Latest Blog Posts
Read This BEFORE Making New Year’s Changes
For many of us, the New Year brings about a desire to make sudden changes to our choral program. Before you decide WHAT changes you wish to make, I suggest you read this post to determine if THOSE specific changes are worth your time and effort. Read This BEFORE Making New Year’s Changes
One from the Folder: Repertoire Thoughts for Women’s/Treble Choirs
#40: Friday, January 4, 2019. “Sweet Radiant Mystery” by Catherine Dalton. Four-part equal voices, piano or handbells.
As an extended round, this piece should be a quick read, even for less experienced ensembles, and is suitable for a number of concert themes and pedagogical uses. It is so much more than “just” a round though. There is beauty found between the notes, and within each overlapping imitation. Savoring these moments creates a contemplative cloud that envelops the singer and the audience alike.
Choral Potpourri/Choral Ethics: Story Time
“Finding good players is easy. Getting them to play as a team is another story.” Casey Stengel Happy New Year ChoralNet! I hope you all had wonderful holidays. And I also hope you spent some time recharging and refreshing before your next batch of rehearsals and classes begin. January’s Choral Potpourri/Choral Ethics Blogs will be […]
Ode for St. Cecilia’s Day
Going Beyond Words Host, Stan Schmidt begins the new year with some classic choral music including three Renaissance Christmas motets recorded by The Sixteen with Harry Christophers from their newly released 2018 CD. The new disc is spritely and accurate with such composers as Sweelinck, Handel Eccard, Lassus, Dering, Byrd, Guerrero and more………….the feature CD […]
Choral Journal Focus Issues
It is nearly 2019! Here at the National Office, we would like to wish you a very happy new year. Following is a list of focus issues printed in Choral Journal since 1999. We have had some wonderful features and guest editors over the past two decades, and if you have not yet had a […]
This Choral Director’s New Year’s Resolutions for 2019
Many of us have resolutions in our personal lives, but do we make them at work? I have 3 New Year’s CHOIR resolutions for 2019 This blog explains my 3 CHOIR resolutions, and WHY I’ve chosen them. Do they resonate with you too? Or will they inspire you to come up with your own?
One from the Folder: Repertoire Thoughts for Women’s/Treble Choirs
#39: Friday, December 28, 2018
“Look Down, Fair Moon” by Mari Esabel Valverde
Text by Walt Whitman
SSA div, piano
This hauntingly-beautiful work by composer Mari Esabel Valverde offers a contemplative (and accessible!) take on Whitman’s elegy for the fallen. It is ideal for concerts focusing on reflection, reconciliation, war/peace, and the social costs of violence.
Choral Potpourri: Let There Be Peace on Earth
“This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.”Leonard Bernstein Have you ever noticed the best holiday stories portray some sort of dream? From the ballet, “The Nutcracker” to all of the many incarnations of Dickens, “A Christmas Carol” someone is always sleeping and having […]
Laud to the Nativity
This week on Going Beyond Words and ACDA Radio/ChoralNet host Stan Schmidt concludes his four Advent and Christmas programs with a special presentation of an old Capitol LP recording that he brought back in 2004 for Clarion Records, with the help of Paul Salamunovich who worked closely with the noted conductor Roger Wagner. It was […]
Gestures or Words?
Dr. Daugherty, Ph.D. at the University of Kansas, constantly stressed delivering remarks in seven words or less. This might be a hard fast rule for advanced or professional choirs, but it is certainly an efficient manner in which to manage rehearsals for younger choirs.