Nicholas Weininger, software engineer and composer, joins me this week to discuss the power of the Hebrew language in choral settings. Both in terms of its sonority and aspects of diction, but also in the contributions many ancient Hebrew texts can make to our philosophical discourses to this day. We discuss the difficulties finding choral […]
Choralosophy
Should We Stop Assessing Sight Reading at All State Choir? With Drs. Marshaun Hymon and Chantae Pittman
This podcast has become the place to go for Music Literacy pedagogical training tools for teachers over the last five years. As a result, I have never received as much correspondence about content NOT created by me, than Dr. Marshaun Hymon’s February 2024 Choral Journal Article called “A Skills First Approach to the All-State Choir […]
At a Crossroads in Higher Ed with Lynn Atkins
Are there core skills that MUST be acquired in order to teach music? Should there be? This week, I welcome Lynn Atkins to discuss the current challenges we face getting young teachers ready to teach music in an era when our current students and recent graduates had a pretty serious interruption in their education. In […]
Getting off on the Right Foot with a Young Teacher Panel
We are doing something different and fun this week! Just me, and three young colleagues about half my age. Over the last few months, I have gotten several requests to do an episode dedicated to the issues and concerns faced by the next generation of educators. What better way to do that than host a […]
The Performance Practice of African Choral Music with Chukwuebuka Ezeakacha
The quest for diversity in Western art music has led to the influx of ‘Westernized’ African music into the choral canon, albeit tagged as ‘world music’. This approach to the inclusion of diverse repertoire has led to the homogenization of indigenousAfrican folk tunes by non-indigenous composers, thus creating Western-sounding African music. In this episode, we […]
2023 Year End Special: What The Heck is Going on With Choir People?
Over the last few weeks I have noticed a storm after the calm in choral music circles. We saw a boil over in Texas when a clinician withdrew from a conference based on a letter from two members that made her feel unwelcome, and a downstream fallout stemming from how the organization handled the issue. […]