Not long ago and in a country far away, I attempted to explain to a taxi driver taking me from the airport to a conference location why I was there and what I did for a living. After explaining I was a choral conductor and I was visiting to hear choral performances at a choral conference, he responded to me in English in a thick accent, "You work in an ancient profession." He is right, of course, and he cut right to the core of our profession.
However, the fact that the choral assembly goes back a long, long way may possibly obscure one of its most important and relevant attributes.
2011 comes at a unique moment in the educational experience in the United States, as walls, barriers, divisions, and categories of learning are being torn down. We are at a moment when organizational staffing charts are becoming flat and at a time when community social experiences are becoming rare. Personal learning communities are replacing former forms of continuing education. And while brick and mortar buildings, classrooms, textbooks, school buses, and faculty lounges are still an important part of the extended educational process, at the same time, personal learning communities, wikis, social networks, API systems, Apps, digital downloads of every kind, and significantly, the mentor-protégé relationship, are each a growing part of the new learning and professional development reality.
As I observe conductors and choirs, I have not only observed wonderful music being made, but also observed lives being built. I hear life lessons taught and personal experiences shared that go much deeper than the coaching of pitches and rhythms within an ensemble setting. And while material sound is very much the immediate reason for being in a choir, human emotion and shared meaning is every bit as important a part of the nuance of the rehearsal and performance setting for both conductor and singer.
The community known to musicians as a choir is a vibrant learning environment, and a subtle mentoring environment. The fact that the ensemble is part of, in the words of my taxi driver, an "ancient profession," may obscure the fact that in the 21st century the musical ensemble emerges as a robust learning community and social organization. The discipling environment for the mentor-protégé is constantly present within the musical ensemble, under our noses, yet possibly and most likely completely invisible and unacknowledged.
The choir is a profound and relevant resource-available and operational on a regular and recurring basis-for both unintentional as well as intentional mentoring. The process of learning notes, tuning harmonies, and balancing sounds can be applied as a metaphor for life lessons the conductor shares with the choir, and that chorus members share with other ensemble members.
Let's share ways this level of 21st century relevancy is becoming a part of our ensemble experience.
Richard Hynson says