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Choral Ethics

Choral Potpourri/Choral Ethics: Moving On

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“Tis not too late to seek a newer world.” Alfred Lord Tennyson

I mentioned last week, Choral Potpourri/Choral Ethics will be re-visiting some of our most discussed Choral Ethics dilemmas for the month of January. So today we begin with one topic discussed many times, “Moving On.” Moving on can be by choice or NOT by choice and through the five years of this blog, we’ve spoken about both a quite a number of times.

What does “Moving On” mean for us in January 2021? Some of us have had our lives upended and changed irrevocably. Through no fault of our own, we have been let go, furloughed, or expected to do our jobs in ways we never imagined we’d have to do them in January of 2020. Many have had to put their lives and plans “on hold,” perhaps waiting to go back to school or to leave a job because it doesn’t make sense to do anything drastic now. And there is nothing we can do about any of it right now. With luck and the vaccine, we should be back to almost normal toward summer or fall and can look forward to that time.

Later this year, some of us may be able to fully return to our positions with a new appreciation of our art and our fellow artists. Or our positions will have adjusted to our present reality and we will be expected to as well. Many of us have been forced to re-think what we do and may decide to do something completely different and that’s fine. Let’s look at some of the ways we’ve “moved on” in the past so they may inform our choices for moving on—or staying put–when we are able.

I’ve presented Choral Ethics dilemmas from ChoralNetters who wanted to know if they were justified for leaving a position because of the number of illegal copies in the choral library of the church they serve and being expected to USE THEM. Or an accompanist who needed to vent about a community chorus director’s mental decline, how he was expected to cover up for her and was not acknowledged or respected for doing so. He was venting because his partner had finished med school and was beginning a residency in another state. He had no regrets in leaving and wanted to know if he was a jerk because he didn’t care. Several folks DID care about leaving a position and knew moving on was best for their own career. They wondered if they SHOULD move on if leaving would cause difficulties to folks they generally liked.

There have been a number of correspondents who were either planning to retire and wanted to know how to smooth the path for their replacements or had already retired and wanted to know what their role was now that they had left. In that vein, one person reached out to me because a former singer was stirring up trouble with the new director and he wanted to stay out of it but also wanted to help. I’ve had several correspondents who complained about their predecessor leaving them in a “scorched earth” position or had somehow sabotaged their programs, making it difficult to carry on.

The most difficult “moving on” stories have been from those who were terminated and had no choice but to move on. Most didn’t see it coming, which is why they contacted me. Most of their stories have never been part of my Choral Potpourri/Choral Ethics blog because I respect their confidences and feelings. The ones I HAVE shared (with my correspondents’ full knowledge and support) have been life lessons I thought would benefit all. Several of those I have shared were the types of “trust your gut and get out before you are thrown out” stories. And there have been a number of correspondents who seemed so arrogant, so full of themselves I truly see why they were let go. I’ve shared one or two of these stories (thoroughly disguised) because I thought they’d be helpful to illustrate a point.

As we begin this New Year of 2021, use your time wisely. And use that time to choose a NEW path so you may move on without pause. Or stay on your old path, whichever makes the most sense for YOU so you may have no regrets.

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! https://www.facebook.com/themidwestmotetsociety/

Choral Potpourri/Choral Ethics: Ring Out the Old, Ring In the New……

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“Ring out the false, ring in the true.” Alfred Lord Tennyson

Happy New Year, ChoralNetters! I hope you had a pleasant holiday season or as pleasant as it was able to be. A New Year is here, and with that, a hope for a better year for ALL of us. We just need to help it along somehow.

How are things going for you? Is there light at the end of the tunnel? Are you struggling? How is your choir? Are you able to be in contact with most of your singers? Is your position in jeopardy? Are you able to do a bit of your job, if only by Zoom?

Like many of you, I’ve struggled this holiday season. For the first time in DECADES, I did not have a holiday gig of any sort. I haven’t been exactly sad but more melancholy-like than anything else. I know things are getting better with a vaccine, health care workers and the most vulnerable among us getting theirs before the rest of us. But I still struggle as we all wait to begin singing again.

To begin this year of uncertainty, I thought it would be productive for me, and for all of you, to re-visit some of our most discussed Choral Ethics dilemmas. And, as I always like to use an epigram of some sort to begin or introduce our topics, thought I would choose four of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s most appropriate quotes this January. Today’s epigram (and title) is taken from Lord Tennyson’s poem, “Ring Out, Wild Bells,” and forms part of “In Memoriam,” his elegy to Arthur Henry Hallam, his sister’s fiancé who died at age 22. Most appropriate this year, his poem speaks of leaving the past and destructive beliefs behind, looking toward the future for healing and renewal. A lovely image to begin a New Year and especially THIS NEW YEAR!

