance” and they clapped along and again we were cheered on for an encore! We did “Love Our God, Love One Another” and they had no problem calling back the response. So fun!
Monday, May 10th we relaxed a bit. Harda von Pose, the President of the Kinderschutzbund invited us to her house, a 400 year old cottage, for a nice tea party style brunch. She let us know that the donations taken in by the baskets were 2500 Euros. With my CD sales contribution of 552 Euros, we helped raise a total of 3052 Euros for the charity. Harda told us she plans to start a new program to train parents communication and problem solving in a group setting. She made gifts to me of a book she wrote and to the Martins of a book about Miesbach. Later in the afternoon we went to Schliersee, a small town nearby and walked by the lake.
Today – May 11th, Joachim and Christiane worked, Dani and I slept in, the Martins spent the day with Marla’s friend Mary, Chris and Kristina went to Neuschwanstein Castle. Later in the day, Dani and I hiked in the nearby woods and walked around the nearby shops.
Tomorrow the plan is for me to meet Heike in Munich. I’m taking the train into town and going to goof around in the Altstadt. We’ll go to opening night together and come back here later.
More news to come! J
5-8-2010
Wow! Yesterday was such a fun day! In the morning, Christiane, Andy, Marla and I went to see the small town of Bad Toelz, about 20 minutes from Hausham. It has a really nice Old Town Center with dozens of small shops, very much like the 16th Street Mall in Denver, but old style German/Bavarian. We each had fun going into shops, and buying gifts for friends back home. One shop keeper (an elderly gentleman) took a fancy to me and proposed! So cute!
We met Marla’s friend Mary Laqua at a nice restaurant in Bad Toelz for lunch. Andy and Dani tried some of the local food – White Sausage with sweet mustard and some Kaese Spaetzle (German Mac & Cheese). Apple Strudel for desert…Yum!!
In the evening we had our Kinderschutzbund Benefit Concert with the Rainbow Gospel Choir. There was no part of the evening that wasn’t SUPER FUN!!! The choir was so sweet and supportive and did a great job singing their songs and mine. I have to say - it’s really so amazing to hear my songs being sung by a choir. We had a really large group attend the show – 350 people came. The audience was also very warm and accepting. They clapped along, and had no problem with the “call back” for “Love Our God, Love One Another”. So fun!! We pulled off a standing ovation and gave 2 encores with the choir. We sold out of the “Matter of Faith” CDs we had brought with us and over 100 CDs total. After all was said and done – the band raised over 550 Euros for the Kinderschutzbund charity.
After the show, the band joined a large group of the choir members for drinks at the restaurant/bar next door to the venue. What a great group! Dani kept ordering me Jaegermeister shots, so I was pretty goofy by the end of the evening, but managed not to fall down or do anything really embarrassing. J Luckily – I was fine this morning!
We’re headed to Weissenburg to do our show at St Andrew’s this evening. More fun to be had!!
5-5-2010
We’ve had very busy and exhausting days the last few days. We practiced all day Sunday with a break for lunch in Miesbach. We were joined by Tony Johlige, from the Rainbow Gospel Choir, who will be playing saxophone for us. He’s super talented and will add a lot to the show.
Monday we had 4 more rehearsals: once in the studio room that Joachim procured for us in Miesbach with the full band, and after lunch the female vocals got worked through so Chrisiane could be up to speed with the rest of the group. Early evening I worked again with Tony so he felt solid on his sax solos. At 8pm we were joined by the Rainbow Gospel Choir to work on the songs we will be playing for them and they sang their parts for the 2 songs of mine they are joining us for. Wow! It’s really so cool to hear my music being sung by so many voices – Awesome!
Tuesday, we rehearsed again in the morning at the studio, and decided to take the rest of the day off to chill out and go shopping. The group all went to Rosenheim, a small town nearby with a cute downtown shopping center. I took a cute picture, but managed to forget to bring the cable to transfer it to my laptop. So I’ll have to see about getting it posted on this blog and on Facebook.
Tonight is our first show in Holzkirchen, for a small youth group. The weather is looking pretty damp so we may have to play indoors which will be a drag, but still – a fun night will still be had!!
5-1-2010
Got to Munich and Hausham today with Chris, Dani and Kristina. Andy & Marla also made it safely.
Had excellent breakfast burritos in Denver at the airport. No trouble on the flight to Toronto or from Toronto to Munich. Kristina was on a separate flight; her big suitcase got lost. Hope it makes it tomorrow.
