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Advocacy: Responsibility, Calling, Amplification, and Joy

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By Amanda Sprague Hanzlik

2020 marks the year where the definition and practice of arts advocacy began to transition and evolve for me – in my heart, mind, and real life. Until recently, the majority of my experiences with advocacy for the arts, and specifically choral music, have been personal, local, and limited to my places of employment and the houses of worship I have attended/worked in over the years. Those efforts have been forged through conversations, relationships, community events, and creating public/community presence for the choirs I direct and engage with. Even with those elements present in my professional life (and although creating community has always been a very natural part of my life’s work), I will admit that the word advocacy has often felt somewhat foreign and mysterious to me. I always felt as if I were somehow not experienced, educated, or important enough to have a voice and speak articulately about advocacy in any real or official way. Honestly, I even avoided those special advocacy sessions at the big conferences in my early years as an educator. In my naïveté, I sincerely thought that people in far away offices at ACDA and NAfME were the ones who held the advocacy cards – I was a worker bee in the trenches, who looked to them for guidance.

What I didn’t yet understand was that advocacy of the arts is a multidimensional process; a multi-layered web of relationships, issues, policy, collaboration, and ultimately, action.

Sometimes, advocate is a verb – sometimes, a noun. Individuals and institutions often need an advocate in a variety of situations; they self-advocate or seek advocacy efforts to be made on their behalf. One of my favorite definitions comes from AgeUk, a charity organization in Leeds, United Kingdom:

The role of an advocate is to offer independent support to those who feel they are not being heard and to ensure they are taken seriously and that their rights are respected.

An advocate does not represent their own views but amplifies that of the person they are supporting. An advocate should also empower the person to advocate for themselves wherever possible. – AgeUK -Leeds

These definitions became extraordinarily relevant in my developing relationship with advocacy – particularly the sentiment of amplification. According to Merriam-Webster, these are the definitions of amplify:

1 : to expand (something, such as a statement) by the use of detail or illustration or by closer analysis

2a: to make larger or greater (as in amount, importance, or intensity) : INCREASE

b: to increase the strength or amount of

especially : to make louder

My favorite? To make louder.

Amplification of our voices, issues, concerns, ideas, and solutions is necessary – and as I discovered, it is a defining element and tool in the development of advocacy efforts.

I currently serve as president for the Connecticut chapter of American Choral Directors Association (ACDA), and in the spring of 2020, I was practicing advocacy by actively searching for and seeking out assistance, resources, and connections for Connecticut choral directors, so that they might be able to feel supported and advocate for themselves and their programs/choirs during the first wave of COVID-19 and remote learning. Then, something happened: a new and urgent need for arts advocacy on a much larger stage presented itself. The State of Connecticut began to explore and create an official Reopen Connecticut Advisory Group – and quite surprisingly, not a single arts organization was offered a seat at the table. I knew that I, and we as an ACDA executive committee, had to step into the arena – and we did (as did many other CT arts organizations). This letter is our public statement and was shared widely via email and social media, and was delivered to the desk of our governor.

The process of this very public statement/engagement with governmental agencies and the amplification of the voices and concerns of my fellow educators was clearly new for me. Although I felt and recognized the weight of that specific responsibility, it was the action that felt like the fulfillment of a calling. This action gave voice to my choral colleagues, and created a way for all of us to be seen, for our needs to be amplified in an arena where impactful state-level policies were being considered and developed. Ultimately, this action also produced closer relationships and an evolution of trust with my local government, state representatives, the members of the CT-ACDA and other arts organizations in the state. It even opened the door for me to engage in a very practical way, by serving on a task force, where I, along with a diverse group of other arts educators, created “K-12 COVID-19 Considerations for Music Education Programs in the State of Connecticut.” This action also opened my eyes to disconnect and need for more purposeful engagement, connection, and intention on the part of the ACDA and other arts organizations in our state – we cannot remain reactive or reserve our presence for times of crisis. Arts organizations, and specifically ACDA chapters, must establish patterns of engagement with our governmental bodies, as a normal and cherished part of our mission and community involvement.

This entire process, the action, the relationships, the negotiating, the collaboration, the WORK – it was and is a calling. All of these elements also produced depths of joy and gratitude, for which I was not prepared and had no way of anticipating. For the first time, I felt that I was stepping beyond the role of traditional advocate into the role of citizen-artist, in a new and unexpected way.

The role and definition of a citizen-artist can be defined as the following:

Individuals who reimagine the traditional notions of art-making, and who contribute to society either through the transformative power of their artistic abilities, or through proactive social engagement with the arts in realms including education, community building, diplomacy and healthcare.  – The Aspen Institute Arts Program

I am seeking what it might mean to more fully explore and embrace the roles of advocate and citizen-artist, both in my life as a choral musician and educator, but also – looking ahead – for the transition of my role into past-president of our ACDA chapter.  I see this new role as an opportunity to follow this calling and joy of advocacy – to more intentionally seek better ways to forge authentic relationships with other arts organizations and governmental bodies: to evolve and to challenge myself, our chapter and our state to pursue connection, justice, equity, dialogue, meaning, and the creation of policy through the amplification of the voices of individuals, arts communities, and choirs in Connecticut and beyond.

