(This is the second installment of a five-part series on choral ethics, exploring what it means to be ethical in this often unethical business.)
“Every artist was first an amateur.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
The word amateur is taken from Old French and means ‘lover’. Many definitions of the word speak of doing something for pleasure and most of us, I am sure, became choral conductors because we found pleasure in singing or leading singing. Is it the other definition of amateur we are really afraid of? How many of us have ceased finding pleasure in music and are just plain cranky? Is that what being a professional means? And why is it so important to be referred to as “professional?” We all have worked with people who feel they are the professional but who behave any way but professionally.
A friend of mine recently brought up an experience she had in grad school. She attended a Roman Catholic university and had a church job to supplement her tuition loans. One year, Easter was quite early and her elite choral group had a concert the next week. Their conductor arranged to have the first orchestral rehearsal on Holy Thursday, from 5 to 7 pm and arranged it only a few weeks before. He didn't ask any of his singers if they were available. He just did it, declaring it a mandatory rehearsal. Several singers in addition to my friend also had church jobs and could not attend that rehearsal and told him so as soon as they realized the conflict. The conductor was livid, went to the Dean who threatened to throw them all out of school if they didn't attend that rehearsal. The conductor also called them–which is why my friend brought this up–"unprofessional". Now this was a Roman Catholic university and Holy Thursday is quite a big deal in the Roman Catholic Church if memory serves, and the singers let him know they would be unable to attend in a timely fashion. But this conductor, who should have known church musicians earning money to go to school would be busy on a Big Deal for the Roman Catholic Church, called them unprofessional. All of them arranged for substitutes at their churches, but how silly is that? Another friend, a retired Music Ed professor, wondered what kind of an example the conductor set for his students. It's okay to schedule–at the last minute mind you–a rehearsal when many in his ensemble might have a very predictable conflict? And then throw a temper tantrum? Is this a version of professional I don’t know about?
I have an acquaintance who brags every chance she gets she is more of a professional than I. She’s a fine accompanist and quite a good musician but she is a soprano, and every once in a while, she lets her “inner diva” fly. She’s the type to play that “diva card” quite often and will scold me—in public—when she thinks I am not treating her with enough deference. I might not even be aware of whatever slight she thinks I made. I recommend her for jobs, talk her up and have even used her as a coach but something or somebody gets her in a kerfuffle and I am facing the firing squad. She complains to me often she doesn’t always get the jobs she wants and it’s “not fair.” But perhaps her supposed professional behavior is the reason.
Many people, even those who are the supposed “professionals,” think it is the drama, making a scene and the last minute changes and the lack of schedules because their ensemble should be the only important thing in your life that makes you a “professional.” I believe it to be the opposite.
The true professionals in my life have been those who respect my time and theirs as well. It is not just letting musicians know a rehearsal schedule ahead of time which makes them professional, it shows they are organized and thinking ahead. We all have occasion to do things at the last minute or to be upset over something. But when it is always that way or appears to be that way, it is rather unsettling. And makes me wonder if they are as “professional” as they claim to be.
Marie Grass Amenta says
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Marie Grass Amenta says
Rachel Gilmore says