CJ Replay

Creating Choirs that Welcome Transgender Singers

October 31, 2016 by Amanda Bumgarner 1 Comment

The November 2016 issue of Choral Journal included an article written by Jane Ramseyer Miller titled “Creating Choirs that Welcome Transgender Singers.” This was adapted and revised from the California ACDA newsletter. There has been much conversation about the topic of gender as it relates to choral music classrooms, and some of this was discussed in the November 2015 issue of Choral Journal with the feature article by Joshua Palkki, “Gender Trouble: Males, Adolescence, and Masculinity in the Choral Context.”

Jane Ramseyer Miller’s article on transgender continues this discussion and is intended to assist choral music educators with their task of making choir a safe and welcoming space for all singers. Whether or not a conductor personally agrees with a singer’s decision to transition between genders, it is the teacher’s job to support students where they are, being a safe place for expression and guidance, specifically when it comes to our voices.

As part of the article, Miller shares 12 tips for making chorus more welcoming for all students, specifically transgender. A few tips are below, and you can read the full article by clicking here (note you must be a member of ACDA to read the Choral Journal online).

When posting for singer auditions, keep language about voice parts gender neutral.
Invite all singers to audition for any solo that fits their vocal range.
Use gender-neutral language in rehearsal and insist that all section leaders and singers also follow these same guidelines.
Assign voice sections for each singer dependent on their voice range and voice color rather than gender. If a singer is transitioning, check their range every 3-4 months and assist them in moving to a new vocal part as needed
Examine requirements mandating gender-specific concert attire. Forcing singers into gender-specific (or incongruent) clothing may be seen as a public devaluing of identities and communicates indifference to the spectrum of gender identity and expression.

Do you have any tips to add? Have you had an experience with a transgender student in one of your choirs?

CJ Replay: The Life and Works of Four Female Canadian Composers

October 24, 2016 by Amanda Bumgarner Leave a Comment

In October 2015, the Choral Journal featured an article on the life and works of four female Canadian composers: Kathleen Allen, Sarah Quartel, Stephanie Martin, and Ramona Luengen. The choral culture of Canada is vibrant and diverse, and readers will appreciate the opportunity to read about the life and works of these established and “up and coming” composers. Two sidebars are included in the article for further interest: one is a list of other notable Canadian composers, and the second is a list of Choral Journal articles that have previously been published on female Canadian composers and their choral music. A short feature of the four composers is printed below. (Read the full article here)

Kathleen Allen (b. 1989)
Featured Works: “In Paradisum” (published in 2014 by Cypress for an advanced SATB choir and soprano soloist) / “The Close and Holy Darkness” (commissioned by the Savridi Singers Women’s Choir in 2012, features text from “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” by Dylan Thomas)

“For Allen, the process of composing is often a slow one. She spends considerable time seeking the most fitting musical means by which she might elevate a text to express it in a way that is both meaningful to her and authentic to the text.”

Sarah Quartel (b. 1982)
Featured Works: “Alice” (accompanied SSA work published by Oxford, commissioned by Marie Anderson) // “Snow Angel” (extended five-movement work accompanied by piano, cello, and djembe; versions are available for both the treble and mixed choir.

“Quartel takes great care in selecting texts that resonate and that evoke images of personal significance…Until recently, she composed many of her own texts, but in discovering the poetry of others, she has found her works taking on a greater diversity of color and sound.”

Stephanie Martin (b. 1962)
Featured Works: “Hear My Prayer” (published in 2009 by Cypress for an advanced SATB choir) // “Tantum Ergo” and “Alleluia” (published by Cypress as a set but can be performed individually and with any combination of voicings)

“For Martin, it is her love of words that guides her approach. A ‘musical picture,’ as she puts it, typically emerges from the text—‘somehow,’ she comments, ‘the words always suggest the music.’”

Ramona Luengen (b. 1960)
Featured Works: “Mesange” (published in 2013 by Cypress for an advanced mixed choir) // “How the Blossoms are Falling” (commissioned in honor of the late Diane Loomer on the occasion of her retirement from the internationally acclaimed Elektra Women’s Choir; composed in 2008 and published in 2014 by Cypress)

“The impetus for her writing of choral and vocal works is ‘always, first and foremost, the text.’ Of this, she says, ‘I generally search for my own [text], even in a commission situation, for I find there needs to be an essential compatibility of language between the poet and the composer.’”

You can read the full article online in PDF format by clicking here. (Note: You must be logged into the acda.org site as a member in order to access the Choral Journal online. If you are not already a member of ACDA, join today!)

Kirke Mechem: Songs of My Old Age

October 18, 2016 by Amanda Bumgarner Leave a Comment

The current issue of Choral Journal features an article on composer Kirke Mechem, who turned 91 earlier this year. Mechem has been called the “dean of American choral composers” and is still an active composer, adding to his impressive catalogue of over 250 works. This article provides readers with a compositional history for eight choral works that Mechem himself calls the “songs of my old age.” They are, he says, “one way or another, about singing…and I either wrote the texts myself or translated, edited, adapted, or juxtaposed parts of public-domain texts.”

As the article states: “One of the most compelling characteristic about Mechem’s vocal music is his meticulous attention to text and its marriage to music… From the start, Mechem and dramatic interpretation of text expression were inseparable: storytelling was always at the fore. Personally selecting a text with which he could tell a story was also inextricably linked to music creation. He rarely accepted commissions for which he could not have a part in text selection.”

One unique feature of this article is that it includes links to audio clips of Kirke Mechem dramatically interpreting the text from eight choral works. (Musical examples are included in the article but due to copyright are not shown in this post.)

Here is one example: We Can Sing That (2012) – Op. 79, no. 2 (SSAA) and Op. 79, no. 3 (SATB), unaccompanied.

