Music is an emotional medium, yet we often spend rehearsal time in our choirs focused on notes, rhythms, and precision, rarely addressing the meaning of the music, says arranger and producer Deke Sharon. In the new book The Heart of Vocal Harmony: Emotional Expression in Group Singing, Sharon puts the process of delivering an emotionally compelling performance front and center.
Podcasts: They seem to be sprouting up everywhere these days. Similar to social media and the smartphone, the rise of podcasts—audio programs released as a series of episodes that you can subscribe to and download onto your device—has brought significant changes to the way we consume our media today. In 2013, Apple’s podcasts hit the one billion subscriber mark.
This issue of the Research Memorandum Series focuses on resources pertaining to movement education in both the choral rehearsal and in teaching choral conducting. After a brief background on movement methodologies, author Caron Daley lists resources pertaining to the choral rehearsal and choral conducting.
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After serving as a guest conductor with the Seattle Women's Chorus (SWC), Wendy Moy became friends with Dennis Coleman, who served as the artistic director for all of SWC's 14 years, as well as 35 years with the Seattle Men's Chorus. Now the director of choral activities and music education at Connecticut College and co-artistic director of Chorosynthesis Singers, Wendy spoke with the man she calls one of her mentors in the wake of his retirement about his career and the future of the choral field.
No other piece of music captivated iconic conductor Robert Shaw more than the Brahms Requiem. A symposium presented by Chorus America in honor of the Shaw centenary explored the conductor’s deep connection to this masterwork—and what it reveals about his approach to music and his legacy.
Faculty members and participants at Chorus America’s Robert Shaw Centenary Symposium reflect on the qualities that made Shaw a choral icon.
“There are so many commonalities between directing a community choir and the church music experience,” says Tom Dooling of First Presbyterian Church San Antonio.
As a graduate conducting student at Temple University in the 1980s, Diana V. Saez recalls being frustrated that there was no mention of Latin American composers—except for the famous composers Villalobos from Brazil and Ginastera from Argentina. When she moved to Washington DC, in 1990, she found a bustling choral music scene, with a wide variety of choruses. But Latin American music was not part of the standard repertoire.
The Brahms Requiem served as the artistic focal point of Chorus America’s Robert Shaw Centenary Symposium, which centered around the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus’s April 2016 performance of this masterwork. Symposium faculty shared their thoughts on issues conductors ought to address as they prepare the piece.
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L. Brett Scott has touched many sides of the choral world in his career so far, and it figures that plenty more is in store. “My association has gone from a symphonic chorus, to research, to a community choir, and now includes a larger choral-orchestral ensemble again,” he says.
