(gentle music) (wondrous music) - Visit the studio of illustrious illustrator Dahl Taylor.

Chat with Albany Pro Musica conductor Jose Daniel Flores-Caraballo and catch a performance from Albany Pro Musica.

It's all ahead on this episode of "AHA!

A House for Arts."

- [Announcer] Funding for "AHA!"

has been provided by your contribution and by contributions to the WMHT Venture Fund.

Contributors include the Leo Cox Beach Philanthropic Foundation, Chet and Karen Opalka, Robert and Doris Fischer Malesardi, the Alexander and Marjorie Hover Foundation, and the Robison Family Foundation.

- At M&T Bank, we understand that the vitality of our communities is crucial to our continued success.

That's why we take an active role in our community.

M&T Bank is pleased to support WMHT programming that highlights the arts, and we invite you to do the same.

(upbeat music) - Hi, I'm Jade Warrick, and this is "AHA!

A House for Arts," a place for all things creative.

Here's Matt with today's field segment.

(elevator whining) - All right, we're here in Albany, New York, to speak with master illustrator Dahl Taylor, let's go.

(elevator beeps) (whimsical music) Two, three.

Four!

(laughs) (whimsical music) - I've been an illustrator artist for about a million years.

I've had a studio here for I think 30 years.

I told the owner of the building, if he turns it into an assisted living building, I'll never have to leave.

I've done just about everything you can think of, pastels, watercolor, digital work, animation, portraits, murals.

I think if I did the same thing every day I'd go outta my mind.

I can't remember not wanting to draw.

And when I was in school, as soon as I was aware that there was such a thing as an illustrator, I wanted to be one.

I went to the Art Institute of Boston, and then I went to another school and got a commercial art degree and then started working in a small advertising agency here.

From there, I started to leave the agency one day at a time so I can build up a freelance business and then finally went on my own, and that was, like I said, 30-some years ago.

(energetic music) Last like 10, 15 years, I've been doing more packaging artwork, first for Boston Beer, which makes Sam Adams.

Nantucket Nectars was one that I redid all the artwork on their labels, and I've done a lot of packaging thing, which I like because I like to see it on the shelves.

It's kind of rewarding.

It's like when I did editorial and see my work appear in a magazine or a book.

As far as painting projects go, I've done a fair number of coastal and maritime paintings.

I'm interested in manual labor, things that are made by hand, 'cause that's what I do, so lobstermen, boat builders, sailing, all of that is, I find very interesting.

Probably the one I'm most proud of is a suite of paintings I did documenting the construction of the schooner which was a replica of the schooner America, the most famous racing schooner, and that's where the America's Cup started.

So that was built here in the Port of Albany, and I followed the whole construction process.

I'm proud of the paintings because they're some of my strongest paintings, and as a suite of paintings, to me, it's one of the more significant ones.

(upbeat music) I've done some portraits of, you know, notable people, past attorney general for the state of New York that hangs in the capitol.

To me, painting a portrait is the same as painting a landscape or painting an apple.

It's just rendering an image.

Some people get hung up in portraiture and the likeness, and it's just, I treat an apple the same way.

(upbeat music) The Albany Capital Center was probably one of the benchmarks or cornerstones of my career.

There's a 52-foot-long mural and five 15-foot-high panel murals and another one.

They're visually reproduced on a wallpaper that's a hybrid of photographs and textures and drawing.

And it's like a greeting card or a love letter to Albany.

I've had a lot of students come through when they're deciding whether to go to school for it, and it's usually the parents that are petrified.

But I've always said that if you don't end up actually drawing pictures for a living, there's a lot of well-paying jobs big in advertising agencies that people with art degrees are working in and all have a hand in.

They're not drawing stuff that shows up every day, but there's plenty of jobs and careers in art.

(whimsical music) I don't think of myself as an illustrator or a fine artist or a animator or anything.

I think of myself as a picture maker.

Every day that I come to the studio, I look forward to it.

I'm excited at the potential of something different, the challenge.

I can't really retire from something that is my vocation and my avocation.

- Jose Daniel Flores-Caraballo has been the artistic director of Albany Pro Musica since 2014.

He's constantly pushing the boundaries of choral performances in the area and embracing challenging musical programming.

Where did his passion for music come from, and how is he working to connect classical music to younger generations?

I sat down with JD to find out.

Welcome to "AHA!"

today, Jose, how are you?

- Oh, it's great to be here.

Thank you so much.

- Great to have you here.

So I just wanna dive into your background in music, and when did you realize music was a passion of yours and a dream you wanted to follow?

- Ever since I was a kid, a small, a young child, music has been part of my life.

I grew up in a church where my father was a minister, and it had great music, and I ended up playing the organ when I was 10 years old and conducting the adult choir when I was 12.

- Wow.

- And music continue being part of my life as I then later went to study at a conservatory of music in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

It's hard to tell when was that moment, other than perhaps, you know, I like to say that I did not choose music, that I feel sometimes like music chose me at some point, and I didn't even notice that that was happening.

So it was very natural for that to happen.

And before I knew it, I was very involved with doing music in different capacities.

- Can you give us a little bit of detail about your role at Albany Pro Musica and what you're excited about the most this season?

- So I came to conduct Albany Pro Musica here in 2014, and Albany Pro Musica continues to grow.

It has had, before my arrival here, great reputation in the area.

It has continued to grow spectacularly.

We continue, in this case now, we became, since my arrival, we became the choir-in-residence at the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall.

- [Jade] Wow.

- So that magnificent hall with incredible acoustic is now part of the DNA of Albany Pro Musica.