Amanda Sprague Hanzlik is president of the Connecticut chapter of American Choral Directors Association.

From India Ink to Digital Bits

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By D. Geoffrey Bell

The process of musical composition has changed dramatically over the last fifty years. With the advent of personal analog and digital technologies, composers have adopted an evolving set of technological tools that have transformed the way music is written. This, in turn, has had a significant impact on performances by many choral groups and other musical ensembles.

Pencil and Manuscript Paper

As a young composer, I was accustomed to sitting at the piano, testing various melodies, harmonies and rhythms on the piano until they sounded just right. I would jot my final choices down on manuscript paper, using a standard wood pencil. I quickly learned to refine my set of tools. A mechanical 0.7 mm pencil proved far superior to give clear, consistently readable notation, and a white vinyl eraser was far more effective than a pink rubber eraser for removing mistakes. Purchasing manuscript paper was frustrating because each ensemble required a different grouping of staves. Eventually, I assembled a collection of many manilla file folders, each containing a specific format of manuscript paper for each type of ensemble.

India Ink and Vellum

When I became a composition student at the University of Calgary in 1974 under the tutelage of Dr. Richard Johnston, I was introduced to the world of translucent manuscript vellum, fountain pens and India ink. This seemed positively medieval to me, but this was how a “good copy” of a finished musical work was written down at the time. (Personal computers were just starting to be available to hobbyists, and few people thought that they would ever become a household item. Music writing software was only a futuristic dream at this point.) The copying process was specific: place the vellum manuscript face-down on a desk, and carefully inscribe the music on the back using a fountain pen and India ink. A small error was left to dry; then the ink was carefully scraped off with a razor blade, and the correct notation was inscribed. Since the staff lines were on the other side of the vellum, they were not damaged if an error had to be removed. If a large error was made, that page went in the garbage bin, and you started over.

The finished work was taken to a special photocopier at the Canadian Music Centre in the university library. The side with notes was placed against the glass, and the photocopier’s light was bright enough that the staff lines showed through the back as the copy was made. If a work was sufficiently important to have the pages bound, they were sent by mail across the country to the head office in Toronto to be copied and bound, then returned by mail weeks later. I had to have my compositions completed a couple of months ahead in order to have bound scores ready for the jury at my senior graduation recital!

Electronic Sound Synthesis

Before I became a university student, my father introduced me to “Dripsody”, written by Hugh Le Cain in 1955. (Between 1945-1948, Canadian physicist Hugh Le Caine invented the “Electronic Sackbut”, considered to be the first electronic music synthesizer.) We engaged in serious debates; was it music? How much of it was created randomly by a computer? How much was the intentional, creative work of an intelligent, thinking human? Was this new “computer music” just a novelty that would fade quickly, or was it the beginning of a whole new genre of music that would last and develop? Whatever it was, I was fascinated, and knew I would have to explore and create such new music if I ever got the chance!

Musique Concréte

During my time at the university, I studied electronic composition with professor Warren Rowley. We experimented with the creation of musique concréte using reel-to-reel tape recorders. This involved recording live sounds with microphones, then altering them by changing the tape speed, playing the tape backward, or by creating physical tape loops that circled through one machine repeatedly while the resulting sounds were recorded on another machine. Some loops were small enough to fit on the same table as the tape recorder. Others stretched across the room!

The chance to sample environmental sounds and musical sounds, then manipulate them to create new sounds, laid important foundations for my creative development. It’s unlikely that musicophiles will clamour to purchase recordings of my “Nocturne for 3 Pot Lids, 2 Knives, Voice and Cookie Tin”, but studies such as this certainly informed my development as a composer.

Sound Synthesis and Multitrack Recording

The other key equipment in the electronic music program was the Moog Studio Synthesizer. (In 1963, Robert Moog introduced the first Moog synthesizer; it was monophonic and analog, using transistors to replace vacuum tubes that had been used in previous music synthesizers.) The studio model was state-of-the-art for the early 1970s. It included four modular units that housed analog oscillators, filters and an analog sequencer; a musical keyboard, and a ribbon controller. The power had to be left on night and day to keep the oscillators in tune. The synthesizer keyboard and ribbon controller were monophonic, only able to play one note at a time.

Every sound had to be built from scratch, accomplished by plugging patch cords from one module to another to another. I quickly learned to wear patch cords hanging around my neck so they would be handy at a moment’s notice. An eight-channel tape recorder allowed the composer to build a piece of music, one track at a time. Of course, larger projects required more than eight tracks; the composer had to mix a few tracks together, then “bounce” them onto a single track so more instruments or voices could be added. The process was very time-consuming because each piece of music involved so many steps: building specific sounds, recording individual voices, bouncing tracks and creating a final mix to record on stereo tape.

Portable Synthesizers

The development of portable synthezisers opened up a whole new realm for live performers on stage. Before this key development, keyboard players relied on various forms of pianos and organs as their mainstays. Suddenly, many rock, pop and jazz keyboard players had the opportunity to explore and create completely new instrument sounds and timbres, well beyond the scope of previous known instruments! Keith Emerson, Rick Wakeman, and Herbie Hancock are notable examples of keyboard players who embraced the new portable synthesizers, exploring new sonic possibilities.

