Choral Culture

“I trust in nature for the stable laws of beauty and utility. Spring shall plant and autumn garner to the end of time.” Robert Browning

This first Thursday of September marks the FIFTH anniversary of my Blog here at ChoralNet, Choral Potpourri. I’ve written over 250 Blogs, more or less, including repeats during the summer and requests for a favorite blog or two. I take my blogging duty seriously. Many of you contact me with your queries and dilemmas for advice about important things, as well as some not so important things. Many ask if they are “right” or what they are feeling is “right” or sometimes just want to know if they’re on the “right” track. Most just want to be reassured and I try to make you feel good about your choices.

I chose the name “Choral Potpourri” for my blog because I planned to write about many things choral related in addition to what I call “Choral Ethics”, and I have. Often, I write about subjects of concern to those who contact me or seasonal thoughts or an issue in our profession or in the news which affects us. But at the heart of this Blog is Choral Ethics.

For the month of September, I will be reviewing what Choral Ethics is and how it came to be. With this most unusual year and the beginning of our academic and concert seasons, perhaps it would be good to contemplate as we navigate our very different circumstances.

A little over five years ago, I began to write about something I called “Choral Ethics.” A few things motivated me, including a rather unpleasant encounter at a community arts event with a choral colleague.  Nothing seemed to provoke our confrontation; in fact, I had just recommended the person for a rather nice job. But she was hell-bent on being unpleasant, so…unpleasant she was.  She harangued me in public and I thought she was being “unprofessional” as well as something else I couldn’t define. After our encounter, I began thinking about behavior, specifically what we deem “professional” behavior.

“Professional” means different things to different people and musicians throw the term around all the time.  It may mean being on time for rehearsals and gigs, being cooperative and even collegial.  It may also mean practicing and being prepared—having the right music or a pencil handy–for rehearsal.  We can agree being a “professional” may mean being on time or bringing a pencil, but it is something much more. “Professional” may also be used to describe a conductor’s behavior. 

As I began to think of what I believed a lack of professionalism, it occurred to me it is not a lack of professionalism but a lack of some sort of accepted ethical guidelines of behavior within our profession. There are things we should not be doing, of course, and we all think we know what they are.  But do we?

There are plenty of people, both musicians and “civilians,” who give conductors and singers a pass for bad behavior simply because they are so high strung and talented and artistic and so concerned with perfection and so…..well, you fill in the blank.  They reason, since the Maestro/Maestra is so talented, they must be justified in behaving like a four-year-old and the rest of us must not be as talented because we don’t.  Somewhere along the line, it’s become acceptable and even preferable within our profession to be prickly in the name of music. When we accept this behavior in others, we can be sure to be treated to another round of something new and even more outrageous from them the next time.

Physicians take an oath—the Hippocratic Oath–as they graduate from medical school and are awarded their M.D.s. They swear to “do no harm.”  I wonder if we should be required to do the same.  We must do no harm to our singers, both physically and emotionally, by using our knowledge of the human voice to prevent injury and by not emotionally abusing them by our behavior inside rehearsals and out.  We must do no harm to our colleagues by not bad mouthing or undermining them in public to singers or audience members or the community at large. We must do no harm to our profession as a whole by upholding ourselves to as high a musical standard as possible within our scope of expertise and by respecting the rights of the composers we perform. As well, many believe it important to choose repertoire not in conflict with their own belief system, whether because of a composer’s behavior or a composition’s message.

Each of us needs to think about our own personal code of choral ethics, ideally beginning to develop our code while in training. Those working with young conductors can begin the process by being a good example first and sharing their personal codes with students. I find my own teachers and the conductors I have worked with influencing my own ethical code, whether positively or negatively.

Next week, I’ll share some thoughts about my own personal code of Choral Ethics. Until then, be well and be safe.

I am taking my Choral Ethics Blogs to my chamber choir’s Facebook page for the foreseeable future. Please join me there this morning!

“If we ever get to the polls once, you will never get us home.” Anna Howard Shaw

Today Choral Potpourri brings you Sexism Stories from several ChoralNetters. Most of their stories aren’t long, but they are telling.

Geraldine* heretofore known as “Gerry” was hired by a community college to be their choral director. When interviewed, she was told, in addition to her college position, she would be expected to direct the adult community chorus sponsored by the college. She never met anyone connected to the community chorus until their first rehearsal, fall semester. Gerry was also told she could hire her own accompanist, so she did, her friend Adam*.

Adam was her usual accompanist, so they walked in together that first day. And what do you know, everyone welcomed Adam with open arms. They told him they couldn’t WAIT to work with him, were looking forward to learning from him and were eager to see what he would program. The singers all but ignored Gerry and mentioned the piano was in the corner under the piano cover; she would have to take off the cover and move it closer if Maestro wanted her to. Adam and Gerry gave each other a look, and let it play out. Gerry removed the piano cover and moved it a bit closer to the podium while Adam chatted away with the singers. She was also told to pass out music by the chorus’s president.

Five minutes before rehearsal began, after Gerry had passed out music, she stepped onto the podium and the singers gasped. Adam took his place at the piano and Gerry introduced herself and then Adam. There was a bit of chatter but once rehearsal began, it died down. During the first break, folks came up to her to apologize for mistaking Adam for her. Many told her they were worried when they realized their mistake—they had never heard of a woman conductor! Gerry tells me this happened to her over forty years ago and HOPES this doesn’t happen now.

