The work

I’m somewhere in between Juneteenth and Independence Day. I feel fiercely American. I feel fiercely Black. Balancing various aspects of my identity is challenging. While I’m finally proud of who I am and where I come from, I am still learning to live authentically and humbly in community with other Americans who are both the same and different from me. In other words, I’m still trying to “do the work.” I inhabit creative spheres where ADEIB and social justice are at the forefront of our consciouness – where we often talk about “doing the work,” which means…well what does it mean??

I asked Perplexity, a conversational search engine, to define “doing the work.” Here’s what it said:

“The phrase “doing the work” is often used in personal development, professional growth, and social justice contexts. It generally refers to the process of putting in effort, time, and energy to achieve a goal, improve oneself, or address important issues…The key aspect of ‘doing the work’ is that it often involves challenging oneself, facing uncomfortable truths, and making consistent efforts over time. It’s about taking active steps towards growth and improvement rather than passively hoping for change. This phrase emphasizes the importance of personal responsibility and commitment in achieving meaningful progress in various aspects of life.”

Welp…there you have it.

Soundcloud Song of the Month

Veni Sancte Spiritus

by Zanaida Stewart Robles

I guess you could call it my best seller!
Listen to Veni Sancte Spiritus by on #SoundCloud

Listen on Soundcloud

Composition

My piece “Once I filled My Hand With Mist” in the Out From the Shadows Series with Gentry Publications, edited by Marques L. A. Garrett and James Green, is here!

Check out the video below, or…

Get info and order here

Conducting

🎶 Join the ZSR Choir Intensive! 🎶

Are you a singer aged 15+? Take part in an intergenerational summer choir experience that will:
✨ Sharpen your choral skills
✨ Serve your community
✨ Rediscover your love for choral music
✨ Engage spiritually and culturally through music

FEATURING: Musical Selections from “Songs of Ascent” by Shawn Kirchner

Program Fee: $100 (Suggested Donation)
Proceeds benefit Neighborhood Church Music Programs

📅 Dates:

Aug 5, 6, 7, & 8: 7:15 – 9:15 PM Piano Rehearsals
Aug 10: 10 AM – 12:30 PM Dress Rehearsal
Aug 11: 9 AM CALL, 10 AM Church Service
📍 Performance Location:
Neighborhood UU Church
301 N. Orange Grove Blvd.
Pasadena, CA 91103

🎤 Limited to 50 singers! 🎤

🗓️ REGISTRATION DEADLINE: July 22, 2024

Register now and be part of something special! 🌟

Sign up here

For Fun

Memories from The Lion King in Concert at the Hollywood Bowl – still unpacking this transformative experience.
Favorite Summer Cocktail: Spicy Mango Whiskey Sour
Felicity, singing and SLAYING IT with the Zaire King Band at the Laguna Beach Music Festival
Check them out on Spotify
Summer trampoline workout thwarted by cats

Welcome to summer!

June 25, 2024 Zanaida 0

May 25 — Today is my birthday!

Singing

I’m honored to be singing in the 30th anniversary performance of The Lion King at the Hollywood Bowl today.

Disney’s The Lion King 30th Anniversary:  A Live-to-Film Concert Event

Billy Eichner
Bradley Gibson
Ernie Sabella
Heather Headley
Jason Weaver
Jeremy Irons
Lebo M.
Nathan Lane
Special Guest Jennifer Hudson & North West

SAT, MAY 25, 8:00PM

Special House Rules Apply

Check tickets and learn more

Conducting

Thursday, June 13
7:30pm at Neighborhood Church
Neighborhood Church Spring Choir Concert

Suggested donation $25 to support the NUUC music program

Congratulations, Felicity!

A glorious prom dress, a dynamite senior recital, now all that’s left is Felicity’s graduation from California School of the Arts San Gabriel Valley on Friday May 31. She’ll be attending CSULB for vocal performance this fall, and we’re so proud of her!

Soundcloud Song of the Month

Gloria

by Zanaida Stewart Robles

In honor of my birthday, here’s the joyous “Gloria” from my Mass in E minor.