To begin my New Year, I plan to study new repertoire, brush up on some of my foreign language skills and get back to basics while I wait to rehearse again. What do YOU plan to do as we begin this New Year?

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! https://www.facebook.com/themidwestmotetsociety/

Choral Potpourri/Choral Ethics: Let There Be Peace on Earth

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“This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.” Leonard Bernstein

Choral Potpourri/Choral Ethics has been running past December Blogs the last few weeks. This one is perhaps the MOST requested of all our Blogs. This year, it’s message is especially important. MLGA

Have you ever noticed the best holiday stories portray some sort of dream? From the ballet, “The Nutcracker” to all of the many incarnations of Dickens, “A Christmas Carol” someone is always sleeping and having a dream. There is also the ‘alternate universe’ version of that dream in holiday movies such as “It’s A Wonderful Life,” giving a slightly different spin to the idea. When the main characters wake up or get back to their own universe, all their holiday hopes and wishes seem to have come true. Problems are solved and they are happier. Even Clement Moore’s “A Visit From St. Nicholas” has a ‘long winter’s nap’ as part of the action. When we were children, we liked to think miraculous things can happen when we sleep and dream. Unfortunately as adults, we know that isn’t possible.

But I have a dream anyway. It’s not a holiday dream but one for our profession. I dream we, as choral musicians, will become agents of change for good in our communities and in our world. We will bring together people of all ages. And we will accept all folks, no matter who they are and what they believe, into our choirs. If you can sing what we need you to sing, you are in our choirs, no matter the color of your skin or whom you love or what you look like.

I dream choirs of all sorts of singers are welcomed and respected into our choral community. Instead of saying, “there’s an app for that,” we will say, “there’s a choir for that” when someone asks us if their particular need is represented in a choir, because there will be a choir. I dream we will be proud those with special needs, adults or children, are welcomed into local choirs and encourage them if we are able.

Choirs of senior citizens as well as children will sing together, bringing together experience and enthusiasm. There will be choirs in the workplace, encouraging fellowship and teambuilding by singing together. There will be Hospice choirs and prison choirs and choirs for those affected by cancer or Alzheimer’s. Singing will unite us. Perhaps, when we sing with someone who is different from us, we will understand a little bit more about them. And we won’t be afraid of their differences because we will know them because we sing with them. In my dream, there will be choirs to comfort those touched by violence. And we will do our best to be an agent for peace in our own communities and beyond.

There was a song when I was growing up that was very popular. I sang it as a solo, in my youth choir at church, in my school chorus and caroling with a church youth group. We also sang it at the end of every Christmas pageant at church for several years. I heard it not too long ago shopping at the grocery store, on their piped in music. It was Vince Gill’s version and the lyrics have kept running through my head ever since.

One line in particular from the song strikes me as quite appropriate for today’s blog: “let there be Peace on Earth, and let it begin with me.” If we want change, it must begin with us. If we want acceptance, we must do it. If we see injustice, we must step up to make it right. Peace and kindness and compassion must begin with us. There is no need to wait until someone else does what we believe to be right. We can make the world a better place by taking that first, small step. My dream can be a reality if I begin it. And so I do.

Sing this holiday season with your choirs and your families and your friends. Let differences go and reach for the common, shared values you do have together. Make Peace with those you love as well as those you don’t love. Cherish the old songs and laugh at the silly songs. Let the music bring you together. And let it begin with you.

I wish Peace for you during the next week and into the New Year. And much love.

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! https://www.facebook.com/themidwestmotetsociety/

Choral Potpourri/ Choral Ethics: So This Is Christmas

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“At Christmas play and make good cheer, for Christmas comes but once a year.” Thomas Tusser

Today is Christmas Eve. If you had told me how we would be celebrating in 2020 around this time last year, I would have thought you were crazy. No family get-togethers? RIDICULOUS! No caroling or singing in public of any sort? OUTRAGEOUS! No holiday parties, for anyone, except virtually? What do you mean by VIRTUALLY? And Christmas shopping done mostly online—that takes all the fun out of it–so NOPE, how can that be? And being required to wear MASKS in public? BONKERS!

But this is Christmas, Christmas 2020, a year like no other and things will be different. Our observances of the holiday will be different, our family celebrations will be different (and possible not together) and our ways of plying our profession will be different.

Church musicians, I feel for you. Are you playing in a parking lot tonight? Or socially distanced in your Sanctuary with no live singing? Did you record the whole darn thing (or some of the music) last week to be streamed on your congregation’s Facebook page? Is it all being done virtually? Very few of you will be doing what you usually do and for that, I am so very sorry. I’m sure it was difficult to make the decisions you had to make.

