Media
TEDx Swigger TEDx talktalk
This is my TEDx presentation from November of 2014, about How I Memorize Piano Music. All the musical examples are from the Chopin etudes.
In December of 2012 I was practicing Chopin etudes and thinking of the holidays, and this was the result: the Opus 10 etudes as Christmas Carols.
For a few years I played accordion and sang, and even played bass once in a while, in an indie rock band called the Gettysburg Pirate Orchestra.
In 2010 we made an album: Simon von Utrecht Presents the Gettysburg Pirate Orchestra.
I wrote the songs "Okay" and "You're Right."
The last song the GPO ever recorded was "Bird Song." The band donated a commission to an auction benefit for Nicaragua, and my friend Rebecca had the highest bid. She wanted a song for a gift to her friend Nana Jeannie, then 95. It was an honor to write the song for her: Nana Jeannie was the kind of old woman I dream of becoming, and I was thrilled to find out that she requested the song as part of her 99th birthday celebration.
I've complained for a long time about people singing the Alma Mater too slow at my college. I recorded this video to show the tempo--in a nice, brisk one--I prefer, and also to highlight my beginning ukulele skills.
Several years ago my young friend Zach made this short film about Harry Houdini for a third grade biography assignment. I was visiting his house at the time, so I did the soundtrack.
Enough Is Enough I wrote this song for the March For Our Lives, with words from the student walkout in March 2018. All are welcome to sing it, and to make up additional verses and harmonies.
I played and talked about Pauline Viardot’s Mazourke in the May 12th, 2020 episode of the streaming show All Together Now from Broadband Collab.