(An excerpt from the Choral Journal article, “When Oren Brown and Richard Westenberg Speak . . . I Listen!” by Brown Bradley) Question 4: What exercises should a vocal warm-up include? RW: For myself, a vocal warm-up period should first warm-up the brain, the ear; with amateur choirs, I use physical warm-ups such […]
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CJ Replay: Singing Quakers
(An excerpt from the Choral Journal article, “Singing Out of the Silence: A Survey of Quaker Choral Music” by Dan Graves) The practice of singing among members of the Society of Friends is inextricably tied to the history of Quakerism itself. In the mid-seventeenth century, the first generation of Quakers rejected music, although […]
CJ Replay: America’s National Poet
(An excerpt from the Choral Journal article, “The American Choral Tapestry, Part II,” by David DeVenny ) If America has a national poet, it is certainly Walt Whitman (1819-92). He broke traditional rules of formal structure and rhyme in American verse, and in so doing, invented a poetic voice that captured the democratic […]