Choral Ethics: Know Your Singers and Yourself

“The wise musicians are those who play what they can master.” Duke Ellington

How many times in your career have you regretted your repertoire choices? Was it early in your career or just recently? Why did you regret your programming? Was it too high a reach, as far as difficulty, for your ensemble? Were your choices too easy or not challenging enough and so your performance suffered? Was it not appropriate for the time of year or who your audience would be? Did you have too little rehearsal time or too MUCH time? Or did your programming choices not live up to what you thought they might be? Lots of questions, I know, but I’ve gotten a couple of ChoralNetters asking just these kinds of questions; they want to understand WHY their programming choices failed.

Mandy* contacted me over the summer with questions about repertoire and programming. Last school year was Mandy’s first year teaching at Midland Middle School*. She has taught middle school chorus for the last ten years and changed schools only because her spouse was transferred across the state for his job. She said the spring concert was awful, her singers seemed dazed, and was just dreadful. She wonders why because she definitely understands middle school repertoire.

I suggested she might have been automatically programming for her previous school’s choruses, not her current school’s choruses, and that could be the problem. One 6^th grade chorus is not equal to another 6^th grade chorus. Perhaps she could get a better feel for what would work if she looked at past concert programs and see what was included on those concerts or she could dig around her school’s music library.

Mandy recently contacted me, thanking me for my suggestions because seeing what had been programmed in the past made a HUGE difference. She also spoke with the feeder elementary schools chorus directors and that helped quite a bit as well. The music her groups have begun this fall seems to be just perfect for her singers and she looks forward to their concerts this school year.

Jay* doesn’t understand why his community chorus is unhappy with him. He programmed a lovely work for their December concert, a work they have sung at least twice before, but everyone tells him it isn’t appropriate for a December concert. It’s a “Requiem,” and he doesn’t understand what the problem is, since they’ve often sung religious works in December. I shared what I believe is the problem; Requiems don’t work right before Christmas. A Requiem is a funeral Mass and that doesn’t go with Christmas or Hanukkah or the Winter Solstice, all holidays of light and rebirth.

I am a stickler about this type of programming myself, I detest Mardi Gras (or Carnival) themed concerts or other events DURING LENT. Look at a calendar and look at what you would like to program, then figure out what makes sense. He could have chosen a Magnificat, or a Gloria, or a Te Deum or any number of similar, more seasonal works, perhaps even by the same composer, and it would be fine. Perhaps it would make sense to pick something by the same composer for December and do the Requiem in March or April (even right after Easter, Requiems work). You could say you are spending the concert season celebrating that composer and all will be well.

I, personally, have gone through many variations in my choral conducting career and have had my own failures. I have gone from treble (all-girls school) choruses, mixed high school choruses, elementary and other variations of children’s choruses, church choirs and bell choirs, as well as my semi-professional chamber choir. Each time I began to direct a new (to me) type of ensemble, I initially failed at choosing appropriate repertoire. I chose material too difficult for the SSAA groups, too easy for the SATB (with some changing voices), not interesting enough for the elementary school group, too much new music for the church choirs, and perhaps too challenging for the first few concert cycles of my chamber choir (I was programming for the group I WANTED, not the group I had at the time). Once I had failed, I could go on from there to success but only after I understood why I had failed.

To be successful with programming, it helps to know your singers, what they can do and what is appropriate for them to do. And wisdom to make changes if needed. Please share your own stories!

*Name Withheld