“Necessity is the mother of taking chances.” Mark Twain August is winding down; September is almost here and summer is over. During most of August, we here at Choral Potpourri Blog have tried to get you thinking of ways to hit the ground running this fall. Today, the last Thursday of the month, we’d like […]
Leadership
Choral Potpourri/Choral Ethics: Changing OUR Behavior
“Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits.” Mark Twain During the last two weeks, Choral Potpourri Blog focused on what you need and what you do. Today we’ll be thinking about our behavior inside of rehearsal. It’s easier to be objective when not actively in the midst of rehearsals or the academic year. While […]
Choral Potpourri/Choral Ethics: Working in Your Garden
“Gardens are not made by singing ‘Oh, how beautiful,’ and sitting in the shade.” Rudyard Kipling In last week’s Blog, I mentioned for the rest of the month of August I would be blogging about things to get you thinking. Last week, I asked what you need to do a good job right before a […]
Choral Potpourri/Choral Ethics: Judging Our Colleagues
“If you haven’t got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me.” Alice Roosevelt Longworth It does no good to gossip about our colleagues and their ensembles. It doesn’t help the arts community in general or the choral community specifically to “bad mouth” others. We are all in this together and the […]
Choral Potpourri/Choral Ethics: Ethics Should Matter
“We are all here on earth to help others; what on earth the others are here for I don’t know.” W. H. Auden What does it mean to be an ethical choral conductor/director? Our own Choral Ethics code should be a model of behaviors for how we treat our singers, but shouldn’t it be a […]
Choral Potpourri/Choral Ethics: I Don’t Know How She Does It
“If you want something done, ask a busy person to do it. The more things you do, the more you can do.” Lucille Ball I really like helping people with my Choral Ethics project; it brings another layer to what I perceive as my work. In many ways I’ve been preparing to be the Choral […]