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Sharing through Song: Resources for Singing Migration Stories

April 12, 2021 by Amanda Bumgarner Leave a Comment

ChorTeach is ACDA’s quarterly online publication, designed for those who work with singers of all levels. A full annotated ChorTeach index is available online at acda.org/publications/chorteach. Over 160 articles are organized into seventeen categories. For submission information, to view the index, or to read the latest issue, visit acda.org/chorteach. Following is an excerpt from an article in the Spring 2021 issue titled “Sharing through Song: Resources for Singing Migration Stories” by Ethan M. Chessin
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The 2020 NWACDA conference title was “Sharing our Story.” I love it when my students are able to tell their own stories through song. My problem, though, is that I teach in a school where the stories aren’t that diverse. How, then, can we use song to tell someone else’s story? Ignoring migration narratives is not an option in 2021 if we are to be relevant. In this article, I will provide resources for teachers and directors interested in using music to teach choirs and audiences about immigration.

I came to this project by accident. Every other year, I commission a local rock musician to write a concert-length program for my students to perform alongside a rock band and then take the show on tour. I use this material to teach my students about the business of music from local industry professionals, and the students end up writing press releases and booking the opening acts for the show. This year, we worked with Luz Elena Mendoza from the band, Y La Bamba. Mendoza wrote an incredible piece titled “El Agua De Mi Ser” centered on the story of her parents’ immigration from Mexico. Upon delivering the score, Mendoza urged me to teach my students to understand the truth of immigration stories rather than the political narratives they may have been more familiar with. As you already know, immigration is a huge topic! Fortunately, so is love, beauty, hope, music, or any of the other topics that we tackle on a regular basis in our choirs.

If I want to center a concert on love, I would much rather engage with a first-person text in which my students are singing love songs rather than singing about love. This is the magic of choir. Our choristers get to try on emotions rather than just describing them. To teach about immigration, then, I sought out first-person narratives of the immigrant experience, in story and song, with musical textures that matched the emotions of the text. At the end of this article, I will include a list of music that meets these criteria, including all voicings and levels of difficulty.

My primary source for this project was The Immigrant Story (www.theimmigrantstory.org). Sankar Raman runs this incredible project, which publishes short immigrant biographies online and hosts live storytelling events. The mission is to expand Americans’ understanding of the stories of immigrants. The Immigrant Story has begun developing a curriculum for teachers to engage students in oral history and journalism to tell the story of immigrants in their own communities. They are offering tremendous assistance to schools and teachers who would like to use the curricula, including months of lesson plans and editorial assistance. Though my school is in a predominantly conservative community, my students were eager to explore the stories of their neighbors who have immigration stories to tell.

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Read more in the Spring 2021 issue at acda.org/chorteach.

Filed Under: ChorTeach Tagged With: ACDA Membership Benefits, ACDA Publications, ChorTeach

May Choral Journal Preview

April 5, 2021 by Amanda Bumgarner Leave a Comment

The newest issue of Choral Journal is available online. Following is a list of the articles you will find in this issue.

ACDA members can log in with their username and password to view and download the newest edition. You can also read our electronic version. Below is a preview of the articles you will find in this issue. If you are not already a member of ACDA, join today to start receiving your monthly Choral Journal! Associate members can join for only $45 a year.
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FOCUS ARTICLES

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

International Conductors Exchange Program to Sweden: Building Bridges through Choral Connections by Jeremy D. Jones and Joshua Habermann

Just One Trip: The Transforming Power of Cultural Exchange by Scott Glysson

ACDA Connecting with the World Webinar Series: A Living Online Resource by Tim Sharp

ACDA Costa Rica: Breaking Boundaries in Central America by David Ramírez and Josué Ramírez Palmer

Authenticity, Collaboration, Connection, and Growth: Exploring the ACDA International Activities Mentorship Program and the Power of YOU! by Emily Williams Burch with Ashley Conway and T. J. Harper

ARTICLES

Research Report
The Power of Incarcerated Voices to Transform Community: Research from a Women’s Prison Choir by Amanda Weber

Rehearsal Break
What’s in a Name? by Stuart Chapman Hill

2021 Summer Festival and Workshop Listings

Book Reviews

Filed Under: Choral Journal Tagged With: ACDA Membership Benefits, ACDA Publications, Choral Journal, Choral Journal Preview, International Activities, International Initiatives, Interview

CJ Replay: An American Mass

March 29, 2021 by Amanda Bumgarner Leave a Comment

The December 2020 issue of Choral Journal is online and features an article titled “An American Mass: Celebrating Our Shared Music In An Ancient Form” by Carlton E. Kilpatrick III. You can read it in its entirety online at acda.org/choraljournal. Following is a portion from the introduction

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The Mass is a treasured form in the Western canon of music and liturgy. A celebration of the sacrifice offered for the forgiveness of sins in the early Christian faith, it is still part of the worship in modern Catholic denomination.

