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Choral Journal

CJ Replay – Choral Conversation with James Benjamin Kinchen, Jr.

December 20, 2021 by Amanda Bumgarner Leave a Comment

Choral Journal’s ongoing column called “Choral Conversations” features interviews with noted choral conductors and composers. An interview with James Benjamin Kinchen Jr. is featured in the December 2020 issue.

You can read the interview in its entirety online at acda.org/publications/choral-journal. Click “Search Archives” and choose December 2020 from the dropdown menu.
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What principles and core values guide you in your conducting and your teaching?

Choral music is a vocal art. My work honors the centricity of the human voice and the appreciation of the beautiful range of colors and timbres that the voice can bring. I am excited by the capabilities of the voice. Choral music is also an ensemble art; we are not a group of undisciplined singers singing together. Choral singing is the ultimate experience of a team effort. The composer must speak. I believe very firmly in trying to understand what the composer wanted by studying and knowing the score. I think these are my best moments as a choral artist, as a conductor, as a teacher. I have discovered enough of what the composer wants and how I might achieve it to aid the singers and orchestra in that direction so that the composer speaks to the audience. Choral music is, above all, a human expression. As a conductor, I want a balance of head and heart in the art so that there is this intellectual piece of music-making right alongside this emotional/spiritual component. Most often, the best of what we do is the result of hard work. The sweat has to be there to enable the inspiration to happen.

From where did your interest in the negro spiritual come?

It is a connection that goes back to junior high, where we performed many of the classical arrangements of the “spiritual.” (Negro folksong was the term that Dawson always used.) Growing up, I heard them sung as folk pieces in our church, too. But in junior and senior high school, while we performed the sacred and secular music of Western composers, we also did the “spirituals.” It seemed so natural for us. As we did them more and more, I came to appreciate them more—mainly when I understood where they came from. They were utterances of my ancestors, profound expressions of faith in religion (Christianity). Even though given to my forebears by their subjugators, they were able to turn it upside down to make it become something relevant to them and their situation. So, they knew whose side God was on when they sang, “Go down, Moses.” They understood that they were the people who needed to be let go and be made free.

Read the rest of this interview in the December 2020 issue of Choral Journal.

Filed Under: Choral Journal Tagged With: ACDA Membership Benefits, ACDA Publications, Choral Journal, CJ Replay

January Choral Journal Preview

December 6, 2021 by Amanda Bumgarner Leave a Comment

The newest issue of Choral Journal is available online. This issue is a complete preview of the sessions and performances at all 6 ACDA Region Conferences in February and March 2022.

ACDA members can log in with their username and password to view and download the newest edition. You can also read our electronic version, available at acda.org/choraljournal

Conference information is available at acda.org/region-conferences

Filed Under: Choral Journal Tagged With: ACDA Membership Benefits, ACDA Publications, Choral Journal Preview, conferences

CJ Replay: Building a Foundation: Interviews with International Exchange Program Conducting Fellows

November 29, 2021 by Amanda Bumgarner Leave a Comment

The May 2021 issue of Choral Journal is online and is a focus on international activities. This issue features an article titled “Building a Foundation: Interviews with
International Exchange Program Conducting Fellows” by T. J. Harper with Jeffery Ames, Jihoon Park, Sara Durkin, Rodrigo Faguaga, Julie Yu, and Ken Wakia.
 You can read it in its entirety at acda.org/choraljournal. Following is a portion from the article.

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What insights have you gained about your country of residence through the ACDA International Conductors Exchange Program?

Jihoon Park: Through my interactions with the American choral conductors, I recognized how valuable and powerful Korea’s music, history, and heritage is. I firmly believe that Korean culture has the ability to bring positivity and light to the world. It is a culture that has depth, and once tapped into, my heritage can provide a non-Korean a special kind of experience. Having cultural interactions between the United States and Korea, I am certain both nations can establish meaningful musical relations.

Jeffery Ames: The country of Korea dealt with several tense occupations (Japanese, Russian, American, and a civil war). The Korean culture knows what it means to experience the joy and pain of the human experience. This can be heard in its music. It’s passionate. It’s filled with emotion. It’s filled with ecstasy. In many ways, I see and hear a correlation between the folk music of Korea and the Negro spiritual. In the same manner of some purely American music, we know how to sing and play about joy and pain. American music is passionate and filled with emotion. It’s amazing to see the connectivity from one culture to others.