The Moog company released a promotional recording to demonstrate the musical capabilities of their instruments. It featured “Snow”, by Chris Swansen. I was awestruck!  Would I ever be able to create such amazing electronic music?

As a keyboard player in various rock, jazz and blues bands before starting university classes, I had some experience playing analog synthesizers, both monophonic and polyphonic. The sounds were still created using electronic oscillators, modified by filters and shaped by “envelopes” that controlled attack, decay, sustain and release. After learning my way around the equipment in the university Electronic Music Lab, I put everything I had into creating a completely synthesized, carefully composed, rock work.

Recording of “What?” by D. Geoffrey Bell.

As I was developing my own compositional skills and knowledge, accomplished composers and performers were making headlines in the world of music by creating complete, satisfying musical performances using completely synthesized instruments. “Switched-on Bach” by Wendy Carlos (released in 1968 under the name Walter Carlos) was an entire album of Bach performed on a Moog studio synthesizer. Some musicians were enraged, dismissing the entire idea as a cheap trick. Others were enthralled by the new, electronic interpretation of serious music. The debate raged on; how much of this was computer-generated performance as opposed to skilled human performance? Was this a legitimate way to perform Bach’s music? Was this just the next electronic evolutionary iteration of the pipe organ? Would people ever attend a concert that was performed primarily on a synthesizer?

Alternate Approaches

The Mellotron was also introduced in 1963, offering an alternate approach.  It had one or two 35-note keyboards that played individual tape recordings of real instruments such as flutes, violins and ‘cellos. It was designed to provide the richness of orchestral sound that could be played by a single performer. This opened a new debate; would the Mellotron put flautists and string players out of work?

Digital Sound Synthesis

The Fairlight CMI (Computer Musical Instrument) was introduced to the world in 1979. Unfortunately for me, the Fairlight all-in-one polyphonic synthesizer arrived at the University Electronic Music Lab just as I was graduating. It introduced a ground-breaking combination of digital synthesizer, sampler and workstation. This opened up an exciting new world of possibilities for composers and performers, significantly streamlining the process of creating new music. Digitally synthesized sounds had a clear, crisp quality. The sampler allowed composers to record and save ANY sound, assign it to any note on a musical keyboard, then play the sound at any pitch up and down the keyboard! On my last visit with Professor Rowley I saw the cardboard boxes being opened, but I never got to play a note.

MIDI – Musical Instrument Digital Interface

MIDI controllers such as keyboards and the EWI (for woodwind players) were introduced in 1982 to allow human performers to create, control and perform music using the vast array of new synthesized and digitized sounds.  Repeated, identical performances played by a computer gave way to nuanced, musical performances by real musicians.

The percussion family was not left out when the Musical Instrument Digital Interface was created. Electronic drum machines, MIDI drum pads, computer-generated percussion sounds, and digitized drummers were all developed. Composers have an arsenal of sounds available to create music using “virtual” instruments.

Altering and Replicating the Human Voice

Well before electronic synthesizers were invented, other researchers experimented with manipulating and replicating the human voice electronically. The original Vocoder was patented in 1939, providing the means to artificially reproduce human speech, or create a hybrid combination of human speech (or singing) with an electronic signal. The Vocoder was adopted as a new instrument in popular music in the 1970s, offering a whole new range of vocal sounds and effects. Early adopters used the Vocoder as a novelty “special effect”, producing a robot-like voice that punctuated the music. Later pop artists used the Vocoder as a significant, central musical voice or vocal effect, such as Phil Collins’ “In The Air Tonight” in 1981, and Imogene Heap’s groundbreaking tour-de-force, “Hide and Seek” in 2005.

The Vocaloid software followed; the first generation used algorithms to analyze a human voice, then create a computer-generated voice. In 2010, the world was introduced to Japanese 3D hologram pop star, Hatsune Miku. A talented back-up band played live onstage on the sidelines, accompanying a completely computer-generated singer, seamlessly combining 3D animation and a Vocaloid voice. The concert audience responded just as enthusiastically as if they were being entertained by a live singer and band!

The next generation of Vocaloid software digitized real human singing voices and stored them as musical instrument files that could be played back, controlled by a computer or MIDI keyboard. More recently, some of these voices can read and “sing” music and lyrics from a score. The voices still have an artificial quality at times, but carefully edited scores are able to produce some remarkable results! Composers of cinematic scores and pop music have begun to create new musical works using all-digital musical resources.

Personal Computers and Home Studios

The advent of the personal digital computer made all of these technologies available to everyone with access to a computer. In 2011, new Macintosh computers began shipping with GarageBand software installed, effectively providing every user with a home recording studio equipped with digital instruments, pre-recorded instrumental “loops”, a built-in microphone, and sampling and mixing capabilities.

Auto-tune Software

Auto-tune software is another development in the digital manipulation of sound that has become pervasive in pop music. Vocalists who don’t have accurate intonation can have their singing processed by software to correct their tuning. Many pop stars and recording studios have embraced this technology wholeheartedly, and the evidence can be heard in their recordings. Other singers choose to perform and record using their natural singing voices, even though their intonation might not be perfect all the time.