I’m willing to guess those of you who direct school choruses had unusual holiday concerts. Were you able to figure out the best way for you to do so in your particular situation? I hope so and am sure you did the best you were able to do.

Community chorus directors may, or may not, have had a holiday concert this strange year. It might have been virtually, recorded with a click track, or Zoom just for your singers or in parking lot. Or maybe it did not happen at all, with some of your singers not willing to compromise and you not willing (or with enough energy) to convince them. We are all doing the best we can, and I hope you know you did everything you could possibly do.

It’s a Holiday Season of phrases like “doing the best we can” and “wish we could be together” and “how are you holding up” as part of our daily conversations. But we are “doing the best we can” and we do “wish we could be together” and we are “holding up as well as can be expected” and that’s fine. With our usual expectations thrown to the wind this Holiday Season, perhaps it’s time to ditch them and accept them for what they are; not what we usually do.

There is some hope for the New Year; there are two (as I write this) approved vaccines for COVID-19. My spouse, a physician, got his last week and that takes some stress and worry off my shoulders. His booster is scheduled for January 6, the Feast of the Epiphany, so that’s also pretty good news too. All the rest of us should expect to be getting ours in the first months of the New Year and soon after that, things could be approaching normal for our country. We hope it will be sooner rather than later, but in any event, there is progress being made.

It would be strange and a bit inappropriate to wish you a Merry Christmas this year. So, what I will wish for you is this; Comfort (some small comfort) and Joy (some small joy) in your life this Christmas. It is the small things, I’ve learned in the last ten months, that are the most important.

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! https://www.facebook.com/themidwestmotetsociety/

Choral Potpourri/Choral Ethics: Communication Without Words

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“Music can name the unnameable and communicate the unknowable.” Leonard Bernstein

Choral Potpourri/Choral Ethics is re-running some of our December Blogs from years past. This is one that brings hope of what will happen when we can be together to make music again. MLGA

We all know music’s ability to heal and sooth. We know how it comforts the ill and the despondent. Music can help both the dying on their trip “home” and the woman giving birth as she brings new life into the world. It teaches children the alphabet. It helps us remember conjunctions or elements or state capitals. Singing together in a chorus promotes teamwork and unity, but did you realize it can do more?

Jeff* directs a middle school chorus in one of the best school districts in his state. His only complaint when he first began in the district? The kids seemed to have a sense of entitlement. But this is no longer the case, for the most part. How it came about is a bit of a “Holiday Miracle.”

When he first began his present position, Jeff believed the district fostered his students’ selfish attitude. It was the first time he had worked with middle school kids, but soon realized it was being 11 or 12 or 13 causing them to act so self-centered. At the heart of it, these were lovely kids. But often they seemed so selfish, he could hardly stand them. After his first chorus parents meeting, he realized many of their PARENTS felt the same way!

During the first year he had the position; Jeff struggled with ways to get his students to think of others. They participated in the school sponsored food drive, and then wasted food in the cafeteria. The choral parents group collected gently used winter coats for the local homeless shelter during the winter holiday concert, and the kids took for granted having trendy clothes and the latest expensive gym shoes. They were part of a school-wide “Secret Santa” program for the elementary school special ed program, and then were awful to each other. They were that dichotomy of the Pre-teen; unselfish and terrible.

The second year Jeff was in the district, one of his students, Jamie*, was hospitalized. He had a chronic pediatric disease and while he did well most of time, the year he began seventh grade, Jamie needed to spend the first three months of school in the hospital. Jeff got reports from his tutor and his mother on a weekly basis but didn’t know what to do with the information.

One October afternoon after school, Jeff got a visit in his office from Mrs. McCann*, the mom of Jamie’s best friend. Her son wasn’t in chorus, but Jeff did know her from the PTA. And he knew her boy was a friend of Jamie’s. Mrs. McCann reported to Jeff the one thing Jamie missed the most by being in the hospital was chorus. She wondered if there was some way the chorus could visit him and offered to help make it happen.

Jeff spoke to his choral parents group at their October meeting about a field trip to the children’s hospital. They decided the best time to do it was the Saturday afternoon after their Friday night winter holiday concert. After consulting with Jamie’s Mom, only a part of the chorus would be able to participate. And only those who showed no signs of coughs or colds could come. They would sing in the large play room for any child-patient who was able. Mrs. McCann handled all the arrangements with the school district and hospital, both of whom thought it was a wonderful idea.