Julie Yu: I remember driving by one of the largest slums in Nairobi (the largest urban slum in Africa). My host explained that there are government projects in place to provide support for these people and get them out (some websites estimate the Kibera could have 500,000 to 1 million people living there). I asked why wouldn’t people leave there if they could. He said, they have a complete social structure inside this community. Some don’t want to leave. Many have been born there, raised children, and died there.

I had a major epiphany in that moment. My privilege makes me assume that they would want to leave and are suffering so much, and my god complex makes me immediately want to help and fix. That’s what has stuck with me coming back to the States. I want to make a difference in the world, but it is not my privilege or my wealth that will help me. It is instead understanding that no matter what the circumstances of a community, they will create a social structure to survive, and it is not my job to “fi x it” but to understand it, appreciate it, and learn from it. And through relationships we share musical and artistic experiences that go both ways.

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Read the full article in the May 2021 issue of Choral Journal at acda.org/choraljournal

Filed Under: Choral Journal Tagged With: ACDA Membership Benefits, ACDA Publications, Choral Journal, CJ Replay, icep, International Activities, International Initiatives

CJ Replay: A Guide to Improving Student-Led Section Rehearsals

November 22, 2021 by Amanda Bumgarner Leave a Comment

The September 2016 issue of Choral Journal is online and features an article titled “A Guide to Improving Student-Led Section Rehearsals” by Felicia Mulé, James Robison, and Ryan Kelly. You can read it in its entirety at acda.org/choraljournal. Following is a portion from the article.

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Many high school and college choirs hold section rehearsals that are directed by student leaders. These sectionals can be very beneficial to choirs. They offer focused opportunities for sections to study their own vocal lines and build singer independence. Student-led sectionals can also generate greater ownership of the music making and esprit de corps within sections.

Conversely, student-run sectionals can present challenges; productivity can be low, singers’ participation reluctant, and leaders’ direction heavy-handed or listless. Most sectionals can improve. Student leaders can employ a number of strategies to help them lead better and understand the needs of their sections. Likewise, teachers can take steps to guide their leaders with greater direction and oversight. This article’s goal is to offer both students and teachers strategies for improving their choirs’ sectionals so that they are more productive, musical, and unifying experiences for singers.

What Are Effective Section Rehearsals?

Sectionals can occur in different ways. Conductors sometimes schedule them at the beginning of a rehearsal calendar (i.e., early in a semester) to help sections start learning their parts independently, or they might schedule them in the middle of that calendar to teach part-specific vocal techniques. Sectionals sometimes occur in lieu of a regularly scheduled full choir rehearsal; alternatively, they might be weekly “extra” rehearsals scheduled at another time of day. Regardless of their frequency, sectionals should have three common goals:

• Sectionals should be productive.

Singers should sing more confidently when they leave. They should not leave the sectional having wasted their time.

• Sectionals should be musical.

Singers should sing more expressively when they leave. They should not leave the sectional simply having “woodshed” pitches.

• Sectionals should be unifying.

Singers should leave feeling a stronger bond with their fellow singers, not feeling disgruntled or discouraged.

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Read the rest of this article in the September 2016 issue of Choral Journal online at acda.org/choraljournal

Filed Under: Choral Journal Tagged With: ACDA Membership Benefits, ACDA Publications, Choral Journal, rehearsal management, rehearsals

CJ Replay: Addressing Contextual Information in Multicultural Choral Repertoire

November 15, 2021 by Amanda Bumgarner Leave a Comment

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.

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There is an ongoing need to help choral music educators make informed decisions about how to select culturally responsive music. Teaching music from diverse cultures is part of state and national music standards, but it needs to be approached knowledgably, beyond picking a song in a different language. Julia Shaw refers to culturally responsive pedagogy as a way of teaching music from diverse cultures using prior knowledge, frames of reference, and diverse performance styles to make the learning experience more relevant to students.1

Without this cultural meaning, repertoire selection and performance could fall victim to cultural appropriation, which happens when “people from a more powerful culture adopt the art, symbols, or elements of a less powerful culture without understanding or respecting the context or history of that material.”2 Knowing more about the multicultural music arrangements we choose to perform may spur the developing of prior knowledge and frame of reference needed to practice culturally responsive pedagogy. Why is it that choral music educators shy away from programming diverse music?

