Richard Sparks

General thoughts and principles (adapted from what I give my section leaders) about running good rehearsals: Put your music stand low enough and flat enough that it doesn’t interfere with your conducting pattern (and people can see it!) If you work from the piano, put the music desk down flat (for the same reason) Make sure […]

This is something I prepared for one of my choirs some time ago to help them think about phrasing and musicality. Even though I wrote this some time ago, it still represents much of what I think is important. I began with the quotes I gave in an earlier blog:   Harpsichordist and Pianist Ralph Kirkpatrick: “The […]

This is a great interview with Eric from 1997 about the beginnings of the Chamber Choir. Look inside this post for the link–well worth it!   http://slowfox.wordpress.com/2013/02/19/eric-ericson-talks-about-choirs-and-choral-works/

In my last post about rehearsing, I made the point to bring musicality, especially phrase shape, into the rehearsal process early. One reader responded (and thank you for responding–I enjoy feedback or additional comments, whether you agree or disagree!) that one has to be careful to balance the various elements of teaching–and that he’d seen […]

This is outside of the run of my usual posts on ChoralBlog, but with Eric Ericson’s passing at age 94, I thought this might be appropriate. Below is an article I was commissioned to write for the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet on the occasion of Eric’s 90th birthday–it will give you a sense of his marvelous […]

For me, it’s important to include musicality and expression, particularly that of phrase shape, from the very beginning of the learning/rehearsal process. The problem with ignoring the shaping of phrases (dynamic, agogic, stressed and unstressed syllables, etc.) is that the choir learns an unmusical shaping of the phrase which then has to be un-learned (and that […]