Performing for children in a hospital setting may not seem like a good fit for a middle school chorus, but it was. That first time, Jeff’s students were stunned seeing children who could be (and were, in Jamie’s case) their classmates pulling IVs around or using canes or wheelchairs or having discolored skin or bandages or were disabled in some way. It seemed to strike a chord with the kids and they sang their hearts out for them!

It has been five years since Jeff’s choruses began singing at the children’s hospital on a regular basis. They sing twice a year; the Saturdays after their winter holiday concerts and their spring concerts. Only a portion of the whole chorus can sing due to space considerations. Twice they’ve sung more than once so every chorus member who wants to can have a chance to participate. They have a toy drive for the hospital during their winter holiday concert. They have a pajama drive during their spring concert. Jamie is a freshman in college and is doing very well, health-wise. He helps out when he is able with the hospital concerts because he knows how much it means to the patients.

It has been a Win/Win situation for the hospital and school district who are both delighted with this arrangement. These are good kids, doing good for other kids. Jeff couldn’t be prouder!

*Name withheld

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! https://www.facebook.com/themidwestmotetsociety/

Choral Potpourri/Choral Ethics: “………and the tongue of the dumb shall sing”

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As I mentioned last week, for the rest of the month of December Choral Potpourri/Choral Ethics will be running some of our “oldie but goodie” blogs from past Decembers. This is one of my favorites! MLGA

I love “Messiah”. Truth be told, it is probably one of my favorite large choral work.  There’s a little something for everyone–from show piece arias to choruses that are both difficult and poignant to recitatives that move the story along while being musically interesting. The story that is told, using scriptures from both the Old and New Testaments, can be appreciated by all.

Traditionally, it is performed during the Advent and Christmas seasons but it is really a Lenten work, first performed and commissioned for Lent.  We as choral musicians often chop it up to fit our needs.  And, masterwork that it is, it adapts, no matter if we sing only the Christmas portions—plus “Hallelujah”—or the Lenten portions or anything in between.  Whatever we do is probably fine, since George F. Handel had different versions, depending on the soloist available.

I have sung, conducted, studied and listened to “Messiah” since I was a little girl.  My Mom was a coloratura soprano and her preparations for “Rejoice” are part of my Christmas memories as much as decorating the house and baking cookies are.  I first sang “For Unto Us a Child is Born” when I was about 12 or 13, being allowed to sing with the adult choir because they needed more altos and I was singing alto at that point in my life.  I learned “He Shall Feed His Flocks” as my first aria of any sort, but not the recitative for some reason.

I was about 18 or 19 when I received my own “Messiah” score—G. Schirmer of course—as a Christmas gift from my mother. Mom told me to learn the arias and recitatives because they were money-making for any good soloist. And I did.  When I officially ‘became’ a soprano in college, I began to learn each aria and recitative from beginning to end, starting with “There Were Shepherds” and ending with “If God Be for Us” as well as everything in between. I conducted and prepared “Hallelujah” in an undergrad conducting class, using my own score, and have marks and comments in the margins from my dear Dr. Larson, which I treasure.

Conducting “Messiah” is always challenging, no matter who the singers are.  I have markings and notes and comments in my score from long ago performances as well as more recent gigs that remind me anything can happen and often does. I have had to sing as well as conduct a few times, because sopranos have gotten sick at the last moment and there wasn’t time to get anyone else.  I have had singers and instrumentalist faint. Conducting choral portions for a “Do-It-Yourself Messiah” has brought the craziest moments, with a youth symphony playing and soloists from the community. I have had to teach a conductor—who normally works with junior high string players—how to conduct recitatives because the “powers-that-be” wanted an instrumental conductor and not ‘just’ a choral person, with interesting results.

Still, the text moves me.  The choruses move me.  The music moves me.  I can be reserved and professional most of the time but some turn of phrase, some musical line will strike me and tears come to my eyes briefly as I conduct. Some moment in the performance will reach me, jaded old musician that I am, and it is like I am hearing it for the first time.

One of the recitatives always gets me, no matter who is singing, who is playing or if I am performing or conducting.  It is sung by the alto, thank goodness, and it is the recitative I didn’t learn as a teenager.  The text, taken from the Prophecy of Isaiah, tells what will happen when the Messiah comes:

                        “Then shall the eyes of the blind be open’d,

                        And the ears of the deaf unstopped.

                        Then shall the lame man leap as an hart,

                        And the tongue of the dumb shall sing.”

It so moves me, I think because it reminds me of my son, Russell, who has autism and who cannot speak.  I like to think that recitative is meant for him and all people like him. I am comforted to know, even in this great work, someone thought enough to include this text. And I love it even more.

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! https://www.facebook.com/themidwestmotetsociety/

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