Settings of these ancient texts have been continuously performed both in liturgy and in concert for hundreds of years. From plainchant settings by anonymous monks to the high drama of majestic settings by Mozart, Beethoven, and Haydn for chorus, soloists, and orchestra, the Mass text continues to provide inspiration for composers.

Mass settings appear less frequently among the non-idiomatic compositions of Black composers. Marques Garrett’s online resource of “Non-Idiomatic Choral Music of Black Composers”1 identifies fifteen, only a few of which utilize the forces of mixed choir and orchestra. When the search is stretched to idiomatic music, defined here as gospel, spirituals, jazz, hip-hop, and rap (among others), more examples exist, including the well-known Gospel Mass composed in 1978 by Robert Ray.

In that same year, André Thomas, a first-year doctoral student at the University of Illinoi–Champaign–Urbana, performed as a pianist and singer in the premiere performances of Robert Ray’s newly composed Gospel Mass.2 Some forty years later, Thomas would find himself surrounded by signs that he should pursue a Mass project of his own. The resulting work blends both the idiomatic and non-idiomatic aspects of Thomas’s compositional oeuvre, resulting in a work that is in his unique voice—an American voice.

Mass: A Celebration of Love and Joy is written in a Missa Brevis format with a complete Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei in English translation.

NOTES

1 Marques L.A. Garrett, “Beyond Elijah Rock: The Non-Idiomatic Choral Music of Black Composers,” accessed September 21, 2020, https://www.mlagmusic.com/research/beyond-elijah-rock.

2 Details about Thomas’s life and the writing of the Mass come from an interview with the author conducted in July 2020. Details about the Negro spiritual can be found in André J. Thomas, Way Over in Beulah Lan’: Understanding and Performing the Negro Spiritual (Dayton, OH: Heritage Music Press, 2007).

Filed Under: Choral Journal Tagged With: ACDA Membership Benefits, ACDA Publications, mass, Repertoire

ChorTeach Replay: Incorporating Mindfulness

March 22, 2021 by Amanda Bumgarner Leave a Comment

ChorTeach is ACDA’s quarterly online publication, designed for those who work with singers of all levels. A full annotated ChorTeach index is available online at acda.org/publications/chorteach. Over 160 articles are organized into seventeen categories. For submission information, to view the index, or to read the latest issue, visit acda.org/chorteach. Following is an excerpt from an article in the Fall 2019 issue titled “Incorporating Mindfulness into the Choral Rehearsal” by Lawrence E. Fisher
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As music teachers, we often have the advantage of being able to build relationships over several years with our students. We often see warning signs before others. We teachers are the individuals a student may confide in when he or she is struggling with anxiety or depression. We foster a sense of community and family in our ensembles that perhaps offers a safe space or a support network that our students might not have in other places in their lives.

Based on the programming I am seeing at other directors’ concerts, as a choral community we are doing our best to show our students that there is hope. We choose themes for our concerts such as light, dreams, social justice, and equality. The frequency with which we program works such as Andrea Ramsey’s A Letter from a Girl to the World or Jake Runestad’s Please Stay says to me that we are addressing some important issues head on in our rehearsals.1 This led me to wonder whether I could do more to explicitly give my students tools to help with challenging situations or feelings. Studies show that meditation can be just as effective at relieving anxiety in teenagers as antidepressants.2 I decided that I wanted to try to incorporate mindfulness into my rehearsals.

Of course, I was faced with many questions: How do I implement this? Would my students hate it? Am I taking too much time out of each rehearsal when that next performance is around the corner? I decided the best way was to start exploring. What better way than to use what I know. As a high school student, I participated in workshops on Creative Motion. A Dalcroze-related school of thought, it explores getting in tune with your body and deep breathing.

After week-long camps in these activities, I always felt at peace. Only recently did I make the connection that much of what I had learned there were mindfulness practices. I decided to start with some of the tools I had learned as a high school student. I decided to begin incorporating mindfulness into my rehearsals using a centering exercise that has students focus on the breath and deep breathing.

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Read more in the Fall 2019 issue at acda.org/chorteach.

