Stick Time: Selling Art or Cars?

 

Sometimes our choral performances seem to be less a celebration of the art than the musical equivalent of screaming car advertisements on TV.  Big hair, big shoes, big sounds.  True, we are competing with the ear-splitting caucaphony churned out by other musical forms and the media.  But bigger is not better, louder is not more musical, and no amount of extraneous fluff can take the place of brilliant singing.

 

Note what a small ensemble can do in this performance from an ACDA National Conference.  No dancing. No streamers. No percussion. No gimmicks. Just solid choral music from a choir of eight voices.  Isn’t great singing what attracted us to this art in the first place?