After he stopped touring full time as a musician several years ago, Aaron Humble increased his pace of sending out feelers to conductors of groups that fly in musicians for a week-long project that often ends in a CD-quality recording.
As it often goes, he didn’t hear back from one of the groups he reached out to — True Concord Voices and Orchestra based out of Tucson, Ariz.
On a gig months later in Santa Fe, N.M., the Cal State San Marcos associate professor of music was approached by a fellow tenor explaining how a group in Tucson needed another tenor for an upcoming project.
Humble booked the trip and enjoyed a week of recording and camaraderie.
“The first conversation I had with the conductor was him sort of sheepishly saying, ‘Hey, I’m really sorry that I never responded, but I do really like your audition materials and we’d love to have you sing with the group,’ ” said Humble, who is the co-chair of the music department and is also filling the role of program director of dance studies.
About six years later, a weeklong recording session with True Concord resulted in “A Dream So Bright: Choral Music of Jake Runestad,” which debuted in August 2024 at No. 2 on Billboard’s Classical Albums Chart.
Three months later, the recording was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance, a realization of a lifelong dream for Humble.
The Grammys were in February earlier this year, and True Concord did not win. But the experience of recording and months later riding the wave of the highest nomination for a recording artist was one Humble puts high on his list of career accomplishments.
And it came with the group that had previously ignored his inquiries.
“It’s up there in the top for sure,” said Humble, who has performed at such iconic venues as the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center and The Library of Congress. “It’s not something you can will to happen because you’re relying on democracy. You’re relying on the members of The (Recording) Academy, the majority of whom I don’t know. And so it does feel like this sort of grassroots recognition of an accomplishment.”
In his career as a solo artist, Humble has performed in opera, recital, concert and chamber music venues, enjoying solo appearances with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Boston Pops.
During his tenure singing with Cantus out of Minneapolis, he sang more than 800 concerts and recorded 10 albums with one of the nation’s premier vocal ensembles.
There is a concerted effort by the School of Arts at CSUSM to hire and encourage its faculty to stay active in their respective industries.
Ching-Ming Cheng, music co-chair, gives piano concerts both solo and with renowned performers routinely. She just completed a fall series of concerts with cellist Paul Tseng and harpist Vanessa Fountain all over San Diego, including on campus and at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido.
“Part of it is to feed my artistic soul and sort of keep that fire burning,” Humble said. “Creative activity is part of our scholarship as applied faulty in the arts so that’s part of it. But in terms of teaching, it also helps me stay relevant. I’m teaching students how to practice, how to perform, and if I stop doing it, I won’t be as good at teaching that.”
Originally from northeast Ohio, Humble was the director of choral activities at Minnesota State Mankato before coming to CSUSM.
A graduate of Millikin University, he has a Doctor of Music degree in vocal performance and literature from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.
Humble and his husband Xu Zou have a home in New York primarily for Zou’s work there. Their main residence is in South Park with their two cats, Chopstick and Toothpick.
Humble and Cheng are in the process of proposing a music recording and production degree program in the music department. Music technology is currently a minor.
“I think that will bring a whole different set of students here as well,” Humble said. “And for the students that are really looking for that ramp into a vocation, into a career, that’s a great degree for them.”
His pipe dream is to host a music therapy program here. There are currently no such programs in San Diego, an area rich with the therapeutic power of music.
Humble directs the university choir, which is an SATB (Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass) ensemble that is open to students of all majors and other members of our campus community. The choir does not require an audition.
Humble has been slowly building small group opportunities for students who are looking for more advanced repertoire. That’s innovation.
For him, it’s about finding the right pace and fit while pushing the students to discover new opportunities within themselves.
That’s acceleration and cultivation, the key tenets behind CSUSM’s Blueprint for the Future, in which the College of Humanities, Arts, Behavioral and Social Sciences lists “Anchoring the Arts” as one of its two initiatives.
“I don’t know if we’re quite there yet, but we’re close,” he said. “It’s just nice to give those students who want that extra challenge with harder repertoire, with things that are a little more on the art music side of things and might challenge students in a way that those kids want but other students don’t want. To have space for them to do that.”
The concert the music department is working on this semester is about belonging and unity.
Earlier this semester, Humble wasn’t feeling well at choir rehearsal while recovering from getting vaccinated. He ended up having a great rehearsal and left feeling much better.
It reminded him that he hears the same from students often. That they may arrive to campus in a bad mood but leave their interactions upbeat and ready to go on with their day.
Being on the receiving end of that community of care is a gentle reminder that he and other faculty often provide the same.
“People need those safe spaces more than ever and those moments of community,” Humble said. “I feel really fortunate that I get to teach in a place that wants that for all of our students. And that I get to make music and build that community in an artistic environment with my students as well.”