Listen to this recording by the Southern Tier Singers conducted by William Culverhouse

Listen on Soundcloud

For Fun

May 25, 2024 Zanaida 0

Coming home

What an extraordinary gift it was to conduct and record my music with the CSULB Bob Cole Chamber Choir this April.

They sang their faces off!

I couldn’t be more proud of my alma mater nor more grateful for Dr. Jonathan Talberg, my teacher, mentor, and lifelong friend.

Composition

Composer’s bliss

This is me in ecstasy, standing up to congratulate the Los Angeles Master Chorale after they world premiered my Song of Significance.  This work and this program were very personal to me, and I’m so privileged to be commissioned for this work and included on a concert with J.S. Bach and the terribly neglected Margaret Bonds.  It was all curated by artistic director Grant Gershon and pianist/radio host/champion for Black composers Lara Downes, and the whole concert was very inspiring.  The San Francisco Classical Voice seems to agree, with many good things to say about the program with a focus on the Bonds works, and a nice shout-out to Song of Significance for “masterful choral orchestration, romantic and lush“.  (I’ll take it!)

Read the full review

Conducting

Coming this weekend

The Harvard-Westlake choirs have returned from England wreathed in glory, and they’ll wrap up that victory with their annual spring concert this Saturday at the campus’ Rugby Auditorium.  I’ll be conducting my composition, “Can You See”, plus music from the musical “The Secret Garden”, and lots more.  Admission is free!

Singing

Soundcloud Song of the Month

From the Stone Age

Written and performed by Zanaida Stewart Robles


I had a chance to sit down at home this month and record a demo of my piece “From the Stone Age” for SSAA choir, piano, cello, and flute. Text is by Alice Corbin Henderson (pictured). More about Alice below.

Poet Alice Corbin Henderson (1881-1949) was known for her activism related to Indigenous rights and environmental conservation. This 8-minute musical setting of Henderson’s poetry tells the story of a stone once carved in the semblance of a god. Over time, its surfaces are smoothed by the elements to reveal a beautiful resilience. Gradually, it becomes more beautiful and less rigid until its original form is unrecognizable and irrelevant. With a soaring soprano solo and moderately challenging harmonies and counterpoint, this work for treble choir, piano, cello, and flute offers singers a chance to explore time, the cosmos, and transformation through the embodiment of a stone.

Listen and view the perusal score

For Fun

Performing at Gloucester Cathedral in England with the Harvard-Westlake choirs

Ollivander in glory
Ollie and Archie with a new favorite box
Ollie’s tooth 
“What?”

Happy spring, everyone!

This post was originally released as one of Zanaida’s monthly newsletters, April 25 2024

April 25, 2024 Zanaida 0

Do-over!

I wrote a reflection a couple weeks ago for the ACDA Western Region Conference session on worship in music. Sadly, ten minutes before I was supposed to offer this reflection, I dropped and broke the phone I was using. When it came time for me to speak, I just invited the audience into a moment of silent reflection on unity through choral music. Everything worked out fine, and my phone has since been replaced. But here’s some of what I would have said to the audience had my phone not been broken:
 

“20th century Black American operatic bass and civil rights activist Paul Robeson once said: 

‘I shall take my voice wherever there are those who want to hear the melody of freedom or the words that might inspire hope and courage in the face of despair and fear. My weapons are peaceful, for it is only by peace that peace can be attained. The song of freedom must prevail.’

Songs of freedom and joy, songs of hope and courage, songs of wisdom, songs of rage, love, loss, and sacrifice – these are songs we all sing. Singing by oneself – whether in the shower or as a soloist in a studio or on a stage – can be healthy and powerful. But singing in a choral ensemble takes a special kind of vulnerability, courage, and selflessness. That’s why choral music is so powerful; our choral work together is sacred. Whether in houses of worship, in classrooms, on concert stages, in studios, in train stations, on street corners, or in parking garages, we amplify our power to inspire positive change when we sing music TOGETHER, thereby bringing meaning to our lives, and fostering the unity we long for.”