Heather* is not a choral conductor but an orchestral conductor. A few years ago, she interviewed and auditioned for a music director position with a small professional orchestra. Trouble began in the first rehearsal; several WOMEN string players questioned her tempi, dynamics, and bowings constantly. They asked if she was sure she wanted what she asked for. They chattered as she was speaking, much to the embarrassment of many others in the orchestra. After the performance, those WOMEN string players turned their back on her and refused to shake her hand, muttering about being expected to work with a witch**. Heather was relived she didn’t get the job. She wasn’t quite sure her treatment was because she is a woman, but her gut tells her it was.

The church which hired Glenna* was desperate for a choir director. Their organist refused to do anything other than play—loudly—and accompany, he wouldn’t even come to choir practice. Their last choir director had left them in the lurch and Glenna agreed to help. This denomination had few women in leadership, at any level, so when Glenna arrived at her first rehearsal it was with a bit of trepidation. When she stopped the choir to clean up a cut-off the first time, all the women of the choir turned to the pastor for permission to follow her directions. Pastor told them to do what Glenna asked them. She stayed for two years until she could no longer stand being expected to get approval from a MAN, a non-musician at that, for something as elemental as a cut-off.

During the five years I’ve been writing Choral Potpourri, I’ve gotten at least one or two emails A MONTH from readers wanting to know if asking if they planned to have children in an interview was ethical. Or, if they had children, if they planned to have more. It is not legal to ask to ask someone’s childbearing status in the United States but somehow, the point is often brought up with women. It seems to rarely happen with men; I have never heard from any man about this situation. Josie* is married and both she and her spouse are choral directors. Joe* is NEVER asked in interviews if he plans to have more children and Josie is ALWAYS asked, though usually in a round-about way. Josie contacted me a few years ago to share her story because she thinks this illustrates how sexist audition panels can be. I would agree.

Next week, a wrap-up of sorts and my hopes for the future for our choral profession. Until week, be well and be safe!

*Name Withheld

**You know the word I mean

I am taking my Choral Ethics Blogs to my chamber choir’s Facebook page for the foreseeable future. Please join me there this morning!

“Through persistent dedication, Susan B. Anthony, and other remarkable leaders, women were finally granted the right to vote in 1920.” Louise Slaughter

One hundred years ago this month, women in the United States were granted the right to vote. I say “granted” because that’s what many folks say, like the right to vote was a wish “granted” by a Fairy Godmother. In reality, the right to vote for women was fought for and marched for and WORKED for, over many years. White women were finally able to vote in 1920 but their Sisters of Color struggled for decades after to achieve suffrage. It would be lovely to say—and wrong—that women suddenly gained equal rights in every aspect of their lives in 1920 but the struggle goes on for many, even now.

During the month of August, Choral Potpourri/Choral Ethics will speak to the rights of women and what that means to us, as musicians and leaders. But first, let’s look at the way’s things have been in the past.

Classical music, along with most other types of music, has always been sexist. Women were not encouraged to perform or compose or, for goodness sake, to conduct. If you were someone’s sister, such as Nannerl Mozart or Fanny Mendelssohn, you were tolerated or treated as some sort of clever novelty until you married and stopped performing, even if you had been more of a prodigy than your darling Baby Bro. And if you were married, such as Clara Schumann, whatever you did was chalked up to being married to a genius; never mind you composed, taught and performed (she was a prodigy BEFORE she married) to put food on the table for your seven (or was it eight?) children—Clara was the definition of a working musician! Amy Beach never went by that name once she married, even AFTER her husband died (she attempted to go by “Amy” but was asked if she was her own daughter!) and was always known as Mrs. H.H.A. Beach in her lifetime. Ruth Crawford Seeger stopped composing (check out her string quartet) to be assistant to her ethnomusicologist husband, Charles Seeger, though put together several collections of children’s songs with her own settings.

Women opera singers, when women were finally allowed to perform in public, were often assumed to be “Strumpets” or “Tarts” much like their non-singing actress or dancing counter-parts were. The morality of women, no matter if they sang or played an instrument or danced, was the subject of more than one tittle-tattle of the time, especially during the 19^th century, as women began to demand their rights as full-fledged citizens. And getting back to Amy Beach, using your husband’s name with “Mrs.” gave you a respectability, since if your husband “allowed” you to perform or compose, you must not be a Tart!

I’ve had my own interesting and sexist experiences as a woman choral conductor. I hadn’t wanted to be a choral conductor, but a ballet conductor, and was told “girls don’t conduct orchestras.” Someone on the board of a local orchestra once told me TO MY FACE they didn’t like how my “rump” looks when I conduct. Someone else wondered aloud, in front of me, if I really could be a conductor because they weren’t sure women could conduct. One of my singers, in a long-ago church choir, wanted to know if he should call me a “conductrix” or if I liked “directoress” better (by the way, I told him “conductor” or “director” was just fine). At one church job interview when my youngest son was about seven, I was asked if I planned to have more children. I have several In-Laws who believe my spouse (a lovely man and a physician) knows more about conducting than I do because he loves music and he’s a man. None of this would have happened to me if I were a man.

Yes, I’m a conductor and have studied long and hard to do what I do, so why the doubt? Is it because of the way I look? Is it because my voice is high? Is it because of my gender or that I’ve had children? Or is it that I do not fit most people’s vision of what—and who—a conductor is?

Many of you have had similar experiences to mine and have shared them with me for years. Through the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing some of these stories from ChoralNetters about their own sexist experiences in Classical Music. The last Thursday of August, I hope to share my vision for women in Classical Music and the Choral Arts going forward. Please share YOUR IDEAS with me and I’ll include them in that blog:

Until next week—be well and be safe!

I am taking my Choral Ethics Blogs to my chamber choir’s Facebook page for the foreseeable future. Please join me there this morning!