Joshua Bronfman

I’m not really sure what to make of this. The E is true. It rings. I would take it. The C…not so much. And it’s clearly a lipsynched performance, so how repeatable is it…But really, who cares, right? It’s freaking low. Anybody out there come across a singer like this before? Or are you this […]

As most of you are aware, the musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra are in the middle of a protracted lockout, which threatens to undermine one of the great orchestras in the US. Regardless of the side you might take in the debate, we all know it is a shame to see such a great musical institution […]

A colleague of mine recently said: "I make it a point to do a German motet every year." That statement sort of blew me away, and changed the way I program for my top college choir. I thought, “Well, of course,” but it wasn’t a thing I actually did. Since then I’ve changed, and every […]

The journal Nature published this interesting study that calls into question how our visual perceptions might unintentionally influence auditions: The participants were presented with recordings of the three finalists in each of ten prestigious international competitions, and were asked to guess the winner. With just sound, or sound and video, novices and experts both guessed right […]

Welcome back.    I found these two articles online over the summer. It's nothing revelatory to a choir director, but having science support us by showing the effects of singing in choir always helps. The first article is the most interesting to me: Researchers in Sweden monitored the heart rates of singers as they performed a […]

This is a fabulous article written by an amateur singing in his church choir for the first time. As choir directors, we are all familiar with the tropes he puts forward, but he does so in such an original and provacative way that I found it enthralling. I hope you enjoy it.   GQ.com – The Vulgarian in the […]