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PUBLISHERS, COMPOSERS, CONDUCTORS (Part 4), by Jameson Marvin   Mood – now there is a concept! I am quite familiar with moods! And especially sensitive to changes of moods. Being mood-sensitive, I am easily flooded with emotion. And this brings me to what I think of as the central core of all of this: I […]

PUBLISHERS, COMPOSERS, CONDUCTORS (Part 3), by Jameson Marvin   How do we get to the point of making this decision? There are many overlapping answers, but I think for choral directors it is because we try to figure out how the music is related to the text. I try to understand why the composer wrote […]

PUBLISHERS, COMPOSERS, CONDUCTORS (Part 2), by Jameson Marvin   Personally I am as interested in performing a motet by Josquin, as I am in performing a Haydn Mass or a Bach Cantata or Tarik O’Regan’s latest composition. For example, in a single year, my Glee Club sang The Four Prayers of St. Francis of Assisi […]

PUBLISHERS, COMPOSERS, CONDUCTORS (Part 1), by Jameson Marvin   What changes/modifications if any do you think need to be made to better reach out to today¹s audiences?   I think inspiring performances draw audiences. The word spreads and more people come. It is a mutually enriching cycle. Through insightful program notes and texts with translations […]

It’s time, kids! The winter break has ended (or is about to).  It is time for us to emerge from our drowsy, over-fed mid-winter holiday slumber and awaken our musical ears for the second half of this glorious choral season.  Of course, during this choral halftime you have no doubt invested time pondering your game […]

Sorry, yet another sound that will infest your ears all day . . .  

(An excerpt from the Choral Journal article, “Francis Poulenc’s Petities Voix 1936” by Dorothy A. Lincoln)          Petites Voix was written later in the same year that Poulenc wrote the music for Sept Chansons. Also that year he finished composing the Litanies lla Vierge Noir, a work for women’s or children’s voices and organ. […]

(An excerpt from the Choral Journal article, “Quality in Choral Groups” by Harry Robert Wilson)          Perhaps it is time that we choral conductors re-examine and re-assess our purposes and objectives.  Have our choral groups gradually become organizations devoted to entertainment of both singers and listeners? Has the emphasis unconsciously been placed upon the […]