Composition Software

In 1988, the first version of Finale computer software was released, specifically to provide composers with all the tools they need to write music; the first version of Sibelius was released in 1998. Finale and Sibelius became leaders in the field, with other software developers offering a variety of competing products.

Today, most music publishers will no longer look at hand-written scores; submissions must already be typeset and be accompanied by a good-quality recording! To this end, music-writing software now has the ability to play the music back using MIDI computer-generated voices, or digitally sampled voices and instruments to create a “virtual orchestra” on the computer. Garritan, BBC Spitfire and NotePerformer are contemporary examples of digitized orchestral instrument libraries. The less-expensive products tend to sound more artificial, but the high-end products can sound very convincing.

Many orchestral movie scores in recent years have been created using digital orchestral instruments and voices! Many live performers today do not use scores printed on paper. Instead, they read a PDF file scrolling by on a digital tablet or screen.

15 Minutes of Fame

Laptop, tablet and smartphone users are now able to download apps that allow them to download, create, manipulate and upload music with ease. It is completely possible to write brand new lyrics and music, make a digital “recording” and post it online without getting up off the couch!

In 1968, Andy Warhol predicted that everyone would have their own 15 minutes of fame. As outlandish and unlikely as his prediction sounded at the time, the pervasiveness of the Internet, the “500 channel universe” (coined by John C. Malone in 1992), and personal technologies allow anyone to post text, art, photos, videos and music across multiple online platforms. Items that make an impact are frequently re-posted by others, and sometimes rebroadcast by the news media. Anyone can try their hand at being an author, artist, photographer, composer, performer, entertainer and critic!

This, of course, is a double-edged sword. The Internet is flooded with creative works by millions of people trying to promote their own work and ideas. It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the sheer number of works available to the consumer. At the same time, many established fine arts organizations now have powerful tools to promote their work, maintain relationships and interact with current supporters, and cultivate new audiences.

What is the Result of These Developments?

Clearly, many popular music genres have adopted electronic technologies wholeheartedly, to the point where they are an integral part of the music. Recording studios have moved from tape to digital recording and mixing. The world of classical or “serious” music has heard some efforts to incorporate electronic sounds into the music, but this often seems to be more a novelty than a trend. New Music societies continue to explore new sounds, including the use of electronic technologies.

What is the Impact on Choral Music Today?

Do any of these developments matter to choral composers, conductors and choirs? The answers depend on the music being performed and on the style of performance. A traditional choir that performs strictly classical or sacred works may have felt little impact over the past fifty years, maintaining a tradition that sounds much as it did fifty years ago. At the other end of the musical spectrum, groups that specialize in “New Music” may have experimented with many aspects of digital technologies, with results that challenge the abilities of the performers and the ears of the listeners.

The majority of conductors and choirs will likely find themselves somewhere in between. We certainly have choirs using microphones, P.A. systems with mixing boards, added reverb, and digital recording studios. Some use auto-tune. We see performers reading PDF scores and using electronic tuners and metronomes. Some choirs sing along with MIDI soundtrack accompaniments. Eric Whitacre’s virtual choir projects have been tremendously successful, using technology to gather voices, mix them, and broadcast virtual choir performances. When the COVID-19 pandemic caused choirs to stop meeting in person for a while, many choirs tried their own versions of singing together using technology. Still, a survey of modern choral music shows that the majority of choral composers and choirs have not fully embraced all of the possibilities and potential available through electronic and digital music technologies.

Does it matter? Can these advances in music technology be applied to create new, meaningful music experiences?

Four Questions to Consider About Your Own Investment in Music Technologies

  1. Think back over your last ten years of concert programming, or music you have learned over that period of time. How much of it involved digital or electronic music technologies?
  2. Reflect on your personal collection of recordings. How many of them are primarily electronic, or feature electronic or digital music?
  3. What are your plans for upcoming concert programming, or for music you plan to learn or commission in the next five years? Do you have plans to “push the envelope” to explore new electronic sounds?
  4. Are you curious about taking your own “next step” to explore new possibilities with technology and music?

The Composer’s Perspective – Putting New Sounds to Work

Each time composers sit down to write a new piece of music, we have all of these tools at our disposal. The sheer number of possibilities can seem daunting! Until recently, I kept my choral and electronic compositions separate from one another. They seemed like they should remain completely discrete from one another. During the early stages of writing this article, I attended a concert of new choral music, which only confirmed my earlier beliefs. I did not enjoy or appreciate the use of electronics in one piece; while some of the effects added resonance and sonic interest, others just seemed like gratuitous sound effects, distracting my attention from the skillful performance of the choir.

Not long after, I listened to Ēriks Ešenvalds’ “Stars”, and was enthralled with the ethereal, other-worldly sonority generated by a simple drone effect from water-filled glasses. Surely there must be a way to use electronic or digital sounds in a sensitive, musical way to enhance the effectiveness of a choral work without detracting from the choir’s performance! I looked further, but could find few examples that I found to be musically satisfying.

As a result, in 2020 I wrote my first work for choir accompanied by a hybrid of natural, electronically modified and completely synthetic sounds. The goals were to support the choir rhythmically and harmonically; to incorporate sounds from nature such as wind, wind chimes and birdsong; and to add depth and resonance using electronic sounds that were musical and sensitive, all without overwhelming the choir. I am satisfied enough with the results that I plan to write more choral works with electronic accompaniments.

