Choral Potpourri: Choral Ethics; Out For the Same Audience

“All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree.” Albert Einstein

Like many of you, I conduct a choral organization in a community with several other choral groups besides mine. And like you, I often wonder if members of my audience are also members of theirs. One of the lessons I’ve learned in the twelve year existence of my chamber choir is to always be aware of other music organizations’ concert dates. In fact, I also program around the local symphony orchestra in addition to other choral groups. I want people to have good feelings about my group so I never program any concert to conflict if I can possibly avoid it. We may be in competition for the same audience but almost never at the same time. I think for the most part, my strategy has worked; other music organizations have good feeling about my choir.

Not so with Jessica*. Other choral groups do NOT have good feelings about her community chorus. And it’s not her fault. Jessica has been the artistic director of her auditioned community chorus for four years. She teaches at the local two year community college and when the community chorus job came up soon after she joined the faculty at the college, she was recommended for the position.

It’s been a fairly turbulent time for her chorus, with power struggles within–and out–of the board. There have been fights about programming, since the previous director (a well-respected church musician) let the board program most concerts. Jessica finally convinced them to allow her to do what she does and program two of their three yearly concerts. That third concert is usually a Pops concert and she doesn’t care. She cares about the two classical concerts.

Jessica’s group is not the only community chorus in the area. There are two others; one on one end of their region, the other on the other end and both are not auditioned. Jessica’s board likes to call their chorus the “Premiere Choral Organization” in the area and scoffs the others could be considered anything but “sub-par.” That’s all well and good but her group makes no effort to consider others concerts or fundraisers, which Jessica believes is a big mistake. There are no good feelings between her chorus and the other groups, but there does seem to be some sort of a congenial relationship between the two of them.

During the last concert season or so, she’s noticed an upgrade in programming for the other two choruses. They will collaborate on a large choral work for their last concerts of this season, presenting it twice together; once in one chorus’s home venue and the following week, in the other. The news of their joint effort has been reported in their local newspaper and Jessica’s board is livid; one of the concerts will be in direct conflict of THEIR last concert of the season. Since her chorus makes no effort to be aware of other choral groups’ concert dates, she doesn’t know how this could have been avoided. And she is NOT looking forward to her next board meeting, either, which is why she contacted me.

I asked for her feelings about the whole thing. She tells me she believes this conflict could have been avoided if someone had been conscious of what was happening. As well, she tells me her chorus’s last concert of the year is traditionally a Pops concert, which means those who want to hear a classical concert will go to the other concert. She has wanted to do away with the Pops concert (perhaps making their holiday concert every other year or so more Popsy) for the last two years but no one on the board agreed with her. Maybe they will now.

She will go to her upcoming board meeting with a few suggestions, the chief being to watch other people’s concert dates and try to avoid conflicting with them. Since next year’s dates are still not nailed down, the time is right to begin to make this a habit. And she will tell them she is asking the other two directors out for coffee or lunch during the summer to mend some fences.

I told her no one really cares about drama or which chorus is Premiere or highly auditioned or whose concert conflicts with whose. People want to see their friends sing. They want to hear good music; some familiar, some new but sung with passion and joy. And they want their community to be a place where music and art happens, no matter who is doing it. They want to see people from all over working together, doing something wonderful. So I told her to go to the concert not conflicting with hers and BE SEEN and BE SEEN BEING CONGENIAL. It couldn’t hurt!

*Name Withheld