Chris, Dani and I had fun at the Toronto airport. I interviewed a Moose Mounty. (I hope to figure out how to post this interview on YouTube and FaceBook. ) We played Phase 10 and Chris was whooped by Dani and me. The beer and Amaretto Sour were good, too.
Joachim picked us up at the airport. We had a nice lunch in Hausham, then to Joachim & Christiane’s new house. Very nice. We are all set up for a great time here in Germany! J
We checked out the apartments that J&C rented for us - they look great. J got us a great rehearsal room. Glass room with a fountain view. Pretty hard sound due to reverb but who cares!? We’re jamming in Germany. Practice went smoothly – duh! J
We met Andy and Marla at the rented apartment where we had a glass of wine and prayed and gave out the James Avery necklaces and Joachim’s appreciation engraved plaque. I hope he likes it.
Also had a delicious and fattening dinner at a local place. Peter the owner/server opened for us – even though he is normally closed on Saturday. Hope I still fit into my clothes by the end of next week. I did manage to get drunk at dinner, and I’m pretty sure we embarrassed J&C at the restaurant, but who cares! We’re in Germany.
Off to bed for some much needed sleep. Practice starts at 10:30. J
I’m happy, excited and tired….
4-24-10
LESS THAN ONE WEEK!! That’s how long before we leave for Germany. I’m a bit behind in my blogging this week, but I have been staying busy. Monday’s rehearsal at the church was really good. Everybody in the group is ready except for me. I still need to work on my German dialog (how many times have I written that?) and I need to be able to play guitar correctly even when I am walking around. When I watched the video of the rehearsal – “Folks Like That” was hilarious. I need to figure out how to cut that out of the whole and post it on You Tube. I figure out how to do this I will let everyone know.
Another great thing that happened this week was the “Songs For Relief” show that my friend Jamie Wolf put together. We had 6 singer/songwriters do a concert to benefit Habitat for Humanity who in turn were helping earthquake victims in Haiti and Chile. Marla helped “roady”, run the merchandise tables, and I even put her to work singing backup. Habitat offered to match whatever we raised and with the match we raised over $1100!! I made some cool new friends and had a blast!
Keep me and my band in your prayers as we travel; that we help people connect to God and that we are able to build some international friendships! J
4-16-2010
It’s a beautiful day in Colorado! I thought about going for a round of golf, but opted for a 30 minute walk with Adam. Really nice! We’re all getting close to finishing our “to do” list before we leave for Germany. I still have some work to do on my dialog and guitar playing. We videoed our rehearsal on Monday and I still have the last 30 minutes to look over. So far, we seem to be on the right track. The band thinks my German version of the “Folks Like That” story is hilarious and can’t seem to stop laughing as I try to tell it. Their favorite line is when I say, “Ihr Mutti muss so stolz sein!” because they think I sound exactly like my mom. J
One of the shows we’re doing is for a children’s charity called Kinderschutzbund. They made a great promotional poster to advertise the show. Here it is:
4-8-2010
What a great week it’s been! Hope everybody had a wonderful Easter. Dani and I went to Craig Hospital and sang at a worship service on their surgical floor. Afterwards we came home and got ready for Easter lunch. We had 13 people over including the grandsons. Patrick had a great time finding “anodder egg”. He wasn’t shy about eating jellybeans from the grass either! Hahaha! I plan to put up some pics on FaceBook later today.
We continue to get ready for the Germany tour. There are only 2 rehearsals left. I still have some memorizing to do and need to be more familiar with where and when I’m supposed to move on stage.
Tuesday, I got a cool gift in the mail – my friend, Steve Doan, sent me some drafts for “Anne Rowland” stickers. They look really cool! One has a “Matter of Faith” design and the other a “Bread and Wine” design. Of course, now I have the big head since I have stickers with my own name on my guitar case!
3-30-2010
This last week has been another great week. I skied a couple of times in great weather; Dani came with me the second time. Keystone got good snow the day before she and I went and so we had a terrific day. I even skied a few moguls (big bumps in the snow) but I always look so ridiculous when I try it. It is great exercise though!
On the music front, I’ve been working on memorizing the last of my dialog after getting some pronunciation tips from my mom. Still a bit more work to do on my end, but I’m getting close and still have a month. Yes a MONTH from today we’ll be leaving for Germany.
