Women's Choirs

(An excerpt from the Choral Journal article, “Daniel Pinkham’s Music for Treble Chorus,” by James McCray.)          For more than thirty years, Daniel Pinkham (b. 1923) has been one of the most frequently performed American composers of choral music.  Throughout his distinguished career, Pinkham has provided engaging, practical music for treble voices. Often the […]

(An excerpt from the interest session, “Conducting Women’s Choirs: Strategies for Success,” by Hilary Apfelstadt.  Presented during the 2013 ACDA National Conference.)          There is a wealth of music by Canadian composers for treble voices.  Canada has a rich choral tradition, and in particular, due to the number of children’s and youth choirs throughout […]

(From the Choral Journal article “Literature of Quality for the Treble Choir” by Raymond Sprague)          All choirs should perform literature of high quality; yet as I search for music for my women’s choir, I am accosted by musical pap of the lowest caliber. Insipid texts, bland rhythms, static or predictable harmonic structures, and […]

“All too often, a women’s choir is a kind of leftover group, seen as a fallback for singers who are not selected for a mixed ensemble or for less experienced singers at the freshmen level of high school or college. Competition with other ensembles at the school or in the community is made more difficult […]

Here is a two-minute excerpt from the interest session, “Male Choir Directors: Working with and Relating to Beginning Women’s Choruses,” presented by Ryan W. Holder at the 2009 ACDA National Conference. This session addresses the challenges faced by male choir directors when working with a women’s choir.  

I have a friend who sings in a women’s choir, and after their conductor/den mother died of breast cancer, they got in a new conductor who has, shall we say, an XY chromosome. I have commented that that must have changed the family feel of the group somehow, but my friend has always denied that. […]