"The Sweet Bell That Tolls" released

Here's a master track of "The Sweet Bell That Tolls". After Ron's quarrel with Denise he heads down to Frank's Tavern to perform at the weekly open mic contest. He really lights the place up and the crowd goes wild! It's sung by Joseph d. Castro with backup vocals from Jody Haught.

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I'm going to the moon!

NASA's Artemis I will be the first uncrewed flight test of the Space Launch System rocket and the Orion spacecraft. The flight paves the way toward landing the first woman and the first person of color on the Moon! Here's your opportunity to join me on this historical flight. Just follow the link below to get your boarding pass and add your name on a flash drive that will fly aboard Artemis.

https://www.nasa.gov/send-your-name-with-artemis/

Mothers Day song release

Here's a link to a song I wrote for my mother. She passed away nearly ten years ago, but I still think about her all the time. She always encouraged me and would often say that "my someday will come". I added "if only in my mind" recently. It seemed only appropriate to distribute it to the streaming music services on Mothers Day. It's sung by Blake Nawa'a and David Traugh provided the orchestration. We finished it up in April 2022.

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Canvas Rebel Interview

Here's a link to a short interview with me and the folks at Canvas Rebel Magazine. My shows are picking up some momentum now that theaters are opening up again, but this article is really more about the inspiration that happens behind the scenes with music theater projects. I'm glad they used material from my early life in Parkersburg, West Virginia.

Canvas Rebel Interview

It's always interesting to see which parts of these interviews the publisher decides to use. I think Canvas Rebel tries to focus on the things that creative people undertake that might be beneficial for others who are dealing with similar issues and/or circumstances; in any case, it's nice that they draw attention to the human moments too.

Playing Scottish Cèilidh music on accordion

Last Saturday was a milestone! I played my first Cèilidh, well sort of. Here's what happened; some local theater friends volunteered to learn how to dance at a Cèilidh while I played the accordion. Back in 2019, after a short visit to the Isle of Eigg, a small island in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland, I decided to incorporate Scottish Cèilidh music into a music theatre show about the island. I worked with several professional accordionists on Skype during the Pandemic. Mike Aman owns Monarch Accordions and we worked on my repertoire and technique. His accordion orchestras are legendary and his daughter is a national accordion champion. Sandy Brechin is in Edinburgh and he's one of Scotland's best known Cèilidh accordionists.

Cèilidh Dance Training

In any case, earlier this year it felt like it was time to come out of the woodwork so I reached out to several local organizations specializing in Scottish dance and one of them connected me with a Scottish couple living in Colorado who were involved with Cèilidh dancing in Scotland. We had a Skype call to discuss the specifics and penciled in a date to get together. Everyone was eager to participate and learn more about the dances and the culture behind them too. Playing the music was the easy part and everything seemed to flow naturally. We played tune sets for a Gay Gordon, a Reel and a Jig and it was so much fun! 🎭

"Live for Today" released

Here's a master track of "Live for Today". During the first therapy session Denise explains to the group that her husband is the one that has driven her to seek consultation and that she can't get the images of him dressed like a woman out of her mind. Mark tries to help with a simple counting exercise and she admits that when she goes online and flirts with other men her problems seem to fade away. It's sung by Sienna Stocky with Mark and Luke Colombo singing the backup vocals.

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Alsup songs on YouTube Music

YouTube has been around for a long time. It started out as a streaming video service and over the years it's been trying to figure out how to best serve musicians and their listeners. I remember creating videos with a single image so I could upload a song to YouTube; eventually, Google Play came along, but it was discontinued in 2020 and customers had to migrate their music to Google Music instead. Today, YouTube Music behaves like most streaming music sites and it's free to use, but you'll have to get a YouTube Premium Membership for ad-free listening and/or download music to listen offline, in the background.

April Alsup songs on YouTube music

Here's the link to the official April Alsup Google music channel. I can't wait to hear from all the Google peeps out there. I'm planning to add more songs each month so please hit the SUBSCRIBE button if you want to stay up-to-date with all my music. Peace! ✌