Marie Grass Amenta

Choral Potpourri: Coming Home

November 16, 2015 by Marie Grass Amenta Leave a Comment

“There is no place like home.” L.Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

On Saturday evening, I will give a pre-concert lecture for the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra, our local professional symphony. The concert is a program of Russian Masters with not a speck of choral music to be heard. I will be lecturing on two ballet suites, Swan Lake and The Firebird. Though it will be a bit of a change from what I usually do now, in fact, it is coming home for me. In a roundabout way, I am a choral conductor because I was a ballet dancer.

As a child, I studied at one of the premier ballet studios in Chicago. Many of their former students went on to have careers with companies such as American Ballet Theatre, Joffrey and the Boston Ballet to name only a few. I sang as well as danced and was a serious piano student….but I loved to dance. I was not the typical ballet dancer; I specialized in character ballet, a specific category of Classical Ballet. Character ballet is stylized versions of traditional folk or national dance, using movements and music which have been adapted for the theater and is very important to the Classical Ballet repertoire. A good example of character ballet within a classical ballet is the series of national dances in the beginning of Act III of Swan Lake or the Divertissements in Act II of The Nutcracker.

My father was a professional ballet dancer and when he was in his 40s, I noticed he wasn’t dancing as much as he used to. I always wanted to dance; it was like breathing to me, and wanted to have a long career. But dancers have a limited prime time; how could I continue being involved in ballet professionally as I got older, besides teaching? I began to think about life after dancing; and since I was also a musician, decided perhaps I could become a ballet conductor. When I was 13, I mentioned this aspiration to one of my ballet teachers…..and he laughed at me. He told me girls didn’t conduct orchestras (when I mentioned a very prominent female opera conductor, he told me I didn’t want to be like her) but thought perhaps I could conduct choruses. Not a very auspicious beginning for a choral career, I suppose. The summer I was 16, just after dancing for the director of a very prominent ballet company, I fell down a flight of cement stairs and wrecked my ankle, thus ending my dancing career. But it was okay.

Ballet has always been in my life, even after my ankle injury. I taught seven ballet classes a week to earn money to get through my undergrad music program. When I graduated from college, I began to think of myself as a musician and choral conductor, not a dancer, but dancing wasn’t finished with me! When I needed a job or relocated due to my spouse’s job, a job teaching at a ballet studio or a choreography gig often fell into my lap. I always had fun but felt a bit, well, overqualified and wanted to move on to my *real* work which was choral conducting. I added liturgical dance to my choral repertoire when applying for church jobs after someone asked in an interview about my ballet studio positions, and did some sacred dance work too.

When I was in music school, I became fascinated with music history as it relates to dance history; I became hooked. I love how things line up with music, dance, art and history. So lecturing about ballet on Saturday isn’t too far from my interests. I plan to drag out my Pointe shoes and show folks how something that seems to make you float on air are actually pretty hard (banging the toes on a table is a great way to get the “pointe” across!). I will bring my character shoes and perhaps demonstrate a bit of the Danse hongraise and Czardas from Act III of Swan Lake if my feet are feeling it. I will feel comfortable and relaxed and happy because I will be coming home. But I don’t live there any longer.

Choral Potpourri: Getting Out the Humidifier

November 9, 2015 by Marie Grass Amenta Leave a Comment

“…A person can develop ‘la grippe.’ ” From Adelaide’s Lament

It is mid-November in the Midwest and you know what that means. A few leaves still cling to branches after their brethren have made a truly lovely, colorful exit. Birds are gathering on trees and powerlines to migrate en masse as soon as it turns cold enough. The geese…….well, those ornery geese will stick around until they feel like leaving…..and it might not be for a while. We’ve had several lovely Indian Summer type days of late, but as a true Midwesterner, I don’t let balmy days lull me into a false sense of security. The North Wind has not begun to blow in earnest; the character building weather is a month or so off here in Chicago but we know it is coming. There is a distinct nip in the air which leads me to believe the real deal of winter isn’t far off.

