One of the guys I work with just walked into the office singing “Summertime” to himself–he didn’t know I was there.  I said something to him, and that made me think of this performance, so I showed it to him.  This is by far my favorite American Idol performance of all time.  There are others that have been awesome, but this one takes it for me.

Fantasia Barrino singing “Summertime.”

If you have a favorite American Idol performance, I wanna know what it is.  Leave a comment below.

While I was driving through Nevada I put in my soundtrack from Schindler’s List.  The main theme from that movie is one of the most moving pieces of music I have ever heard.  And the violin solo was played by Itzhak Pearlman, one of the most brilliant violinists of our day.

I’m not sure if it was the music itself, or the fact that Pearlman is Jewish, or that the music is from a movie on the Holocaust, or the fact that I was driving through the barren Nevada desert (which looked absolutely beautiful)…

Whatever it was, or the combination of all of those things together, almost brought me to tears.  I’ve never heard a violin cry the way it does in that song–with longing, beauty, desperation, elegance, and graceful dignity.  I wish I could find better words to describe it.  I don’t know if I’ve ever heard a song with such raw emotion…

This is Susan Boyle on the T.V. show Britain’s Got Talent singing I Dreamed a Dream from Les Miserables…

If you haven’t seen this yet… you have to check it out. I would have embedded the video, but I couldn’t find a copy that allowed embedding.

Utterly breathtaking…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY