Our Roots

Singing was the initial catalyst that laid the foundations leading to TortoiseClimbing™.

TortoiseClimbing™ is now 4 distinct susidiaries specializing in different products:

• The original music purpose is now served by TortoiseClimbing Audio™;
• The newer extensive writing responsibilities is served by TortoiseClimbing Publishing™;
• The website development support is served by TortoiseClimbing Webservices™ that created this website; and
• The independent, separate service activity since about 2006, K's Pet Care. Now dominantly focused on animals not requiring walking, e.g., Cats, and any other pets not requiring walking.

Let's explore roots from which TortoiseClimbing™ grew. Depending on your philosophy of how, or why things happen, creation and evolution, you might see this as:

• A logical process;
• Serendipitous happenstance; or
• Perhaps destiny.

You be the judge.

Background

David began singing in elementary school choruses.  (Remember when public schools included music education in elementary, then junior high, -now reorganized as middle schools - and high schools?)

NOTE. For those interested, in high school David sang in the Annapolis High School mixed choir, which together with 2 womens' choirs, gave performances of John Stainer's The Crucifixion. (David sang the part of Jesus in those performances.) A private, monophonic, non-HiFi record was produced. The score became Public Domain beginning of 2023. Thus, TortoiseClimbing Audio™ Mastered and Restored the recording, which it is providing as a Free download from this website. For details see AHS Recording of The Crucifixion.

Following high school, David took voice lessons in college and privately afterward. He continued singing in choruses and doing solos through college, and afterward. 

During college the choir he sang with performed at:

• Casals Festival; Puerto Rico
• Carnegie Hall, NYC;
• Baltimore Symphony on tour of Maryland;
• Numerous private performances in Florida and New Jersey;
• Numerous performances on University of Maryland campus;
• etc.

Those incredible experiences occurred because Professor Fague Springmann (stage name Lee Fairfax) facilitated those wonderful choral experiences during David's college life. Professor Springmann was a magnificant, operatic, bass-baritone voice sought after as a solo artist for performances of very well-known classical compositions, which also needed a chorus. Mr. Springmann successfully suggested his chorus be used as the supporting chorus for some such productions.

In addition to his duties as Associate Professor of Music at the University of Maryland, College Park, Professor Springmann recorded a number of LPs at then Edgewood Recording Studion  before and during David's college years.

In the mid-1960's, David accompanied Mr. Springmann to an editing session at Edgewood Recording Studio. That was before multitrack master tapes became common in the late 1960's, and editing meant using a razor blade to cut the tape, remove the unwanted recording take, and splice in the desired revised recording take. (Today that function is performed electronically with recording software commonly referred to as a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW).

The backstory of why Edgewood Recording Studio even existed for Professor Springmann to take me to a session there, illustrates the serendipitous nature of life.

Mr. Ed Greene (some bios say David) was a co-founder of Edgewood. The genesis for that was Ed was drafted in 1956 and served as a recording engineer for the U.S. Army Band and Chorus in Washington, D.C. (That means he had already learned what was then a rare skill before being drafted.) Then for some years after his discharge, he remained in DC before going back to New York and later to Toronto, Canada.

After he mustered out of the army, while still in Washington, DC he co-founded Edgewood Recording Studio in about 1958 with radio and television commentator Charles Osgood and composer George Wilkins. George later went to work for Walt Disney Parks and Resorts where he created scores and songs as Director of Music for Walt Disney Imagineering.

Ed went back to New York in about 1970 as chief engineer for MGM Records. Then in the early 1970's he was brought into television audio mixing by Frank Sinatra, and became a very successful (22-time Emmy-winning and 61 nominations) audio mixer for television production and post production. He died in 2017 at age 82.

After college David continued participating in various singing activities, including:

• Washington Redskins Singers for a number of seasons (there is no mention of such a singing group on the internet as part of the renamed Washington "Commanders");
• Solo patriotic exercises before Maryland basketball games for many years;
• Christmas Messiah solos;
• National Presbyterian Chancel Choir (participated in dedication of new Church and Center);
• Maryland Choral Society (then known as the Southern Maryland Choral Society);
• First Baptist Church of Alexandria Chancel Choir (participated in Dianne Bish's cantata led by her from the pipe organ for dedication of new rank of State Trumpets to pipe organ);
• Alexandria Singers;
• Sentimental Journey (small group specializing in ensemble music in the style of the 1940's)
• etc.

These experiences led David to begin thinking about recording. For details on that journey see Duets with Terry

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