I got out my bedroom humidifier out over the weekend and cleaned and cranked it up. Instead of waiting until I woke to a sore throat for more than four days in a row, I decided to be proactive this year and got it going sooner rather than later. With forced air heat, dryness can be difficult for singers and I’ve depended on a bedroom humidifier for years. It will be of one of several things I depend on to keep healthy over the next few months of the Choral Busy Season and the winter weather that follows.

I set myself up to be healthy during the fall and winter because, like you, I don’t have time to be sick. Getting into the habits of washing my hands all the time (and being especially diligent during cold and flu season), sleeping with a bedroom humidifier once the heating system is on, drinking plenty of water or low or non-caffeinated fluids and getting as much sleep as possible has held me in good stead. I am rarely sick anymore. I am not a physician; but I live with one and don’t really feel comfortable dispensing medical advice accept for one bit: WASH YOUR HANDS!

I was always an allergy, cough and cold gal. Viruses found me no matter what and they always seemed to hit when I was busiest. It was after a particular nasty bout of upper respiratory purgatory I came to this conclusion; there had to be a better way. Since my spouse is an Otolaryngologist (and he was tired of hearing me cough and complain, especially the complaining part), I asked him what I could do to prevent this happening again. I asked again last night and he gave the same advice: Wash Your Hands!

Washing your hands and avoiding sick people (if possible) is good advice for anyone in the teaching profession. Whether we teach in an actual academic setting or not, we Choral Folk are teachers; teachers depend on their voices. And teachers get exposed to whatever bug is making the rounds. Since many of us are also singers (or need to be able to demonstrate), we have to be doubly conscientious about our vocal health. Hand washing is an easy way to be proactive.

Sounds simple, right? Yet most of us don’t wash our hands often enough when we are clearly being exposed to whatever bug is going through town. Hand sanitizers are a good substitute if you can’t get to soap and water right away. I always tried to wash my hands before my children’s choir’s rehearsal but rarely after, simply because I wanted to get back on the road before rush hour. If I had made time to either wash my hands on the way out or had used a hand sanitizer in my car before leaving the parking lot, I probably would have avoided a whole bunch of coughing, sneezing and misery.

What do you do to keep yourself healthy as we approach the Choral Busy Season? In your part of the world, what are the challenges you face as a choral musician because of your climate and how do you handle them? I’m interested in hearing what your challenges and solutions are!

Choral Potpourri: Using Our Skills in Other Ways

November 2, 2015 by Marie Grass Amenta Leave a Comment

“If you want something done, ask a busy person to do it. The more things you do, the more you can do.” Lucille Ball

Right about now we are all gearing up for the next six or seven weeks of insanity. Our concerts loom ahead and so does the end of the semester. The holidays are coming, so in addition to our concerts, we may be Fa-La-La-ing (or not) in our lives outside of work. After our concerts and semesters, we may be able to take a breather…if we don’t have a church job. If we have a church job, it won’t be until after December 26 we will be able to relax. How do we do it all? Well, you tell me.

Earlier this fall, I overheard a phone conversation of one of my sons. He surprised me by telling the person he was speaking to he would ask his Mom how to do it, since she always makes things happen. I asked him what he meant. He told me he thought I always get the job done, no matter what and that’s true. I look at a problem, any deadlines, who (and what) I have to work with and make a plan (with steps) to get it done. That’s pretty much sums up my life, the choral portion and the non-choral portion. The music is the easy part; it is those little things no one tells you about that can make or break you. I believe the skills I’ve developed in our profession help me in my other roles as spouse, mother, daughter and daughter-in-law, sister and “domestic engineer.” Using my choral director skills has helped me to be ABLE to do everything I would like to do as well as things that come up at the last minute.

