Today was the first day of our three day state conference for our chapter of the American Choral Directors Association. I've always loved going to this summer conference: reconnecting with colleagues, finding new rep and hopefully walking away feeling inspired by the headliners and the clinicians presenting interest sessions. This is also the first summer ACDA in about six years where I haven't been on the Board, which means I am not responsible for setting anything up and I don't have to stress and worry about my reading sessions and interest sessions. I can just go to the conference and have fun, and it's pretty great.
Some Highlights from Today:
*Mack Wilberg is one of our headlining clinicians (music director of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir) and he gave an opening session/lecture celebrating what makes our choral art so special and important. He said a lot of great and inspiring things, and his whole demeanor and voice reminds me of Bob Newhart. Like not even joking. Some of the things he said that really stuck with me:
"An extraordinary repertory is available to the amateur singer." -Robert Shaw (as opposed to the repertory available to the amateur instrumentalist).
"I am very grateful for the so-called amateur singer. Where would we be without them in our choirs?"
"There are some that link the decline of our musical culture to the day when the amateur musician was no longer considered important. When the serious composer stopped writing for the amateur."
"Let us all be grateful for an art that allows us to experience beauty with people from all walks of life. Let us all be grateful for an art that re-affirms our sense of humanity."
The choral repertory, unlike the orchestral repertory, contains "masterpieces in miniature," the 3-5 minute works that make up so much of our choral repertoire and the incredible beauty contained in many of these short pieces, often by composers that are not considered titans of the musical canon.
Be curious, be respectful of the time and feelings of those with whom we work, be respectful and considerate of your audience (it's time to embrace a pan-stylistic, pan-cultural approach to programming in order to make sure we reach all parts of our community), and trust your own musical instincts.
Regarding that last piece of advice on trusting one's own musical instincts: "I reached a point in my career where I realized that so-and-so would certainly not approve of my approach to this situation, so-and-so would not like certain conducting gestures I'm using, would not program in this sort of way, but that's okay. And when I reached the point where I could be okay with that, I became a better musician."
"There are many paths to choral heaven." -Craig Jessop. There are many legitimate ways of approaching our art and succeeding at it. Beware of various camps and dogmas that may rob us of our intuitions and abilities. Don't let a dogmatic approach to our our art cause you to be unkind to your colleagues.
Beware of worshiping our art at the expense of loving our art -glorifying technique over artistry and expression.
Our art ennobles us, gives us a sense of humanity, and moves us into a world where everything can be beautiful.
When we do these things, we are close to achieving the "Supreme Accomplishment," to blur the line between work and play.
*Reading through some great music at various reading sessions: Women's Choir, Multicultural Rep, a session dedicated to Mack Wilberg's choral arrangements (which I actually enjoyed WAY more than I thought I would). I finally found out why Mack Wilberg writes for four hand piano all the time: he writes for orchestra and choir like 90% of the time, and then he doesn't feel like piano reductions do his pieces justice. So he just puts all the orchestral parts in the accompaniment, hence the four-hand piano. He also doesn't use notation software: he writes all of his choral music by hand on manuscript paper, including all of his orchestrations, and then sends it to someone to put in to notation software.
*Rollo Dilworth blowing my mind and giving me basically a brand new warm-up sequence that is engaging, pedagogically sound, and super cool. I love Dr Dilworth. He is knowledgeable, charismatic, funny, and he really, really, REALLY understands middle school kids. I hope I can find some time to watch him work with the middle school honor choir tomorrow, because he is just so flipping fantastic. He ended his session by talking to us about three elements that we must constantly consider in our work as choral professionals:
Process
Product
People
He loves to torture his grad students by asking them to come up with the answer of which of these three elements is most important. And he told us that we will struggle with the answer for our entire career. And the answer, as much as there is one, is that we have to work towards keeping all three in balance, and not focusing on one at the expense of the other two. Easier said than done, but important to keep in mind with our choirs.
So much inspiration and stuff to think about, not to mention all the great conversations with colleagues, and it's only day one!
Some Highlights from Today:
*Mack Wilberg is one of our headlining clinicians (music director of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir) and he gave an opening session/lecture celebrating what makes our choral art so special and important. He said a lot of great and inspiring things, and his whole demeanor and voice reminds me of Bob Newhart. Like not even joking. Some of the things he said that really stuck with me:
"An extraordinary repertory is available to the amateur singer." -Robert Shaw (as opposed to the repertory available to the amateur instrumentalist).
"I am very grateful for the so-called amateur singer. Where would we be without them in our choirs?"
"There are some that link the decline of our musical culture to the day when the amateur musician was no longer considered important. When the serious composer stopped writing for the amateur."
"Let us all be grateful for an art that allows us to experience beauty with people from all walks of life. Let us all be grateful for an art that re-affirms our sense of humanity."
The choral repertory, unlike the orchestral repertory, contains "masterpieces in miniature," the 3-5 minute works that make up so much of our choral repertoire and the incredible beauty contained in many of these short pieces, often by composers that are not considered titans of the musical canon.
Be curious, be respectful of the time and feelings of those with whom we work, be respectful and considerate of your audience (it's time to embrace a pan-stylistic, pan-cultural approach to programming in order to make sure we reach all parts of our community), and trust your own musical instincts.
Regarding that last piece of advice on trusting one's own musical instincts: "I reached a point in my career where I realized that so-and-so would certainly not approve of my approach to this situation, so-and-so would not like certain conducting gestures I'm using, would not program in this sort of way, but that's okay. And when I reached the point where I could be okay with that, I became a better musician."
"There are many paths to choral heaven." -Craig Jessop. There are many legitimate ways of approaching our art and succeeding at it. Beware of various camps and dogmas that may rob us of our intuitions and abilities. Don't let a dogmatic approach to our our art cause you to be unkind to your colleagues.
Beware of worshiping our art at the expense of loving our art -glorifying technique over artistry and expression.
Our art ennobles us, gives us a sense of humanity, and moves us into a world where everything can be beautiful.
When we do these things, we are close to achieving the "Supreme Accomplishment," to blur the line between work and play.
*Reading through some great music at various reading sessions: Women's Choir, Multicultural Rep, a session dedicated to Mack Wilberg's choral arrangements (which I actually enjoyed WAY more than I thought I would). I finally found out why Mack Wilberg writes for four hand piano all the time: he writes for orchestra and choir like 90% of the time, and then he doesn't feel like piano reductions do his pieces justice. So he just puts all the orchestral parts in the accompaniment, hence the four-hand piano. He also doesn't use notation software: he writes all of his choral music by hand on manuscript paper, including all of his orchestrations, and then sends it to someone to put in to notation software.
*Rollo Dilworth blowing my mind and giving me basically a brand new warm-up sequence that is engaging, pedagogically sound, and super cool. I love Dr Dilworth. He is knowledgeable, charismatic, funny, and he really, really, REALLY understands middle school kids. I hope I can find some time to watch him work with the middle school honor choir tomorrow, because he is just so flipping fantastic. He ended his session by talking to us about three elements that we must constantly consider in our work as choral professionals:
Process
Product
People
He loves to torture his grad students by asking them to come up with the answer of which of these three elements is most important. And he told us that we will struggle with the answer for our entire career. And the answer, as much as there is one, is that we have to work towards keeping all three in balance, and not focusing on one at the expense of the other two. Easier said than done, but important to keep in mind with our choirs.
So much inspiration and stuff to think about, not to mention all the great conversations with colleagues, and it's only day one!
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