“Mechem fashioned this original poem when conductor Eliza Rubenstein and he could not come to an agreement on a commission text for her Orange County Women’s Chorus.” Listen to Mechem reading his poem by clicking here.

CJ Replay: Expanding Students’ Musical and Vocal Ideals in an Urban Community Children’s Choir

October 3, 2016 by Amanda Bumgarner Leave a Comment

The February 2016 issue of Choral Journal featured an article by Nicole Becker and Jeanne Goffi-Fynn titled “Discovering Voices: Expanding Students’ Musical and Vocal Ideals in an Urban Community Children’s Choir.” This article offers readers “an approach to choral training that seeks to broaden children’s musical ideals and abilities by training them in healthy, flexible vocal technique within a rehearsal environment that values and nurtures students’ diverse forms of musicality.”

Their goal, the authors write, is to “empower young people to discover their voices” by “unleashing the potential of their singing voices [and] leading singers to realize that their voices—their opinions, interests, ideas—matter.”

This approach has been specifically developed through the authors’ work with a non-auditioned community chorus for children ages 10-14, based at an urban graduate school of education. The results, however, can be applied to many singers across a variety of age ranges.

After discussing three parameters of vocal technique—registration, resonance, and breath management—the authors present a sequence of 5 vocal exercises that coordinate this approach to vocal training. The first two exercises are below. (If the image appears small, you should be able to click on it to enlarge.)

In the second part of the article, the authors highlight 5 empowerment strategies for rehearsals that cultivate esteem and agency. Following is a brief overview of each:

Repertoire by Request: “We have a white board on which students are invited to write their suggestions for repertoire and other requests for rehearsal… We let them know that their tastes and their music matter to us and shape what we do.”
Solos: “In traditional choir settings, members are assigned solos when the director considers them ready. We prefer to have our singers choose solos when they feel ready, and to this end we provide frequent opportunities for them to take solos in rehearsal.”
Questionnaires and Interviews: “We regularly ask our singers to describe how they feel about chorus and about their voices in questionnaires and interviews.”
Making Texts Their Own: “In our work with texts we help our students find the ways in which the lyrics reverberate with their own experience, so they can deliver the songs in a personal way.”
Training Listeners and Leaders: “One highly effective way to promote listening and critical thinking among singers is to give them opportunities to lead portions of rehearsals.”

Have you used any of these strategies in your own rehearsals? How might utilizing vocal exercises and empowerment strategies make a difference for young singers who are discovering their own voices?

CJ Replay: Vocal Colors in Women’s Choruses

September 19, 2016 by Amanda Bumgarner Leave a Comment

The September 2016 issue of Choral Journal featured an article by Philip Silvey titled “Coordinating Vocal Colors in Women’s Choruses,” which is intended primarily for high school and collegiate women’s choruses and can also be applicable to adult women’s choruses.

The author states the following in the introduction:

“When singers in women’s choruses combine their individual vocal colors, they create vibrant sonorities. As members of an equal voice ensemble, they must learn to coordinate these distinct colors to form an integrated whole, one that captures the expressive intent of a range of musical compositions.”

He continues: “Only singers have the power to alter and adjust sounds they contribute. They alone can do the work necessary to coordinate these vocal colors. Despite this, conductors play an important role in this process. They can encourage singers to know their own voices, invite them to find ways to capitalize on their strengths, teach techniques for optimizing their sound through adjusting tonal parameters in healthy ways, and provide opportunities for singers to independently hear themselves in context and make ongoing adaptations.”

Along with describing the conductor’s role, the author offers readers a system for categorizing vocal timbre “according to three primary colors in female voices: light (pastel), bright (neon), and dark (rich) with three secondary colors occurring as composites of each pair.” The author admits that reducing voices to three categories may be oversimplifying, but “many singers have a central tendency that corresponds to one of these three primary colors.” See the chart below for a visual.

What do you think about this categorization system? How do you think this could help you as a conductor to teach your singers about their own vocal attributes?

The Changing Paradigm of Professional Singing

August 22, 2016 by Amanda Bumgarner Leave a Comment

The December 2015 issue of Choral Journal featured an interesting conversation with top conductors and singers in the United States. The panel included four conductors—Simon Carrington, Joshua Habermann, Simon Halsey, and Craig Hella Johnson—and five singers—Dashon Burton, Esteli Gomez, Kathryn Lewek, Kelley O’Connor, and Kyle Stegall.

The author asked the panel questions about, among others, what qualities and skills make a singer marketable as a full-time professional musician and how conductors can better prepare young singers for careers in the field. The subject of today’s ChoralNet blog is this question: What changes do you see happening in music (both solo and ensemble) over the next fifty years?

Below are just a few of the responses from those on the panel. The full article is available by clicking here to download as a PDF or read in e-format online. (Note: You must be logged into the acda.org site as a member in order to access the Choral Journal online.)

Simon Halsey: I think music will move even further toward freelance work. Musicians will have a greater need to be multi-skilled and will probably need to get more involved in youth and community work as well.

Craig Hella Johnson: The level of professional choral music is growing and improving consistently, and I fully expect that the results of this will be that a great many more people in more cities will be able to hear choral music making at this level.

Esteli Gomez: I’m excited by the possibility of big changes in the way classical singers are trained and treated in the United States… I believe that new venues and opportunities for presenting fusion musical/performance experiences will continue to flourish.

Kyle Stegall: I believe the next few decades will see a significant increase in public interest in new compositions… Whenever a people need a voice, whenever a larger audience needs to be reached with a message of hope and change, music will be there… All positive change starts with communication, and nothing communicates like music.

Click here to read the full article with useful and fascinating answers to many more questions.

Your turn! What changes do you see happening in solo and ensemble music over the next few decades?