Andy charted the last song we have to learn for the choir, “Jesus Be A Fence”. We’ll be working on that later tonight at practice. We’re in the final countdown of practices and will soon be headed to practice at Hope for our blocked run thru’s.
As you know, “Bread & Wine” Second Edition arrived last week and I’ve been mailing copies to some of my most loyal fans (mommy) and others. I’ve already distributed close to 30 copies. Nice! I’m also close to getting my IndieHeaven site up and running and hope to be able to have songs available for download purchase very soon from several sites. I’ll be keeping everybody posted. J 3-22-10 Hi All! I’m hoping to do a better job of blogging about my music activities, especially since the Kirchentag tour is coming up. It won’t always be such al long blog… On Sunday, my group and I played at Lakewood United Church of Christ. We always have a great time there. This Sunday I played a song I had written especially for the UCC denomination based on their “God Is Still Speaking” campaign and was asked to write a bit about it for their monthly newsletter. I thought I’d share that letter with you all – Enjoy! Hi Tabby! It was so great to be at LUCC on Sunday. My group and I love your church; we really feel like part of the family when we play for you. :) As for my song, "God Is Still Speaking", I wrote it almost 4 years ago. I knew about the UCC "God Is Still Speaking" campaign and wanted to write something to support that, since I had already been playing at LUCC for several years. I'm sure God is always speaking to us if we are able to quiet ourselves and listen. For this song, I wanted to focus on the Great Commandments Jesus gave us: to love God and to love one another. At the time I was working on this song, I was visiting my sister in Michigan. I went to the grocery store to get a card and some flowers, and there I saw some charity workers collecting coins in a can. I have no idea what cause they were supporting, and am ashamed to say - I did exactly what I described in my song. "I ducked my head and walked on by; who has time to help the world be what it ought to be?" I'm sure many of us do this, but as Christians, we are called to do more. I'm often asked how I write songs. Most of the time I would say I observe life - and make it rhyme. If I'm lucky, I can strike a chord, no pun intended, (well maybe a little) with others in ways that people relate to. It's always my hope that the music I bring to LUCC will lift spirits, make people think, and on a really good day - I can help the congregation experience worship in a way that helps them feel God's presence. I know I'm not always successful in that - but I'm tryin'! :) In other news, I had a great day today. I had a meeting this morning with a musical friend, John Polinksi, Choir Director at Green Mountain United Methodist Church. He is writing some piano arrangements for several of my songs and creating the sheet music. I don't read music, so this is a real help to me. As we were working, the door bell rang and UPS delivered my newly re-released "Bread & Wine" CD! I'm so excited to get it. I have been working on the improvements to the original CD since mid 2009. I sold out of the original several years ago and have had quite a few requests for more copies. If it's possible to announce or publish in the Beacon, that I'll have copies available for sale when I come to LUCC on April 18th - that would be wonderful. The cost is $10/CD. AND - as you know, my group is getting ready for our German Tour. Andy and Marla, my son, Chris and his wife, Kristina, along with my daughter, Dani, are all leaving with me on April 30th to head to Munich, Germany for a 2 week music tour. We'll be playing at least 8 shows including a benefit concert for the children's charity called Kinderschutzbund. We finish the tour at the huge Christian festival, Kirchentag, May 12 through 16th. We'll be playing several shows there. The program for the event is over 700 pages long. It appears that we are the only American group invited to perform! We have been rehearsing a lot to get ready and I have been memorizing the German dialog I'll need to introduce my songs to a German audience. I'll still sing in English, but hope if I communicate the theme of the song in German - it may help me connect a bit better. I do speak some German, but my mom tells me it's pretty awful! hahahaha! Hopefully the practice will help! Thanks for your interest in my song and also for the love and support you and Ruben have always shown me and my group when we worship with you. We appreciate it so much! Blessings, Anne :)
12-28-2009 What a nice Christmas at home with Chris, Dani, Kristina, Adam, Patrick and Gabriel. We celebrated at my house Christmas Eve and again Christmas Day for dinner. I've been working hard in the studio the last few weeks, still trying to get "Bread & Wine" ready for re-release, but it's slow going. Still, I get a little closer each time. I will keep you posted when it goes to replication.
