A ChoralNet user forwarded me this article:
14 year-old Garrett Adam is good at many things. Music is one of them.“I play the flute and piccolo in the band,” Garrett said. “And I've been interested in singing a long time now, really interested in singing.”
He's been in junior honor choir, band, marching band and more. And as a freshman this year at Yankton High School Garret had his sights set on an even bigger challenge: all-state chorus. He signed up under the part he sings every day in choir: Soprano.
But he got rejected from All-State choir because boys aren't allowed to sing soprano.
Now this was at the high school level, where at least there's some semblance of sense to the assumption that all boys' voices have changed, but my own son wasn't able to apply for junior high all-state choir this year because it's a mixed boys choir and all the boys have to sing tenor or bass. He's in 7th grade.
We contacted the director, and he basically said "we'll just have him sing tenor 1". That's just stupid. He's not a changing voice, even; he's a high soprano. High C's are effortless for him. Gravelling out a tenor 1 part would be worthless. He's years away from his voice change. So he's not applying.
This can't be an unusual situation: lots of middle school boys haven't started their voice change. How does keeping them out of honor choirs help us develop the tenors and basses of the future? Aren't we just making it more likely that they'll drop out of choir and go into soccer or wrestling or something? Aren't we reinforcing the stereotype that singing high is "girly"?
This seems like bad policy. I poked around on the various ACDA division websites and found that middle-school honor choirs vary quite a bit; some are SATB, some SAB and some have separate boys' and girls' choirs. I couldn't tell whether the latter groups would be TTBB only.
I realize that kids have to audition for honor choir in September but the conventions aren't until February/March, and sometimes voices change during that time. But it seems unnecessary to welcome only changed boys' voices. What would be the harm in mixing the genders together in the soprano and alto sections?
David Monks says
Carl J Ferrara says
John Howell says
Gerald Gurss says
Eloise Porter says
Ronald Richard Duquette says