Looking Ahead to Plan Your Future Musical Journey

Many choirs have established a tradition of commissioning a new work each year, or holding a competition for the creation of a new choral work. In recent years, more choirs have shown interest in works that combine choral and electronic performance.

As you look back over your own musical journey up to the present, I invite you to consider our collective musical and technological journey over the past fifty years, then to consider the many fascinating possibilities we can explore in the future!

Learn more about D. Geoffrey Bell and his music at www.dgeoffreybell.com.

Travel with the Non-auditioned Choir, Part 3: Immersing Your Singers in the Local Culture

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By Patricia Guth

Traveling with a non-auditioned and (often) mostly older choir is far different than taking your professional, high school, or college ensemble on tour. If you read the first two installations of this blog, you’ll recall that I talked a lot about the importance of choosing the right tour company and destination, the pacing of the trip, concert venues and audiences, and balancing sightseeing and singing with free time. In this portion of the blog, we’ll chat a little about providing your singers with a truly immersive experience.

Choosing the right hotels

You might think where you sleep each night has nothing to do with allowing your ensemble to embed itself in the culture of the nation to which they are traveling. But it actually has a lot to do with it!

There are two ways to look at hotel options. The first consideration deals with price. If you are traveling with high schoolers or young adults and endeavoring to keep prices down, you’ll likely choose a 3-star hotel on the outskirts of wherever it is you’re visiting. For many ensembles, that’s the way to go. It’s almost always less expensive and will certainly be suitable as, in most cases, your singers won’t be going off on their own. That means proximity to attractions won’t matter a lot.

However, for my non-auditioned choir, which includes many women who are well traveled, we’ve discovered that there’s much more to choosing a hotel than just finding affordable lodging. For this type of adult ensemble, having a few extra comforts is important. A lovely on-site restaurant and bar, or a pool and spa, for example, are perks that add a bit more to the hotel experience. And, of course, rooms with working air-conditioners seem to be paramount for American travelers, whenever possible.

But what we found to be most important is finding a good hotel in the city center or in a location close to public transportation where a jaunt into the city is simple. When we were in Budapest and Helsinki, for example, we stayed at hotels that were literally steps from museums, shopping, and other amenities. In Salzburg, we couldn’t stay in the center of the town but the bus station was right behind our chosen hotel and many of our singers took advantage of the city’s easy-to-navigate transportation during our free night there.

So, before you agree to lodgings, take some time to research the hotels you’re offered to be sure they fit the needs of your group. Not what you want? Ask your tour company rep what you can get for a slightly higher price and trim your costs elsewhere, if necessary.

What about meals?

Finding food that makes everyone happy can be tricky. We all have different eating habits. Some eat little. Others will think they haven’t gotten their money’s worth. You’ll likely also have vegetarians and vegans on your trip as well as those with medically necessary dietary restrictions.  As such, no group meal will please all.

It’s hard to work around this but we’ve found that if your tour company selects a meal and restaurant that reflects the local palette, you’ll at least be allowing your choir members the opportunity to get a taste of the flavors of your destination, even if they’re not nuts about them. (Just make sure dessert is phenomenal and everyone will walk away happy!)

While most tour companies will see that breakfast is included daily and will likely schedule a few group dinners during your travels, it’s often a wise idea to include opportunities for your travelers to go off on their own and find something to eat that truly floats their boat. For some, it might be the local pizza parlor. For others, it may be way more exotic!

Unscheduled lunches followed by free time are ideal for exploring local restaurants. I fondly recall happening upon a great outdoor cafe in the central square in Tallinn, Estonia, and enjoying what was probably one of the greatest meals of my life…and it was all by chance.

So, that said, don’t feel the need to plan every meal. Leave some food experiences to chance and your singers will no doubt experience some extraordinary culinary highs.

Scheduling cultural activities for your ensemble

When I was the conductor of a youth choir that traveled domestically, we made it a habit to schedule bowling and laser tag during every tour. It was something to which we all looked forward and we joked that it was the only time I could “shoot” the kids.

With my women’s chorus, we have chosen cooking as our must-do activity on each journey. During every tour, we participate in a cooking class at a local restaurant or cooking school, where we learn to make delicious local cuisine. Thanks to our tour organizers at KI Concerts, we’ve worked together to craft full meals in Carignano (Tuscany), Vienna, and Tallinn thus far, and then together enjoyed the fruits of our labor around a table filled with smiles. Our cooking school in Vienna even presented us with aprons embroidered with our first names and chef hats we could wear while cooking, as well as diplomas at the end of the class. It was magical and joyous and we sang as we cooked!

Of course, if cooking doesn’t appeal to your group, there are many other options. You might consider folk dance lessons, for example, or anything that speaks of the area you’re visiting and allows the ensemble to work together towards producing an end result, be it a meal or something else. We chose cooking because everyone can do it (including the men!), it’s ideal for large groups, and it’s fun (especially with a little extra wine on hand!). Nonetheless, if that doesn’t appeal to you, ask your tour company for other ideas.

Go for it!

