Latest Blog Posts
Guest ChoralTech: A DIY Website Crash Course
Have you wondered about having a website for your group? Not sure where to begin? Decided "it ain't for me?" Today is the first of a series from guest ChoralTech blogger Seth Garrepy on how to build your own choral website. “Your choir needs a website.” Does this statement immediately cause gnawing anxiety […]
Rehearsal pacing
We all recognize a well-paced rehearsal when we experience one. What does it mean to create a well-paced rehearsal? I think one of the most important things is to plan in advance for variety: hard work on some individual pieces or sections of pieces, run-throughs of more familiar music, alternating faster with slower […]
Scholarly Abstractions: Philippine Choral Music
Yanson, Eliezer, Jr. Philippine Choral Music: A Conductor’s Guide to Selected Works Composed between 1900 and 2010. Doctor of Musical Arts dissertation. University of South Carolina, 2010. The Philippines is a country that possesses unique choral traditions, excellent choirs, and fascinating composers. Along with deep tribal roots, the musical practices of the Philippines are […]
Conductor’s Health Survey
Your input is needed to understand the health of conductors! An online survey has been created to better understand the medical issues and injuries related to conducting. This survey is for both choral and instrumental conductors and is being sent to the members of many different conducting organizations. The research is being conducted by […]
Stick Time: Look Ma, No Score!
Yesterday’s column featured a “CJ Replay” in which a colleague opined, “It is only logical that the choral director who memorizes his music like his/her singers shows respect for the singers by being equally prepared. After all, music is the director’s business.” Of course, memorizing an entire program can be challenging. However, if one […]
Stick Time: Musical Universality
We’ve all said it: “Music is the Universal Language.” It’s probably trite; but one suspects it just happens to be true. In this brief selection, we hear a choir from Korea singing for the 2009 ACDA National Conference. Does the audience understand Korean? Doubtful. However, as choral musicians themselves, the members of the audience […]
CJ Replay: Conductors Should Memorize the Score
(An excerpt from a Choral Journal Letter to the Editor by Lawrence B. Larsen [p.11]) It never makes sense to me either why choral directors use music when their singers have taken the time and effort to memorize it. I have heard countless numbers of directors demand, "WATCH ME," and yet they never as […]
CJ Replay: Doctoral Choral Conducting Auditions
(An excerpt from the Choral Journal article, “The Nature of Doctoral Choral ConductingAuditions at Selected Universities in the United States: A Survey,” by Hilary Apfelstadt) In order to determine the main components of doctoral choral conducting auditions at selected universities throughout the United States the author conducted a survey of established degree programs_ The […]
Stick Time: Importance of the Soloist
Depending upon the environment in which you conduct, the use of solo voices can run the extremes: from driving your programming to leaving you on the podium pondering “What on earth was I thinking?” The correct solo voice can elevate a choral work to new heights. Having the wrong voice in a musically-exposed situation, well, […]