Latest Community Posts

Hi again :o) My youth vocal group are starting to plan for their spring concert. We would like to do a concert with maybe us and some dancers. Theme not decided yet. ( Would love ideas? )   We have already started singing some of the songs we would like to have in the concert; […]

Sunday, October 03, 2010 By Andrew Druckenbrod, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Anyone who has ever sung in a choir, from school to church to professional, knows the tinge of fear and bubbling of excitement that comes when the conductor first raises those hands for the entrance cue. Will everyone come in at the same time? Now imagine […]

Shillong erupted in wild celebrations Saturday night after Shillong Chamber Choir won the reality TV show India’s Got Talent Khoj 2 at the grand finale in Mumbai.   People chanted Ka jingjop! ka jingjop! (We won! We Won!)” on the main thoroughfares in Shillong, the capital of Meghalaya, after the results were announced Saturday.   […]

  This is proving quite a year for Seattle’s Choral Arts.   The group’s most recent CD, “Mornings Like This,” won the newly established American Prize in Choral Performance (community division). It was their first recording with artistic director Robert Bode (pronounced “Bo-dee”), now in his fourth year with the ensemble.   Choral Arts also […]

At 91, Claude Schmitz hasn’t forgotten the meaning of the word humble. “I didn’t do it,” he said with a laugh. But ask any one of the two-dozen former students he had at Colorado State College, now the University of Northern Colorado, and they’ll tell you he did it all. Friday, they got to tell […]

I am noticing that many DMA program applications, as well as job applications, require a DVD of performance footage with the conductor facing the camera. So, how does a person position a camera that way in a performance, without it being really distracting to the audience and/or singers? No problem doing that for rehearsal footage, but I’m having a […]

Richard Toensing’s glorious set of 24 New Orthodox Carols for the Nativity of Christ are beautiful, approachable, and varied, both in spirit and in musical idiom. Some are in the Greco-Byzantine style, some are in a pentatonic folk-like idiom, and still others are in standard Western tonality, yet all of them have a fresh twist […]

Wayland Rogers is the 2010 winner of The Thorensian Prize, a choral composition competition offered biennially by the Chantry Quire of Chichester, England. His SATB cappella setting of Shakespeare’s  ORPHEUS WITH HIS LUTE will receive its world premiere Nov. 20 at St. Pauls Church, Chichester.

Hi, Am interested in developing a program of a cappella pieces (SATB, SSAATTBB, SSAA, TTBB, etc.) utilizing texts by mystics from any tradition. Everything must be a cappella, as our group is an a cappella ensemble. Or, we might also consider pieces using a single instrumental obbligato. Any foreign language is acceptable, as well as English. We’re […]

Hi,   I was recently hired as a music director at a smaller school (both band and choir).  I’m good with the band part, but am struggling on the choir part.  What are some things I can do to make my high school choir not sound so thin and “young?”  Also, I have several students, […]