12-11-2009 I'm finally caught up with my work since I got back from my trips. Thanksgiving in Dallas was great! I enjoyed my nephews and cousins kids as well as my good friends, Michelle, Joe & Steve. I still have so much work to do in the studio to get both CDs ready for re-release! :)
10-23-09 I'm still having a great time in Germany! This week I visited my cousins, Carine, Marcus & Lou along with my Uncle Max. I received the royal treatment in Hanover. In fact - Uncle Max named me the Queen of Colorado. Nice! (Later my cousin Heike gave me a crown which you can check out on Facebook.. ) I enjoyed seeing Marcus & Carine's office and had no trouble sleeping in the 500 year old castle where Marcus & Carine live. The ghosts were very quiet and accomodating... :) Lou and I gave a concert on Tues night with fabulous oldies that everyone could sing to. (Lou is almost 2 yrs old and strummed guitar for me. - so cute!!)
Now I'm in Duesseldorf with Heike & Ute. Yesterday Alina (Ute's daughter), Heike and I went shopping, and visited Holger's shop - very nice. Later we were served a super dinner at Ute's house. (I'm telling ya - these people can cook... I will need some serious Weight Watcher re-hab when I get home...) :) Earlier today, Ute and I found the DVD "Enchanted" in German. (Heike loves this show and insisted we watch it together tomorrow at Christa's...) hahahaha! Ute and I also had a nice visit over coffee together. Excellent "girlie-time".
WE ARE DEFINITELY PLAYING AT KIRCHENTAG IN MAY 2010!!! WHOO-HOOOOO!!!
I am really stoked about this!! Thanks so much to Joachim for getting this set up, and to everyone who helped pray and support me and my music!!! I'll keep everyone posted as more details come in!! :)
10- 11-09 Today is my first day in Germany with access to my laptop with internet. I am really enjoying my visit with the Kuhnke's in Schaftlach, near Munich. We are working on goals for planning our music tour here next May. Not surprisingly, Joachim has a major spreadsheet going with everybody's part laid out for each song, plus any special notes and links to the song charts and song mp3s! He even has a graph of the concert line up with the songs rated from 1-5 to see if we are matching up to Tom Jacksons recommended show line up. (he's so cute! It's kinda scary how organized he is! hahahaha!)
8-23-09 This morning I had a great time playing both services at my home church, Hope United Methodist in Greenwood Village. It's always great to see friends and catch up a bit, though there never seems to be enough time to visit in between services. Our guest singer Shannon Sanders did a nice job on background vocals and Marla sounded great on her solo "Mighty to Save". I never feel like we do a perfect job, but overall - nice work. As long as I can see that we are reaching a few people and helping them get to a feeling of worship, I'm happy.
Recently I've been thankful for the support of fans/friends who let me know that my music is good for them. That was a huge balm to my wounded pride while Dani and I were in Nashville. Today I had similar encouragement at Hope from some familiar faces, but some not so familiar ones as well. It's always nice to hear that people really liked the song I wrote ("God is Still Speaking" for today), but I have to admit - the highlight of fun for me was watching the youth group in the front row wave their hands and sway to the music on "To Know You". They were having a little too much fun - which I loved! hahahaha!
8-12-09 After another amazing day where I got news of being awarded more free things than I deserve - I felt the need to pray!
Dear God,
Thank you for this beautiful day, for lunch with my friend, for sunshine out my window.Thank you for the blessings you’ve sent me out of no where… For the equipment, for the chance to work with Shawn, for the CD replication and for the graphic design work…
Please help me hear the songs you want me to sing; please help me sing the songs you want people to hear.
Forgive me when I think I’m better than others. Nothing I’ve ever done has made me worthy of your love, but I’m so grateful you love me anyway.
Please help me be faithful to the 20% you’ve asked me to do. I know you have been taking care of the 80% and more.
I’m so grateful for it all. Thanks. Amen
8-1-09 Today is the last day of the GMA Immerse Conference. It was a good trip. What a thrill to have "Bread & Wine" get noticed as a semi-finalist in the song writing contest, but alas, it didn't make the finals.... I'm still happy it got as far as it did. I learned a lot from the classes I took and realize, I still have so much to learn and do to be ready for the tour in Germany next year.
I have to say I did get frustrated today... I had "Cold Harsh Light" critiqued by a pro this afternoon. He was underwhelmed; didn't like the lull in the verse after the second line, and recommended I "get a real vocalist" to do my demo. Ouch! He was one of the same judges for my duet with Dani and also for my solo audition.... Ooof! I felt I never had a chance when I saw him at the table. :(
I got the feeling overall from the pros here that the music business is really hurting and it's nearly impossible for any new artists to get record deals so we shouldn't really expect to get noticed. Why should we come to this conference then?
