One from the Folder: Repertoire Thoughts for Women’s/Treble Choirs

#67: Friday, January 1, 2021

2021: The Year Ahead…

I suspect that many of us are in a similar place right now: still reeling from the challenges of the semester/quarter/season that just finished, and overwhelmed with contemplating the one that is very soon to come. On top of that, we find ourselves divorced from our regular year-end concerts, holiday performances, and religious musical traditions. And, quite possibly, spending hours in front of a computer doing music-adjacent work for a virtual song/project/concert, but without any of the actual community music-making that feeds us as musicians. And that’s just the choir-related part of things! Suffice to say, it’s been a rough 2020 all ‘round.

So…what should I write on this first blog of 2021, on New Year’s Day no less?

The old adage is: “The show must go on.” But I’d like to propose an update: “The show will go on.” Somehow, some way, music will find a way to continue. Group music-making of all kinds has been hard-hit this past year, choral music in particular. There are so many questions for the next months ahead, which vary drastically depending on your state, your type/level/age of ensemble, your audience, vaccine availability, etc. The “how” of things will look different for each choir and each director and each school or program.

But the bottom line is this – at some point in the future, it will be safe to sing again. And people will be drawn to that – singers and audience alike. The show, in fact, will go on. (Just thinking about that future concert, even just a future “normal” rehearsal, makes me tear up a little.) It is so hard to see that far forward right now, when we’re all in the middle of the weeds, but it will happen.

When that day finally comes, we need to be ready. For that inevitable beautiful, amazing, and magnificent future time, I have a few repertoire suggestions from past blogs. Uplifting, empowering songs for that first concert, or that first season. Works about the beauty of music and the beauty of life. It will take a lot of work and patience to rebuild our programs, but those first beautiful notes of group singing will be more than worth it. And I for one cannot wait.

“Breakable” by Jenni Brandon
Text by Annabelle Moseley
SA, piano

“I Started Out Singing” by Jocelyn Hagen
Text by Naomi Shihab Nye
3pt Treble, piano (or piano & string orchestra)

“Be Like The Bird” by Abbie Betinis
Text by Victor Hugo
5-part canon 

“Leave My Heart Its Songs” by Dominick DiOrio
Poetry by Amy Lowell
SSA, piano, two violins, viola

“Kidsong” by Stephen Caldwell
Traditional text
SSA, piano

“Music of Life” by B.E. Boykin
Text by George Parsons Lathrop
SSA, piano

To see all my repertoire blogs [67 and counting!], click here.
To see a spreadsheet list of all blog posts and their repertoire, click here.

Goodbye to 2020. Hello to a happy, healthy, and reinvigorated 2021.

Until next month!
-Shelbie Wahl-Fouts

Dr. Shelbie Wahl-Fouts is Director of Choral Activities and associate professor of music at Hollins University, a women’s college in Roanoke, Virginia.
Email:
Bio:     https://www.hollins.edu/directory/shelbie-wahl-fouts/