We are very excited about that.

- Amazing.

- When you go to perform in that hall, it feels like magic.

You have the history of the place, all the years of the great performances and performers that have been there, but also the acoustics, which is a great complement to what we do.

Every season brings something special and something that excites me, excites our choir, excites the audience.

The October concert is called "I Dream a World."

It's inspired on that poem "I Dream a World" by Langton Hughes, the great poet.

He was called the poet laureate in Harlem, New York City.

In fact, I'd like to read a little bit of that poem, because- - Go ahead, love to hear it.

- That poem is really the foundation of this concert.

The beginning of the poem starts with, "I dream a world where man no other man will scorn, where love will bless the earth and peace its paths adorn."

So it's a poem about love, about peace, about understanding that we are one humanity.

Something we need right now, right?

- Something that unfortunately continues to be a recurrent theme, right?

So we have a phenomenal baritone coming from Boston, Philip Lima, who is going to join Albany Pro Musica in a concert that touches in the subject of love, justice, and understanding that no matter the color of your skin, we are one people.

In Albany Pro Musica, we have a motto, which is "Music that captures the human spirit."

I would say that this concert is designed to do just that.

- [Jade] That's beautiful.

- Often we hear from people who come to our concerts for the first time, and they say, "Gosh, I had no idea that this quality and this kind of program could be found in our region."

And then they get captivated, and they continue coming.

So I anticipate this concert we're doing just that.

- It's amazing, so you really do make it accessible for folks from all over to really connect with classical music when they probably would've never connected with it in other ways.

- I think so, absolutely.

I believe that people need to, we who are in the performing arts need to find ways to connect people to what we do.

And you're doing different ways in the way you program a concert.

You do it with the kind of repertoire that you program.

And that happens very often in our concerts.

A good example of that is perhaps the concert comes after that, the Christmas concert.

We do that with a full orchestra, the Pro Musica Orchestra.

- [Jade] Wow.

- And we make sure that that concert has some of the greatest repertoire that is associated with Christmas, but also music that is associated with the secular festivities, so people of all path of life will find it appealing.

In March, we have a concert premiering in world by our composer-in-residence, Dr. Bradley Ellingboe.

It's called "Star Song," and it's music that bridges cultures and languages into one multi-movement work.

And it will be fascinating, and the composer will be here, and we expect to produce a professional recording from that.

And then we finish our season with a call for peace where we have the work "Dona Nobis Pacem" by Ralph Vaughn Williams, at the same time, or in the same concert, I should say, with "Missa in Tempore Belli," which means the "Mass in Times of War," by Haydn.

So we have these two composers from two different centuries talking about the same thing which is stop the war, it's better to have peace.

- Wow, so there really is something, a little bit for everyone.

- Oh, absolutely.

- So what about youth work?

So I know you have some youth programs coming up.

Do you wanna briefly describe some of the opportunities you're having for youth coming up who are interested in choral and classical music?

- We have an annual high school choral festival.

This year, we are very excited because for the first time, we're going to do that in partnership with the University at Albany.

So we have invited their new choral director, Dr. Michael Lister, to be the guest artist for that, and he's phenomenal working with youth.

So students will go there.

We had expanded our offerings for that event, and we're going to have different classes and rehearsals, but there's something very exciting happening that is unique to that festival this year is that we're going to create an honor choir, and these are going to be youth selected from throughout the Capital region who will have a chance to rehearse with me and with Albany Pro Musica for that festival.

But in addition to that, that group is going to be taken to the first-ever Pro Musica International Choir Festival, and that festival is going to be in Queens University in Kingston, Ontario.

- Nice.

- That group is going to be taken at no cost, transportation, room and board, tuition, everything paid.

- [Jade] That's amazing!

- By a generous grant.

In fact, all participants will have room and board as well as tuition, but the delegation from the Capital region will also have transportation paid, thanks to a grant from Howard and Bush Foundation.

- Wow!

- So we are very excited because these are transformational activities for the youth that participates.

- That's amazing, well, it seems like Albany Pro Musica and yourself are really providing a lot of support and a lot of accessibility for folks who do want to dive into classical and choral music.

- You know, one of the things I love the most is when someone comes to me to say, "I never thought that choral music would be part of my regular diet, and now it is."

- And now it is.

- Now it is.

- Well, thank you, and thank you for talking to us, Jose, and spreading this knowledge for everyone.

I appreciate it, and I appreciate you.

Performing from the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall, please welcome Albany Pro Musica.

(calm classical music) (calm music continues) (choir singing in German) (choir singing in German) (calm music continues) (choir singing in German) (calm music continues) (choir singing in German) (calm music continues) (choir singing in German) (powerful orchestral music) (calm orchestral music) (calm orchestral music) (choir singing in German) (powerful classical music) (choir singing in German) (powerful classical music) (choir singing in German) (bright music) Thanks for joining us.

For more art, visit wmht.org/aha, and be sure to connect with us on social.

I'm Jade Warrick, and thank you for watching.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Funding for "AHA!"

has been provided by your contribution and by contributions to the WMHT Venture Fund.

Contributors include the Leo Cox Beach Philanthropic Foundation, Chet and Karen Opalka, Robert and Doris Fischer Malesardi, the Alexander and Marjorie Hover Foundation, and the Robison Family Foundation.

- At M&T Bank, we understand that the vitality of our communities is crucial to our continued success.

That's why we take an active role in our community.

M&T Bank is pleased to support WMHT programming that highlights the arts, and we invite you to do the same.