Latest Blog Posts

Next stop, Oxford University and St. Edmund Hall. Betsy and I are joined by composer, conductor, teacher James Whitbourn. Or as he describes himself, a musician. We discussed the Oxford system of colleges and the wide range of choral opportunities it provides. I was fascinated by this because I had never taken the time to […]

Are your students off-the-wall the final rehearsals before Thanksgiving? I LOVE the final rehearsal before Thanksgiving break. In fact, the Pre-Thanksgiving rehearsal is my favorite rehearsal of the entire year. This one rehearsal has tremendous value and leaves a lasting impression on my students. This blog post is FILLED with ideas that can start TODAY and go straight through the holiday season! […]

“My sorrow, when she’s here with me, thinks these dark days of autumn rain are beautiful as days can be; she loves the bare, the withered tree; she walks the sodden pasture lane.” Robert Frost  Today’s Choral Ethics blog is a revisited blog from last fall. During the tough times we are going through with […]

#74: Wednesday, November 17, 2021
“Controlled Burn” by Dessa and Jocelyn Hagen
SSA, string quartet, piano

This work is part of a Graphite Publishing Collaboration project – involving cooperative artistic endeavors from Dessa and Jocelyn Hagen. Dessa is a singer, rapper, and hip-hop artist; Jocelyn is a composer, theorist, and performer. Together, they created this piece for accompanied choir titled “Controlled Burn.”

We are busy people.  We have full lives; we live at the center of a wheel that turns constantly, with professional, family, health, spiritual, and personal spokes of responsibilities, challenges, and joys.  We bounce between feeling full and satisfied and just plain busy with lots of activities that don’t seem to be organized into anything […]

The November 2020 issue of Choral Journal is online and features an article titled “Addressing Contextual Information in Multicultural Choral Repertoire” by Tiffany Walker. You can read it in its entirety at acda.org/choraljournal. Following is a portion from the article. _________________ There is an ongoing need to help choral music educators make informed decisions about how to select culturally […]

The Second Installment Betsy Cook Weber’s Sabbatical Series! In this stop, Betsy visits Stockholm, Sweden to see Gary Graden and the St. Jacobs Kammerkör. Betsy, Gary and I discuss how an American born director ended up learning from Eric Ericsson and never leaving. We also dive into the philosophies, practices and approaches that lead to such a […]

“I can live for two months on a good compliment.” Mark Twain A few years ago, ‘way before the Pandemic, I decided to conduct a little experiment. I randomly thanked and complimented family, friends, and strangers during the month of November. Why November? Usually, we are encouraged to be consciously thankful l during the month […]

Maria A. Ellis, founder of Girl Conductor LLC and host of Bach & Beyoncé, was tasked in January 2020 by The St. Louis Children’s Choirs to start a new inner city choir. In the very segregated St. Louis, Ms. Ellis explained, The St. Louis Children’s Choirs are located on one side of town. Black people […]

By Matt Harrison In this season of change, how often have you taken the time to meaningfully meditate on why we do what we do?  Perhaps, we must first examine exactly what it is that we do. We connect and engage with our singers.  We cultivate powerful, lasting, and transformative relationships.  As my good friend […]