There’s so much to consider when planning a tour and just thinking about it can be intimidating. If you’ve contemplated touring with your non-auditioned choir and aren’t sure whether it’s something you want to tackle, know that every tour we’ve done has represented one of the highest points in my choir’s history. With the right tour company, a well-thought out itinerary, great singing venues, and an adventurous group of singers, your experiences and those of your ensemble members will be unforgettable and pretty darn near picture-perfect.

We’ll be heading to Ireland in 2022 for our 10th anniversary and already have dozens who’ve indicated interest in the tour! It’s not too early to plan something to which your choir can look forward after a vaccine is available. Here’s to happy, COVID-free days when we can sing and travel together again!

I hope you’ve found this blog series helpful and am happy to answer any questions and further share our travel experiences with my community choir colleagues. Feel free to contact me at .

Travel with the Non-auditioned Choir – Part 2: The Ideal Itinerary

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By Patricia Guth

In my last blog, I wrote in detail about choosing a tour company and a destination that are right for the make-up of your non-auditioned choir. To review, things to consider include a company that truly understands your singing organization and plans for them accordingly, as well as a locale that is suited to the age, mobility, and interests of your group.

Once you’ve decided on a suitable performance tour destination for your ensemble as well as determined the proper length of the trip, it’s time to think about the daily itinerary. The way each day is planned is so important to the well-being of your group, especially when you’re journeying with older travelers, which is very often the case with non-auditioned choirs included both community and church ensembles.

First things first

Obviously, the most important part of any performance tour itinerary is the concerts. You’ll want your choir to be provided with the best possible performance opportunities; concerts that they’ll remember for years to come in locations that are unlike any you’ve previously experienced. We’ve had those, even on our first trip, which didn’t go quite as well as our others.

While you might think that the ultimate performance location is opulent, elegant, historic, and so forth, what we’ve discovered is that the most meaningful and memorable concerts aren’t always in grand churches or old palaces.

While we’ll likely never forget singing in Helsinki’s famed “Rock Church” or at Salzburg’s Residenz Palace, other less-grand performances continue to permeate my memory and will always be amongst our most epic travel moments.

There was the small community center in Venice, where you could open the windows behind us and hear the gondoliers singing on the canals outside. Add to that the joy on the face of the tiny Italian woman who sang every word of Over the Rainbow with us. Magical! And the senior home in Bruck an der Letha (near Vienna), where a group of residents – most of whom couldn’t speak English – were so obviously touched by our singing that they hugged us again and again, thanking us with their best danke, then feeding us apple strudel and sachertorte until we could eat no more! Truly unforgettable!

Hence, we discovered that the people for whom we perform are often more important than the location of the concert. This is where we – as directors – need to put our egos aside and recognize that the size of the room doesn’t always equate with the depth of the experience. Rather, the size of your heart and the swell of your love for singing and sharing music is much more important.

Of course, emotions aside, you’ll also want to check on some logistics. Make sure that the concert locations are easy to reach on foot and/or are close to bus parking (see my first blog where I spoke about walking a mile on cobblestones to a concert location in Italy), that there are ample and easy-to-reach restrooms, and that risers or stages aren’t too steep or hard to reach and are comfortable for your singers, especially your older members.

We’ve found that 3 concerts on a 10-day tour is ample, avoiding the first full day and last day of the trip. Jet lag at the beginning and worries about packing and buying last minute souvenirs at the end make those difficult days for performances.

And then there’s collaboration. Most tour companies will happily pair you with local choirs for joint concerts and, for us, these have been so very special. A clever tour company like ours will do everything possible to match you with a choir similar to yours. One of our favorite memories, for example, is a performance and post-concert social with a non-auditioned mixed voice choir in Stockholm.  Like my singers, they exuded a joy for singing and showed it!  We could have talked for hours and many of us are still in touch with singers from that group. So, don’t miss that opportunity to share the stage and much more!

It’s all about pacing

Have you ever come home from a trip proclaiming that you need a vacation from your vacation? Often, it takes you a week to recover!!

While it’s okay, of course, to be pleasantly exhausted by the time you get home, I’ve discovered that it’s really no fun to deal with a bunch of overtired choir members each and every day of the tour. Eliminating that problem comes from working closely with your tour company to draft a daily itinerary that’s suitable to the age and stamina of your singers.

While directors of high school and college ensembles want to keep their students as busy as possible – simply to keep them out of trouble – that doesn’t need to be the case with adults. While touring, we opt for a pleasant mix of singing, sightseeing, and free time. While we make sure that we get to the see the highlights of each destination, we incorporate that free time so that our very capable adults can make their own choices, be it a nap in their hotel room or a trip to that art museum or botanical garden they’re always wanted to visit. Free time provides options, and when you’re traveling with a group of independent adults, it’s okay for them to wander off on their own or, if they prefer, spend their time in the hotel bar. That built-in free time allows for each person to exercise their individuality!

So, as you and your tour company are crafting each day’s itinerary, make sure that there are some days available for sleeping in, others with free afternoons, and some with nights where your singers can head to the opera, a nightclub, or simply take in their destination under the lights. It’s okay if you don’t do everything as one big group!

Coming up next: Tips for immersing your choir in local culture; choosing the right flights, hotels, and dining.