I have thought about the specific skills we develop as choral directors/conductors which transfer easily over to our civilian lives and have come up with three:

Having a Vision

Planning

Managing

We have to have a clear vision of what we want, how to get it and a history of success with putting the vision into practice. Knowledge of repertoire and what our ensembles are capable of helps with vision, but we need to be realistic as well. We have to deal with the here and now for our vision to become reality. Having a vision can transfer over to our “real” lives when we think about a vacation or a dinner party or painting the den; we may have the vision but should also know what we are capable of at the time to be able to realize that vision.

We have to be planners in our profession. I have a concert timeline, as I am sure many of you do. I am able to know what needs to be done for this concert (and who is supposed to do it) and where on the timeline I should be NOW in regards to the next. How many of you are already planning for fall and winter of 2016 and beyond? I’m sure most, if not all of you. Our ability to plan transfers over in so many ways to our everyday lives. In our professional life, we know how many rehearsals it will take for our ensemble to have a good concert and in our regular lives; we know how much time it takes to do dishes. In our professional life, if we don’t know what we are programming, we can’t order music and in our civilian life, if we didn’t buy bread, we can’t make sandwiches.

We have to be managers of detail in our profession. Though we may not always get our hands dirty with the nitty-gritty, we make sure the nitty-gritty gets done. Risers and sound systems and props and programs; someone has to make sure we have them or can get them in time for our concerts. Double or triple those details if we are going on tour. We also need to know what needs to be done, so it can be done. Most of us have learned the hard way when details fall through the cracks someone pays, usually us. Your mother-in-law’s birthday occurs the same day every year, someone needs to send her a card….is it you?

What skills have you developed being choral director that you believe help your everyday life? Do you use any strategy from your civilian life in your choral life? Remember to breathe and enjoy the next few weeks……you’ve earned it!

Choral Potpourri: The Power of “Thank You”

October 25, 2015 by Marie Grass Amenta Leave a Comment

“Appreciation can make a day – even change a life. Your willingness to put it into words is all that is necessary.” Margaret Cousins

Not all of the Choral Ethic comments I receive are about “conductors behaving badly.” Some are wonderful, touching life and career affirming. Today we’ll speak about how a few little words can make a difference.

Kristie* has directed a community children’s chorus (part of a larger choral organization) for about fifteen years. Her second year, she was approached by the mother of a girl who was really too young to be accepted into their program. Cassie* had an especially awful form of pediatric liver cancer, loved to sing and Cassie’s Mom thought it would be good to give her a chance to sing with other children. Kristie was a bit skeptical but checked with her supervisor and decided to give her a try.

Cassie came the first day and Kristie was shocked. She was a tiny little thing, completely bald with a central line (for her chemo) obvious on her chest. But her spirit and her sweet voice made everyone fall in love with her immediately! As the rehearsal period went along, the fifth grade girls competed with each other to sit or stand next to her during rehearsal. In fact, Kristie had to devise a rotating schedule so all of them would get a chance to be next to Cassie. Unfortunately, Cassie was not doing well by the time their first concert came along and wasn’t able to sing. The fifth grade girls told Kristie they wanted to sing the “Turkey Song” in honor of Cassie at the concert; and so they did.

A few months later, Kristie’s supervisor gave her an envelope (which was obviously a greeting card) from Cassie’s Mom. Cassie had died the month before and her family wanted to thank Kristie and the choral organization for helping make Cassie’s last few months of life so happy. Mom wrote Cassie would sing the “Turkey Song” for hours in the hospital. In fact, the last words she spoke which were intelligible were the lyrics of that silly song. Cassie’s death hit Kristie hard, especially since she didn’t learn of it until after the fact.

Kristie can’t forget Cassie and will accept any child, with any challenge into her non-auditioned group without hesitation. That thank you from Cassie’s family has resonated in her and has changed the way she looks at her professional life.

At the beginning of my sophomore year of college, we got a new choral director for our large university chorus. The director was young, fun and beautiful. Margaret Hillis’ assistant, she called James Levine, “Jimmy” and would tell us to sing out by encouraging us to have coraggio . My friend and I became rehearsal assistants and would take attendance, set up chairs, pass out handouts, doing all those things which needed to be done before rehearsals began. We learned a lot about running a large chorus just by doing those seemingly menial takes.

One summer, three of us worked with her organizing the university’s choral library. It was far from a glamourous job; summer in Chicago being hot and humid, with air conditioning spotty when classes were not in session. It was also dirty and dusty, and we often coughed and had runny noses as we worked. But we learned a lot about organizing music.

At the end of our three weeks, Doreen Rao gave us each a lumpy envelope. In the envelope were a thank you card and a banner of the type you would get at a fancy greeting card store. Mine said, “Keep on Singing,” and I still have it. I have always hung it on the wall next to my kitchen sink to remind me who I am and how necessary it is to thank people.

Doreen Rao’s ‘thank you’ to me all those years ago has made me a big ‘Thanker’. I write thank you notes to each of my choir members before a big concert and my church choir members twice a year, especially around Christmas. I write thank you notes to accompanists and instrumentalists and anyone who helps me with a concert or performance. It makes sense to let people know you appreciate what they do for you; perhaps they’ll do it again.

I need to thank someone now; thank you, Dr. Rao, for showing me the way all those years ago!

*Name Withheld

Choral Potpourri: Pettiness

October 19, 2015 by Marie Grass Amenta Leave a Comment

“Don’t sweat the petty things and don’t pet the sweaty things.” George Carlin

Jackie* and I became friends at a long ago ACDA national conference and have stayed in contact for several decades. She directs a community chorus two states over and recently emailed me about a situation which came up during her summer audition period. She thought it would illustrate why we all need to be aware of Choral Ethics and to encourage our singers and board members to follow our lead in behavior toward others and other choruses.

Like many of us in the community sector, annual auditions are very important to the health of Jackie’s organization. She has a savvy board with plenty of ideas on how to advertise their auditions, but also still go with the tried and true methods of announcing them. One method is taking posters to various places in the community such as local businesses, restaurants, libraries and, believe it or not, grocery stores.

Posters are handed out to board members during the last board meeting of their concert year in June. They are told not to start putting them up until after July 4. Each board member is given instructions and a list of kinds of places to bring them as well as any known protocol businesses may have, such as bringing it to a particular person or on a certain day of the week. Most businesses are happy to put up their posters and encourage Jackie’s people to bring anything else they may have to post as they want to support local arts organizations.

As usual, Jackie’s board members began to bring ‘round their posters after July 4. Soon after, some of the board began to notice something peculiar; their audition posters at one local grocery store chain were disappearing. This particular chain has community bulletin boards at each of their store entrances and anything, with the exception of political posters, is encouraged to be put up. There are pianos for sale and painting services offered and babysitters or guitar lessons advertised. Audition posters for a community chorus would not be out of the ordinary.

Jackie’s chorus has always put up posters in the grocery stores and have auditioned a good number of singers in the past as a result. They were confused why suddenly they were being taken down. Jackie, herself, went to her own local store to talk to someone as to why the posters were being taken down. The Store Manager told her they have no restrictions, other than nothing political, as to what could be posted. The son of the chain’s owner cleans up the bulletin boards about once a month but other than that, he was confused as to why only their posters would be taken down. It soon became clear who was taking them down.

On her way into the store that day, Jackie had put up a poster but on her way out, it was no longer there. As she was walking to her car, she noticed one of her former singers, now a board member of another chorus, loading his car with groceries with her poster in his hand. She didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing and left. The first thing she did when she got home was to call her board president. They decided they would keep aware of what was happening with their posters at those stores and keep replacing them. During the summer, two other board members had a similar experience to Jackie’s; replacing posters and then seeing someone walk off with them, usually someone they recognized as belonging to that other chorus. She doesn’t know if the director of the other chorus knew about his singers’ antics and Jackie doesn’t care. She thinks it’s beyond petty and with his blessing or not, it shows what kind of group they have.