Some choir teachers may feel uncomfortable adding multicultural music to their concert program because they lack training or exposure to the genre and they fear being inauthentic or falling victim to cultural appropriation.3 On the other hand, there may be teachers who are not afraid to program music in a variety of languages, but lack cultural responsiveness by not delving further into the cultural meaning of the music. Sometimes an arrangement inaccurately includes instruments creating an entertaining affect instead of creating an authentic musical experience.

My intention is to help guide a choir director towards knowing how one could select repertoire that validly represents the music of diverse cultures. This includes ways to inform the study and programming of cultural music, examples of trusted publishers, and describing what to look for in octavos.

NOTES

1 Julia Shaw, “The Skin that We Sing: Culturally Responsive Choral Music Education,” Music Educators Journal 98, no. 4 (2012): 75-81.
2 Ryan Cho, “Cultural Appropriation and Choral Music: A Conversation That Can Make Both Our Music and Community Better,” Choral Journal 55, no. 10 (2015): 59.
3 Kathy Robinson, “Teacher Education for a New World of Musics,” in Readings of Diversity, Inclusion, and Music For All (Reston, VA: MENC, the National Association for Music Education) 14-31; Margaret M. Woods, “Alleviating the Difficulties in Teaching Multicultural Choral Music (PhD diss., George Mason University, 2018), ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global.

Filed Under: Choral Journal Tagged With: ACDA Publications, Choral Journal

American Christian Orthodox Choral Music

November 8, 2021 by Amanda Bumgarner 1 Comment

The November/December issue of Choral Journal is online and features an article titled “American Christian Orthodox Choral Music” by Jason Thoms. You can read it in its entirety at acda.org/choraljournal. Following is a portion from the article.

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Music majors and students in music appreciation have studied the Mass ordinary movements of the Catholic Mass, Gregorian chant, the structure and development of the motet, and the cyclical and cantus firmus masses. These are some of the most important musical forms and genres in early Western music. When asked to name a piece of Christian Orthodox music, Rachmaninoff ’s “Vespers” or Tchesnokov’s “Salvation is Created” are likely two pieces that come to mind, but many choral directors might have trouble coming up with other titles. It says a great deal about the quality of Orthodox choral music that many of the top professional choral ensembles in the United States have Grammy-nominated or Grammy-winning recordings.

Most of this repertoire, however, was not written for the concert hall but instead for small choral ensembles who sing multiple times a week in the churches and multiple times a day in the monasteries. Many music history texts contain no references to the music of the Eastern Orthodox Church, even though there is at least as much musical depth and breadth in the Eastern church as in the Western church. The harmonic and melodic beauty of Orthodox choral music provides a distinct sound to concerts or worship that audiences and congregations will fi nd enjoyable and meaningful.

The liturgy of the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church developed as part of the same catholic faith until the Great Schism of 1054, which separated the Eastern and Western churches. Like the liturgy of the Catholic Church, the Orthodox liturgy has ordinary texts (every time a particular service is performed), and proper texts (specifically assigned to the particular service of the day, week, or season). In both the Catholic and Orthodox faiths there is a long-standing and extensive lectionary of texts and liturgies that are sung for each service of the day and week. Unlike the music of the Roman Catholic Church, the music of Orthodox traditions is not built around just one central location but instead developed, adapted, and created in every culture in which it took root, resulting in a wide variety of musical styles in a variety of languages.

Worship in the Christian Orthodox church is a vocal-choral tradition. The daily and weekly services are meant to be completely sung or chanted with usually only the homily spoken. In most Orthodox churches, the priest chants parts of the liturgy, and a chanter or choir responds. There are some selections of liturgical music and hymns sung solely by the chanter or choir and any congregants who know the music. In most Orthodox traditions, no instruments are allowed, though some Greek Orthodox churches do have organs. The Orthodox liturgy puts a lot of responsibility on the chanter and choir, which will often sing for the majority of the worship service. There are many worship experiences during the year where services can last well over three hours, such as Holy Week and Pascha.

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Read the full article in the November/December 2021 issue of Choral Journal at acda.org/choraljournal

Filed Under: Choral Journal Tagged With: ACDA Publications, Choral Journal, sacred choral music

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