NOTES
1Major Depression: The Impact of Overall Health. (2018, May 10). Retrieved from http://www.bcbs.com/the-health-ofamerica

2 Jamison Monroe (2015, August 18). The Adolescent Brain on
Meditation. Retrieved from www.psychologytoday.com

Filed Under: ChorTeach Tagged With: ACDA Membership Benefits, ACDA Publications, ChorTeach

CJ Replay: Marianna von Martines’s Dixit Dominus

March 15, 2021 by Amanda Bumgarner Leave a Comment

The April issue of Choral Journal is online and features an article titled “Marianna von Martines’s Dixit Dominus: A Stylistic Synthesis” by Joseph Taff. You can read it in its entirety online at acda.org/choraljournal. Following is a portion from the introduction.

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Born in Vienna in 1744, Marianna von Martines received a thorough grounding in Baroque compositional techniques, but lived and worked in an era when a newer, more “galant” style had become fashionable.

Her contemporaries often noted and praised the balance of old and new stylistic qualities in her composition. English music historian Charles Burney, who visited the Martines family in 1772, called Marianna’s arias “very well written, in a modern style; but neither common, nor unnaturally new,” and cited Martines’s teacher, mentor, and housemate Metastasio’s description of one of her psalm settings as “a most agreeable Mescolanza…of antico e moderno.” Metastasio himself wrote to a friend that Martines “chose to avail herself of both the grace of the modern style, avoiding its licenses, and the harmonious solidity of the old ecclesiastical style, divested of its Gothicisms.” Burney’s and Metastasio’s remarks are often cited and echoed in more recent literature on Martines and her style. They do not specify what stylistic elements diff erentiated “antico” from “moderno,” or what elements Martines drew from each source. Nonetheless, they make it clear that synthesis of old and new styles was a key piece of Martines’s compositional approach.

The Martines family was well connected at the Habsburg court in Vienna. Her eldest brother “served as tutor to at least three of the sixteen royal children born to [Empress] Maria Theresa,” and the other three Martines brothers were all esteemed soldiers or civil servants; the entire family was granted noble status in 1774, the year Marianna composed her Dixit Dominus. The royal family’s enjoyment of Marianna’s music likely contributed to her family’s status. An 1846 biographical article on Martines in the Wiener allgemeine Musik-Zeitung mentions that the Empress would often ask Martines to perform for her, and that her son Joseph II would sometimes turn pages for Martines.6

Robert Gjerdingen notes that “the cultured nobility” of eighteenth-century Europe were expected to embody a certain “collection of traits, attitudes, and manners” encapsulated by the versatile adjective “galant,” and that galant manners were expressed through music as well, in a courtly style “grounded in a repertory of stock musical phrases.” Martines would undoubtedly have been expected to display galant qualities in both her musical performances and social dealings at court.

Martines’s musical education nevertheless provided her with ample exposure to Baroque musical style. In an autobiographical letter, she lists Handel, Lotti, and Caldara among her chief influences; even when discussing her more contemporary role models, she cites three composers at least thirty years older than she (Hasse, Jomelli, and Galuppi). This emphasis on emulating older music is unsurprising given that her education was directed chiefly by Metastasio, who was born in 1698.
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ACDA members can log in with their username and password to view and download the newest edition. You can also read our electronic version. Below is a preview of the articles you will find in this issue. If you are not already a member of ACDA, join today to start receiving your monthly Choral Journal! Associate members can join for only $45 a year.

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

April Choral Journal Preview

March 8, 2021 by Amanda Bumgarner Leave a Comment

The newest issue of Choral Journal is available online. Following is a list of the articles you will find in this issue.

ACDA members can log in with their username and password to view and download the newest edition. You can also read our electronic version. Below is a preview of the articles you will find in this issue. If you are not already a member of ACDA, join today to start receiving your monthly Choral Journal! Associate members can join for only $45 a year.
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Marianna von Martines’s Dixit Dominus: A Stylistic Synthesis by Joseph Taff

Mozart, Süßmayr, and Musical Propaganda: Revaluing Political Choral Music for Modern Performance by Mark Nabholz

Interview with Three Canadian Choral Composers by Geoffrey Bell

On the Voice
Categorizing and Notating Timbres for Vocal Ensembles by Fahad Siadat

Conducting during COVID: What is possible and how has the role of the conductor changed? by Rachel Carlson and Scot Hanna-Weir

Research Report
Choral Rehearsals During COVID: Examining Singer Engagement by Matthew Swanson, Eva Floyd, and David Kirkendall

Choral Reviews

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

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Italian composer Giacomo Carissimi – recognized for establishing key features of the Latin oratorio – was baptized on this day in 1605.

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