The final concert was nice to watch and the winners were really talented and deserved to win. I really enjoyed the trio "Noelle" and the male duet that won that division. The solo vocalists were really talented also. Watching the band that won really showed me how important it is to MOVE on the stage and involve the audience. They want to participate. I will be focusing on this more when I get home. Look out everyone!!
7-31-09 Here I am in Nashville Tenessee at the Gospel Music Association "Immerse" Conference having a ball with Dani. We got in on Wed the 29th, hopped into a taxi, drove straight to Belmont University, dropped our luggage off at the registration desk and were escorted straight to our duet audtion! No warm up - just hello - GO! I thought Dani and I did fine, but we didn't make the semi finals as a duet. I did learn that my song "Bread & Wine" did make the semi-finals for the ABS Scripture Song Semi-Pro division. This was fantastic news for me because over 100 songs were submitted in this category, but only 8 songs made it this far. NICE!
Thurs July 30th Dani and I each had our Solo Artist auditions. I felt that I was one of the better performers in my group, but there are sooooo many talented people here!! Neither Dani nor I made the 1st cut, but we had fun trying.
We are meeting pros in the business from all over. I went on a field trip to BMI to watch staff writers work on a new song for a soon to be introduced solo artist. Such talent! Today, Dani is on a field trip to Music Row to learn about :"The Making of an Artist".
We've learned so much but I would sum up with these thoughts so far:
I need to think about what I want my message to be and how I want to present that message.
No matter how talented I may feel I am, my gifts are meaningless if I don't stay focused on fulfilling God's purose for me. I also must remember that I can't control everything or "make things happen" without the help of God - nor should I try to. All I need to focus on is accomplishing the tasks He does give me and be faithful to that.
More to come! :)
6-14-09 Back in the Studio! For all my friends who've been "encouraging" me to get to work on the re-release of the Bread & Wine CD - I worked on the title song today! I always think I'm a decent guitar player until I start to record. I did get a good guitar track done; the original guitar track's sound was not as good as I wanted, so it was important to me to redo it. Dani's original vocal is still adorable and will remain. Andy Martin put down a much superior bass line to the original as well. Now for my vocal... I'll keep you posted on my progress. I plan to enter "Bread & Wine" in the song writing contest at GMA's Immerse in July. Wish me luck!!
On a side note - my son Chris has a new baby as of Jun 12th - Gabriel Rhys Rowland! Beautiful! :)
5-31-09 So good to be at my Home Church!
This morning I had a great time playing both services at my home church - Hope United Methodist in Greenwood Village. Always good to see familiar faces and I also noticed a lot of young new members as well. We even were visited by my friend Sherri from St James Pres. (Thanks!) Music Director from Hope, Robert Larson, joined the crew along with Jon Pope, Shannon Sanders, Andy & Marla Martin and Mark Kunz. We had lots of good remarks on our harmony (nice!) and even had one dancer in the back row. Thanks little Katherine! That made my day!
5-25-09 Great Show at St Mark's in Dallas!
Wow! I really need to write more often! I got back last week from a really fun show in Dallas last week at St Mark's Presbyterian church. The crowd was friendly adn the back up band was so great to work with - Rick Brooks, formerly with the Gatlin Brothers, Gerald Jones, Leigh Taylor and Joe Sanchez. Dani was able to come and joined in on backup vocals. I did get a video of the show and hope to have it posted soon!
9-20-08 Party With Friends
Tonight I was invited to jam with many of my favorite band mates to celebrate the 50th birthday of a good friend - Jon Pope. Great party - Great time! Party on Jon!
9-7-08 Fall Homecoming at 1st Pres Aurora
This morning I had a great time worshipping and picnicing with 1st Pres of Aurora. What a welcoming group! Thanks Pator Joe for having me and Steve, Barbara, Sherry, Walt & Lynn for letting me join your praise team! Thanks also to Sean & Mike for setting up sound! :)
9-3-2008 Anne Goes Back to School!
Hi everybody! Today I visited my good friend Marla Martin in her music classroom at Belleview Elementary school. She had asked me to come give a talk on songwriting. I had a great time with the kids who asked good questions and had some wonderful comments!
