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I had a band colleague a few years ago who faced a problem. The football coaches were pressuring him constantly to increase the size of the marching band. It didn't seem to matter that he already had the biggest band in the conference, that the rehearsal hall was filled to overflowing and that there were […]

Life’s too short to not have a little fun.  All one can say is, “Doh!”  

It’s Sunday. Try to relax a little.  

ChoralNet reader Michael Zaugg recommended this video to me but didn't tell me what the work was about.   It is an impressive piece of videography, especially on my 27'' monitor!  Can you help me figure it out?     <p><a data-cke-saved-href="http://vimeo.com/29583282" href="http://vimeo.com/29583282">Männerstimmen Basel | TRAILER | tøngedrøhn</a> from <a data-cke-saved-href="http://vimeo.com/maennerstimmen" href="http://vimeo.com/maennerstimmen">maennerstimmen basel</a> on <a […]

“The ability to concentrate and to use your time well is everything if you want to succeed in business–or almost anywhere else for that matter.”   ~Lee Iacocca

The addition of sound effect and movement is a good way to enliven a choral concert.  In our current media-driven world where we are all bombarded by non-stop video images (TV screens in the grocery store!? Please.), people seem a little uneasy when they are challenged to contemplate music without a visual component.  I hold […]

Tuning. It's a minute-by-minute challenge, isn't it? Some selections sound as though they shouild be easy to sing in tune, but they reveal themselve to be quite difficult.  Then there are works that are almost relentless in the demands on the singers.  Here we listen to an example of a work that requires tremendous tuning […]

CINCINNATI (OH) – This was Erich Kunzel’s vision when he led the charge to bring the 2012 World Choir Games to Cincinnati USA. The beloved Cincinnati Pops founder and icon, who died Sept. 1, 2009, dreamed of watching the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra in the Opening Ceremony of the 7th World Choir Games at U.S. Bank […]

It occurs to me that we sometimes underestimate the emotional capabilities of those in the choirs we conduct.  Take for instance men’s ensembles.  I love “Brother’s Sing On,” the various college fight songs, and the other rousing standard repertoire for the men’s chorus.  Listen though to the text of this too-seldom heard work by Lee […]

In an conversation with famed conductor Eric Ericson published in the Choral Journal, interviewer William Wyman asked, “If you were advising a choral director as to what you felt were the important pieces that he or she should be attempting to study and perform, what might some of those pieces be?”   Ericson’s reply:  “It […]