Latest Community Posts

I have loved and participated in choral music since I was a little Catholic schoolgirl; I went to college and graduate school to groom myself as a career church director who would have exciting composition projects on the side.    But then the one thing I never expected to happen happened….I converted spiritually.  I left Christianity and re-discovered […]

 Hello all,    I am trying to find the translation to Gastoli’s Il Passionao from the Balletti a tre voci 1594. Can anyone help me with the text translation.    E’ vivo’l mio despetto Per tant’ ardor Ch’ho dentro al cor Nè sò che far Per non brusar. Pietà, visetto, dolze inzuccherao D’un petto brustola […]

Hi Everyone,   My name is Brian Jones and I am a bass section leader at a Congregational Church in Hartford, CT. I was asked to select and conduct a piece for Pentecost Sunday, and am looking for suggestions. The choir is roughly a 60 member SATB choir that has sung works such as Bach’s […]

Listers, there seem to be at least three translations of the well-known chorus from Mendelssohn’s “Christus.” Can anyone shed some light on the history of these translations? Did Mendelssohn have a particular English translation in mind (although the libretto is in German)? Aside from singability, is any of these more “authoritative” than the others?   […]

 Friends – we’re preparing BWV 4 (Christ Lag…) for an April 10 performance with an excellent chamber orchestra.  As I’ve studied recordings, I hear that Gardner, for instance, does the piece a semitone lower than written, and Koopman and others do it a semitone higher than written.  Others, of course, have recorded it in the […]

I will concur will Mary Jane on that issue. I was a student in an inner-city school district (FWISD) and under the direction of Mrs. Sherylynn Porter at Southwest High School. Our choir program was in the dumps before she came, and now, it is one of the stronger ones in the district, but not […]

Coming next week, I will be holding a rehearsal for my church choir since the choirmaster will be unavailable. I am in my senior year at TCU and almost on my way out, but there is a problem that lies ahead. While he is gone, I will have to rehearse Beethoven’s 9th with them and […]

In honor of its 40th anniversary, Wallingford Chorus is sponsoring a choral composition competition. The chorus is reaching out to experienced choral music composers to enter an original, unperformed piece of music for consideration. The winning piece will be debuted by the chorus at a future concert with the winning composer receiving a $500 prize. […]

While I agree with the above suggestions, I do have some ‘quick fixes’ which will also be the basis for long-term vocal development. I guest conducted a high school group whose sopranos were untrained last fall for just a few sessions, and these vocalises did yield some instant results. I think my own demonstration was […]

Anyone know where to download a good arrangement for an 8 women’s choir. I saw a youtube of Yale Slavic Women’s Chorus that was awesome.   Also open to other suggests in any genre, for 8 personal women’s choir. We are going diverse, world, gospel, classical… The group is super skilled.   Looking in general […]