Conducting

UK, here we come…

The Harvard-Westlake Choirs embark on an 8-day performance and heritage tour of England! With stops in London, Cambridge, Gloucester, and Bath, this spring break trip is sure to be memorable! Here’s a link to our Brandenburg Festival concert:

Brandenburg’s concert announcement

Composition

World premiere coming in April

Just 12 days until the world premiere of my piece “The Song of Significance” at Walt Disney Concert Hall, performed by the Grammy Award-winning Los Angeles Master Chorale. 

I Believe:
The music of Bach, Bonds and Robles

Grant Gershon, conductor
Lara Downes, piano
Chloé Vaught, soprano
Jamal Moore, bass

Get tickets and full details

Singing

Easter is almost here!

Arvis Strickling-Jones, entrepreneur

Easter Sunday, March 31, is Gospel Sunday at Neighborhood UU Church in Pasadena, CA. Come hear my solo on “Gonna Have a Good Time” by Arvis Strickling-Jones! 

Directions to the church

Soundcloud Song of the Month

By The Waters of Babylon

by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor

sung by the California Coleridge-Taylor Singers
Dr. Zanaida Stewart Robles, conductor
James Walker, organist

This haunting response to Psalm 137 is described by one music blog in evocative terms:  “Coleridge-Taylor’s writing for choir is superb; he excels at creating rich, thick textures and also thinner textures that don’t sound weak or unsupported. The general tone of this work is yearning, which is just what the Psalm is about — the yearning of the Jewish people while they were in Babylonian exile, yearning for Jerusalem. It’s a beautiful, poignant work.”

Listen on Soundcloud

For Fun

A sweet parent gave me flowers after our lunchtime choir tour preview concert at Harvard-Westlake! 🥹
Can’t wait to go to England!

Here are some escalator selfies at Walt Disney Concert Hall just before my promotional interview with Artistic Director Grant Gershon. The world premiere is coming up on April 6 & 7!

Archie… being Archie

Happy spring, everyone!

View the original March 2024 newsletter here

March 25, 2024 Zanaida 0

So much to share this month!

Let’s dive right in…

Composition

World premiere coming in April

Just 42 days until the world premiere of my piece “The Song of Significance” at Walt Disney Concert Hall, performed by the Grammy Award Winning Los Angeles Master Chorale.

I Believe:
The music of Bach, Bonds and Robles

Grant Gershon, conductor
Lara Downes, piano
Chloé Vaught, soprano
Jamal Moore, bass

Get tickets and full details

Two competitions to share

George Heussenstamm

CCDA/Heussenstamm Composition Contest

The CCDA/George Heussenstamm Choral Composition Contest at ECCO now moves into its eighth year! 

Here’s the link to the entry form

HerVoice Composition Contest

Chicago a cappella seeks submissions for HerVoice, a competition and mentorship program for women composers. A partnership with the Vancouver Youth Choir, this opportunity is open to composers of all ages who self-identify as female, from anywhere in the world. It is intended to promote the work of promising composers and provide hands-on training to further their skills in choral composition. We are seeking composers who are eager to improve their skill at choral composition. Women composers whose career is in its early stages and women composers of color are particularly encouraged to apply.

Read the Facebook story
Get full details here

Singing

I had a blast singing at the Peacock Theatre in Downtown LA for “NieR in concert.” 

Read about this unusual project

Soundcloud Song of the Month

Guidelines

A cantata in 3 movements for SATB Choir, treble choir, harp, flute, strings, and percussion. Celebrating the life and wisdom of Dominican American poet Rhina P. Espaillat

I. Cycles
II. Para Mi Trataranieto el Pionario
III. Guidelines

Here’s a new demo I recorded of my cantata, Guidelines. Making demos like these is fun and helpful for my compositional process.

Listen to Guidelines by Zanaida Stewart Robles on #SoundCloud

For Fun

The Installation of Rev. Dr. Omega Burckhardt at Neighborhood UU Church in Pasadena was a blast! Four (4) musical Hallelujahs by Cohen, Thompson, Beethoven, and Handel were all performed for the occasion. What a celebration!

Ollie and Archie in love

See you next month!

February 25, 2024 Zanaida 0