The Power of Purposeful Collaboration: A 1000-Mile Collaboration between RISE Chorales (Savannah, GA) and Lawrence Community Girl Choir (Appleton, WI), including Composer Matt Carlson (Gettysburg, PA)

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By Karen L. Bruno and Dr. Emily Williams Burch

In a year during which many of us have experienced deep divisions and conflict, purposeful collaboration can be a balm that pulls us together. As teacher-conductors, many of us have spent hours on Zoom meetings and webinars sharing best practices, learning from one another, and building our community of colleagues. But have we considered how to help our singers experience the power of purposeful collaboration? When sitting down to plan for their virtual choir season, RISE Chorales, a Savannah-based choral organization, and the Lawrence Community Girl Choir Program based in Appleton, Wisconsin, started with one overarching goal in mind: through a collaborative musical process, singers would share their stories, exploring both the challenges and the joys of living through a pandemic.

RISE Chorales Founder/Artistic Director, Dr. Emily Williams Burch, met the Lawrence Community Girl Choir Program Artistic Director, Karen Bruno, while serving on the national American Choral Directors Association’s standing committee for Advocacy and Collaboration. Bruno then was a guest on Burch’s “Music (ed) Matters” Podcast, which led to a discussion about creating a meaningful collaboration.

“I love that this project celebrates our singers’ voices – literally and figuratively,” comments Bruno, whose high school choir, Bel Canto, is participating in the collaboration. “As the world changes around them, it’s important that our students have opportunities to be involved in projects that celebrate and incorporate their ideas.”

The culmination of the collaboration will be the co-creation and premier of a new work by composer Matt Carlson. Members of each group will share their experiences of living and making music during a pandemic, and Carlson will set these thoughts to music for the choirs to learn and premier.

“Writing music has been so important to me as a way to process the complex emotional thoughts of the time in which we live,” says Carlson. “It’s a composer’s dream to be able to work with choirs in real-time while writing a new piece. I’m thrilled to collaborate with these excellent choral programs, and to provide a space in which their students may be inspired to respond to our world through writing music of their own.”

During the initial rehearsal, singers learned the song Give Light, a song written by Greg Artzner and Terry Leonino of Magpie. Its text comes from words of civil rights activist Ella Baker; in preparation for the combined rehearsal, both choirs read an article about Baker’s life and critical role in the twentieth-century American voting and Civil Rights movements. As high school girls comprise each choir, centering the words and experience of a Black woman was an important way to begin to build community. The singers then discussed the song’s melody, rhythm, and harmony in small groups, drawing their own parallels between the elements, text, and experience of singing and listening to the song together. Finally, composer Carlson led the singers through Begin, a piece he wrote for treble choirs in June of this year. He explained what inspired him to write the piece and shared important aspects of his composition process.

The choirs will come together four more times between November and February. They will record Begin as one group and will more deeply explore the themes of resilience and community, sharing ideas that will inform Carlson’s new composition. When asked to make up a headline to describe the first rehearsal, singers submitted ideas like, “Music Leads the Change We Need in the World,” “Listening, Learning, and Loving,” and “Powerful Women’s Choirs Unite in Their Individuality.”

This type of collaborative project is not difficult to create, but it does require alignment regarding goals or outcomes. Find a collaborator whose program is aligned with yours in terms of level of expertise, age group, and interest level so that community is easier to build, and be sure to set shared goals for the project that will benefit both programs. If one teacher-conductor or program is doing more of the planning or teaching, or if one teacher-conductor envisions a different final outcome of the collaboration, singers will be caught in the middle of an uncomfortable process.

Also note that collaborations need not take place over several weeks or months – a one-time workshop or experience can be just as impactful as a longer-term commitment. What does your choir need? What can you envision? What are your own strengths and weaknesses? Will your singers grow more if a third person – someone outside both organizations – is at the helm? How will the collaboration benefit everyone involved?

For instance, this project began with teacher-conductors learning about one another’s programs. They identified shared goals and decided upon the scope of the project. They chose rehearsal dates and times and created outcomes for each rehearsal. Meetings before and between rehearsals have featured collaborative, specific, and structured lesson planning. Specificity creates accountability for each participant, ultimately ensuring that each group’s needs are being met.

As the members of RISE and Lawrence’s Bel Canto look to future rehearsals, singers hope to get to know one another, learn the musical culture of each choral program, and make music together. Everyone involved is excited to see how the singers’ words and experiences become textual and musical ideas for a new choral composition. The students immediately understood that they were building a new community through this project and are excited to “overcome distance,” “face adversity,” and “spread love and empowerment” together through this project.

To learn more, visit RISEchorales.com, communitymusic.lawrence.edu/programs/girl_choir, or mattcarlson.co.

Travel with the Non-Auditioned Choir – Part 1: Getting Started

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By Patricia Guth

Traveling may be the furthest thing from your mind right now. Or it may be at the forefront of your thinking. If you’re like me – an extrovert with a fantastic case of wanderlust – you’ve probably figured out that in your spare time (and there’s plenty of it) you’ve had time to research some locations for your bucket list and have no doubt lamented all the lost opportunities for travel this year.