You will be pleased to know Jackie had about the usual number of singers audition for her this summer and all is well. But her chorus will be watching their backs from now on.

It seems bizarre to be writing about the stealing of audition posters, doesn’t it? And yet, it is a symptom of a greater problem in our choral world; silly competitions and lack of ethics. Why would you take down another chorus’s posters? Does one group’s viability diminish yours? Isn’t there room for more than one good chorus in the world?

*Name withheld

Choral Potpourri: Perfection is Over-Rated

October 12, 2015 by Marie Grass Amenta Leave a Comment

Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.” Henry Van Dyke

Many Choral Ethics problems stem from perfection issues, or the perception of what perfection is and how to achieve it. Is the “pure goal” of true perfection just cause for the “end justifies the means” type behavior? Do the people we work with in our quest for perfection matter? Or is the goal of perfection in our performances the end all and be all, our choruses (whether amateur or professional) and their feelings be damned?

Gigi* and I became friends a quite a few years ago. We kept running into each other through a group which helps parents with special needs children. Both of us have three sons and both of us have one son who has autism. When I noticed someone who sounded like my “autism Gigi” here on ChoralNet, I contacted her and asked if she was the same person. We became fast friends. Savvy and smart, Gigi is a long time choral singer and does PR work for the large choral organization she has sung with for many years. She has also been a board member for that group, off and on, depending what’s happening in her own life. When I asked her for a contribution for my Choral Ethics project, she told me this story.

Gigi was not singing with Unity Chorale* that particular concert sequence because they were guest artists for a local Symphony, singing Carmina Burana, which she dislikes a great deal. Another local group (now defunct), Eastern Community Chorus*, was singing Mendelssohn’s Elijah, and she loves Mendelssohn. She auditioned, started going to rehearsals, and enjoyed the Mendelssohn. What she did not enjoy was the conductor. He was an outstanding musician, and gave great visual images for the music, but he was obviously not tuned in to working with amateurs. Instead of saying, “Oops, altos look at measure 59. That second note is a B flat, and you want to sing a B natural,” he’d say, “Altos, in measure 59, what’s the second note?” “B flat,” they replied. “Oh.”

On rehearsal day each week, she’d start asking herself if she really wanted to go to that evening’s rehearsal. She began to sit in rehearsal and think of all of her past choral directors, including high school and college, and realized that none of them needed to be sarcastic to get people to correct wrong notes. In that regard, she feels this choral experience was an opportunity to see the importance of working with positive people…and of being a positive person, too.

Later, she talked to a few people from her church who had sung with this fellow before she had. They all said they would not sing with the Eastern Community Chorus again because of how the conductor handled rehearsals. A couple of years ago, she talked to one of her fellow Unity Chorale singers who had sung with him too. Her friend’s opinion was that a number of the singers liked the director’s style, because they wanted to do the music justice. But Gigi feels there’s more than one way to do the music justice and browbeating volunteers is not necessary.

Many amateurs singers feel in order to “do the music justice” you need to be treated poorly to be able to achieve true perfection. And when we allow directors to get away with behaving badly, they feel they CAN get away with it. A conductor has the power to attract singers or repel them. If Gigi HAD enjoyed singing with that conductor, she may have not returned to the Unity Chorale. Who knows how many singers he repelled who moved on to other groups after singing with him for a concert or two? I would guess there were a significant number. And that number is something boards of choruses need to keep in mind in regards to retaining their directors…..it’s not only concert repertoire or performances but how singers are treated during rehearsals which makes a good conductor. Being a jerk doesn’t mean you are a genius or so perfection driven you don’t feel the need to respect anyone, it just means you are a JERK!