Latest Blog Posts
Scholarly Abstractions: Estonian Composer Ester Mägi
Garbes, Heather MacLaughlin. To The Bards: The Choral Music of Estonian Composer Ester Mägi. Doctor of Musical Arts dissertation. University of Washington, 2008. Although the popularity of Arvo Pârt and Veljo Tormis have brought the awareness of Baltic music to a new level in the past few years, there is an immense amount […]
GUEST BLOG: “Stop Teaching Karoke,” by Carl J Ferrara
STOP TEACHING KARAOKE ~ by Carl J Ferrara I’ve had many arguments with administrators and fellow teachers about the use of pre-recorded accompaniment. Many believe it’s a cheap, easy, and convenient alternative to hiring an accompanist. Purchase of a recording saves you money over the hourly fee charged by most pianists. It is also a […]
Should we forbid teachers to text students?
From guest blogger Nick Cummins: This Huffington Post article above deals with the texting issue and the ramifications of media and electronic communication. In recent weeks, I have learned that some large school systems in Mississippi have programs that allow teachers to send mass texts to their students without the ability to reply. […]
Stick Time: Masterpiece, Warhorse, Chestnut
Whether they are known by the term “Warhorses,” “Chestnuts,” or the somewhat more pedantic “Standard Repertoire,” there is a body of major choral works that seem to have been generally accepted as falling under the heading of “masterpieces.” The titles should be familiar to everyone in the profession and include such works as Ein Deutsches […]
Choral Caffeine: Why Did You Program That?
Recently, a friend whose choir had been invited to perform in a prestigious venue asked me to make some literature recommendations. Though a humbling request, it was, of course, impossible. Programming is already a massive challenge for us in working with our own choirs, let alone trying to select literature for a choir we know […]
Stick Time: Melding Past and Present
Inspiration comes in many forms, from many places. Here a thoroughly modern composition takes as its inspiration a chant from the sixteenth century. Of course, there is nothing particularly earth-shattering about a composer taking inspiration from the past, but it does tend to reinforce the timelessness of the choral art form.
Scholarly Abstractions: F. Melius Christiansen
Pinsonneault, Albert. A Conductor’s Guide to Selected Choral Works of F. Melius Christiansen (1871-1955). Doctor of Musical Arts dissertation. University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, 2009. F. Melius Christiansen (1871-1955) created a pioneering American a cappella choral ensemble, the St. Olaf Choir, which influenced an entire philosophical school of choral performance within the United […]
Illustrated Guide to a Ph.D.
I love this. My professors at FSU were really good at explaining this hyper-narrowing of focus to me, in their own way. Still, I wish I'd seen Matt Might's explaination of the Ph.D. process then (or even better, before I'd left home for graduate school). I'm a bit thick-headed and, despite my professor's best efforts, maybe didn't […]
ChoralTech: Recording In!
The idea of sharing audio with our friends, be it for practice or entertainment, isn’t a new one. Mixtapes, practice tapes and sing-along recordings have been around as long as we’ve been able to put sound to recording. Now, though, the ability to record is so ubiquitous that people are often lost on even how […]