Personally, my husband and I missed out on a Mediterranean cruise with our son and family and my daughter and I had to cancel our girl getaway to Paris, carefully designed to celebrate our 25th and 60th birthdays.

Professionally, my choir was four weeks away from getting on a plane heading to Athens and the Greek Islands. We were so close. So close. And then everything came to a screeching halt. There would be no magical Mykonos nights. No Santorini sunsets. No early morning breakfasts on the rooftop of our hotel, which was to provide us with an amazing view of the Acropolis. We were crushed.

The reason for our immense sadness was not only because we wouldn’t see Greece and all of its beauty and history. That was certainly a big part of it. But the extreme disappointment stemmed from the fact that our choir travels have been among the most amazing moments in our nine years of singing together. Our trips to Italy, Hungary, Austria, Finland, Estonia, and Sweden have produced incredible musical highs and have strengthened the bonds of friendship in a way that can only come from the sharing of the amazing musical and cultural experiences we encounter on our choir tours, put together by a company that really gets us – a non-auditioned but immensely talented and enthusiastic group of singers that place fun and fellowship on par with singing.

Recently, I got up the nerve to start talking to my choir about travel again. Though we won’t go anywhere until spring 2022 – provided there’s a vaccine – it seemed like a good idea to bring up something to which we could look forward during this time when the uncertainty of the upcoming holidays – a time of joy for most – looms heavy on our hearts. I recognize that there are many like me who will jump on the bandwagon and sign up for a trip to just about anywhere, while there are others who will fear travel for some time. How sad! But I understand their hesitancies and respect their decisions.

Nonetheless, I’ve decided to go ahead with planning and will soon announce the dates and destination for our next trip. (Greece is iffy because part of the tour includes 5 days on a cruise ship, which makes many uncomfortable.) I’m doing this with guidance from my trip-planning friends at our concert tour company – who I trust and adore – and hope that my enthusiasm wears off on my singers.

While post-COVID travel may be a little different than travel of the past, I’m still approaching this 2022 tour using the same parameters I always do. Traveling with a non-auditioned group of adult singers – mostly over 55 – is a bit of a different animal than touring with high school or college kids, and over the years a number of things have emerged as factors that are of the utmost importance when making decisions about these tours.

Finding the right tour company

We learned the hard way that interviewing several tour companies before saying “yes” is the way to go. Mea culpa! I was so excited about our first performance tour that I booked the first company that presented me with an exciting tour at a seemingly good price.

What we discovered, however, was that they hadn’t listened to me at all regarding the make-up of the choir as well as the potential limitations of the members. Though we are a group that ranges in age from about 25-85, most of our travelers are NOT our young members, who are busy with children or just don’t have the money to pay for a tour. As such, most of our travelers are over 55 – many considerably older – and aren’t up for 12 hours of non-stop activity and tons of walking with little rest in between.

In addition, many of my singers are well-traveled and expecting a little more than stays at 3-star hotels on the outskirts of a city and eating lunch at highway rest stops. They want nice hotels, delicious meals, and free time to explore on their own . . . or just to rest. We didn’t get that the first time. It was all go-go-go, there was too much crowded into eight days, and the exhaustion often outweighed the experiences. While we still had a memorable time, a lot was lacking.

My current tour company – KI Concerts – truly listened to me before they even attempted to sell me on an itinerary. This included a personal visit to meet me and the choir, hours of chats and emails about my expectations and that of my travelers, and the willingness to create something special outside of their normal itineraries. The result has been two – and almost three – trips that were absolutely superb and fit my choir perfectly.

Choosing the ideal destination

Not all destinations are suitable for a choir like mine and it’s a lesson I learned after the first trip as well. I only wish that our first tour company had perhaps suggested I reconsider my choice and my wish list when I first approached them about going to Italy, which includes terrain that’s pretty tough on older singers, especially those with some mobility issues. Venice, while beautiful, was not our friend, so to speak, and trekking over a mile on cobblestones and over bridges from the Grand Canal area to our concert destination nearly did us in. While my choir did a bang-up job of singing for our guests, I know they dreaded the trip back to the area where we’d catch our boat back to our hotel. It put a damper on the experience.

In addition, we tried to fit too much into a limited number of days, which meant we were in constant movement with little rest except during drives on the motorcoach. It would have been nice if that tour company had suggested that maybe I reconsider my wishes. Perhaps 2 or 3 stops instead of 5 or 6 would have been more suitable.

So, when it was time to consider the next tour, I was more careful about choosing the right place for my choir members. The staff at KI and I had long talks about destination: places where the terrain was easy to navigate, concert locations that could be reached by bus or just a short walk, the ability to book hotels in the city center or near public transportation, and ways to immerse ourselves in the local culture, which is paramount for us.

So, while I’d love to go to Iceland, for example, I recognize that it’s more of a “natural” destination that probably wouldn’t fit the needs and wants of our group. Rather, the selection of a location with good museums, excellent hotel choices, delicious food, and wonderful singing venues is much more important to us. And while the choices we deem to be the optimal destinations might not be everyone’s dream destination, we’ve discovered that as long as we’re there together, making music for and with those who reside in those wonderful places, it doesn’t much matter where we end up.

In my next blog: Crafting an itinerary, special activities and events, and immersing your choir in the local culture.

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