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Paul Carey goes to a lot of choral conferences and I’m glad!   He helps all of us keep a digital record of what goes on at these conferences.   We saw each other at the latest conference of NCCO and Paul has created three posts about the literature sung.   You can find them […]

Shorter University is well known in my area for their strong students, faculty, and tradition of excellence.  In the field of choral music, they have recently been led by well known conductors that included recently deceased John Jennings, John Ratledge, and now Martha Shaw.  Their tradition of excellence continues under Dr. Shaw – they have […]

Who thinks up this stuff?  

NCCO is in Fort Collins, Colorado this week.  It is the fourth conference for the relatively new organization.  I’ve been to three:  the first in San Antonio, the second in Cincinnati (with my choir performing), and this one.   This is a very strong conference – top notch sessions and very strong performances from college […]

A podcast on station WQXR talks about changing role of the orchestra conductor. It was Arturo Toscanini whose famously broke batons, berated musicians and even threw a score at his orchestra during rehearsals, all we were told, in the service of the music. By the 1960s, collective bargaining agreements and workplace rules helped to do […]

Like any good coach, we all work to train our teams to get the most out of their bodies:  to use their voices with tremendous skill, to focus the energies of their breathing mechanism, to mind their posture whether seated or standing.  This choir has obviously work do develop the hearing of the singers to […]

“As choral conductors we are called upon to grasp hold of a composer’s intentions and then communicate those intentions first to our choirs and then, through performance, to our audiences. The conductor’s primary tools of communication are gestures, though in our rehearsals we rely heavily on words often far too heavily. Ab, the patience of […]

    “If you are open to all the good that will come out of music-making, you will be surprised at all that will come your way.  Within the music is a deep wellspring of energy. Return to the singing, to the performing, to the rehearsing when you are low. It will give you strength. Notice […]