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International Initiatives

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.

_________________

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.

______________

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: International Conductors Exchange Program to Sweden

June 14, 2021 by Amanda Bumgarner Leave a Comment

The May issue of Choral Journal is online and features an article titled “International Conductors Exchange Program to Sweden: Building Bridges Through Choral Conductors” by Jeremy D. Jones and Joshua Habermann. You can read it in its entirety at acda.org/choraljournal. Following is a portion from the introduction.

_______________________

Jeremy D. Jones

Following exchanges with Cuba in 2012 and China in 2014, ACDA partnered with Sweden in 2015 with fourteen conductors from each country participating. The exchange began with the visiting conductors from Sweden gathering for residencies in each of our ACDA Regions and attending the National Conference in Salt Lake City. Following the conference, I had the pleasure of creating a residency itinerary and hosting Jakob Patriksson at Miami University in Oxford, OH.

His time in the Central Region also included residencies with 2015 ICEP conducting fellows Amy Blosser at Bexley High School in Columbus, OH, and Dominick DiOrio at Indiana University, Bloomington. Jakob serves as organist and music director at Oscar Fredrik Church in Gothenburg and is also the founder and artistic director of the male choral ensemble, Ars Veritas, a chamber ensemble specializing in the performance of Gregorian chant.

Joshua Habermann

For me, ICEP was a chance to return to Sweden, where I had been an exchange student in 1985 between my junior and senior years of high school. Since spending that summer there, I had maintained an interest in Scandinavian languages and culture, and once I made the choice to pursue choral conducting, I was excited to put my Swedish to use and dig into the rich tradition of Nordic choral music.

The first step in the bilateral exchange was to host two Swedish conductors: Lars Fredén, music director at the Gustav Vasa Church in Stockholm, and Mats Bertilsson, who leads the music program at Olaus Petri Church in Örebro, a city of around 125,000 inhabitants located two hours west of Stockholm. Lars and Mats were among the group of fourteen conductors from Sweden who were hosted in each region.

Related Choral Journal Content
February 2016 – “Training Choral Conductors in the Choral Culture of Sweden: Interviews with Seven Prominent Swedish Conductors” by R. Paul Crabb

November 2016 – “Reflections from the 2015 ACDA International Conductors Exchange Program Körsamarbete med Sverige (Choral Connections with Sweden)” by Kimberly Dunn Adams

Filed Under: Choral Journal Tagged With: ACDA Membership Benefits, ACDA Publications, Choral Journal, conductor exchange, International Activities, International Initiatives

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.
_______________________

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

Kenyan Choral Music, A Recent Historical Perspective

July 30, 2018 by Amanda Bumgarner Leave a Comment

Image via

The following is written by Dale Rieth, 
_________

With all of the recent attention to the International Conductor’s Exchange Program and specifically this year’s pipeline to Kenya, I wanted to share an historical perspective from my own Kenyan research in the 1990’s.  In fact, this article might serve as a “prequel” to today’s musical developments in Kenya and offer an additional perspective by partially filling in the backstory.

Musical Research in Kenya

Musical research in Kenya is a comparatively new phenomenon.  My 1995 doctoral thesis, A Study of Choral Music in Kenya: The Contributions of Its Composers and the Influences of Traditional and Western European Musical Styles , was researched in Kenya under the auspices of a  Fulbright Fellowship. My goal was to research developments in contemporary Kenyan choral music and observe the synthesis of traditional musical styles with Western European compositional processes.  My source material was gathered from the composers themselves, and I compiled their stories via questionnaires as well as gathering examples of their choral compositions.  12 composers were interviewed, and their practical approach to their compositional craft and the writing of music for performance in schools, churches, and festivals, is what has kept their art flourishing.

Their willingness to share their musical and cultural philosophy as well as their music was inspiring, contributing directly to the international community of choral musicians.  These materials were submitted for my doctoral thesis at the University of Cincinnati.  As I now look back, it is unfortunate that there hasn’t been much additional research.  It appears that my paper was one of the first dissertations put on file at the Kenya Information Preservation Society (founded in 1990), which, as their title suggests, is devoted to preserving the cultural heritage of their nation.  The handful of dissertations also on file focus upon specific case studies of acculturation, copyright, text setting, and a history of music/dance competition.  However, there still exists a great need for systematic collection and archiving of the myriad of Kenyan traditional music which admittedly would be an immense undertaking and require coordination by the Kenyan Government.

As a choral musician, I was based in Nairobi where I found the musical scene to be highly energized.  A particularly fertile landscape was that of the Kenya National Music Festival, attended by musical groups from throughout the country.  A logical starting point for this article is to summarize conclusions I had drawn in 1995 about the status of contemporary choral music in Kenya as well as share questions I had posed at the time regarding the future of the choral arts in Kenya.

Research Conclusions

It was determined in 1995 that five distinct genres were being explored by Kenyan choral composers.  Still, the emphasis upon composer training in Kenya has produced a music education system skewed toward Western European influence (as established by British music educators in the 20th century period of colonialism).  However, Kenyan composers have adapted quite readily to syncretic genres (utilization of cross-cultural influences) realizing this may be the only hope for their compositional survival.  For that matter, Kenya has traditionally be open to new ideas, since “Kenya’s strategic location as a migratory pathway has encouraged the process of acceptance and assimilation of cultural traits from outside groups”.1

Traditional musical elements continue to figure prominently in contemporary compositions and although there continues to be traditional categories of music included in the presentations of the annual Kenya Music Festival, Kenyan choral art music (with its traditional elements) is still not included in the National Music Education curriculum.  A key ingredient would be the inclusion of Kenyan choral art music as a formal musical genre at the Kenya Music Festival.  Despite the composers’ embrace of syncretic musical styles, there is a very real danger that Kenya’s indigenous music will be lost by acculturation.

Of special interest is a doctoral dissertation by Duncan Wambugu.  In this document, Dr. Wambugu underscores the importance of inclusion of a music curriculum in the Kenyan National Educational System and specifically, the use of traditional music genres in academic study and performance.  In fact, the incorporation of traditional musical genres could be deemed essential to the health of the nation as music in Kenya is inseparable from life events.  Music is attached to all of life, from birth to rites of passage (adulthood) to death, from planting to harvesting, from times of war to times of peace.  Choral music continues to be ubiquitous in Kenyan society with the formation and continued participation of choral groups in branches of government, private enterprise, music clubs and organizations, churches and other religious organizations, and of course schools.

The Future

Most obvious is the need for a systematic and standardized approach to preservation and analysis of Kenyan choral music.  An ideal project for the future would be the initiation of a “Kenyan National Songbook” in the same manner as the “African Textbook Project” envisioned in 1969 by the International Library of African Music (Roodepoort, South Africa): “Under the ILAM’s supervision, research teams in the field were to initiate and record audio and video performances of music and dance, transfer the recordings to a processing team for transcription and analysis, and publish and archive the results.  Ultimately an anthology was to be distributed to all participants.”2  With or without such a document, the process of recording, transcribing, cataloging, and archiving of indigenous music (the result of field research as well as witnessing performances at the Kenya Music Festival) would prove very fruitful for the composers of Kenyan and to musical life in general.  Duncan Wambugu also argues for a universal format which would be practical and accessible on a global scale, concluding that, “(Kenyan choral) Art music would therefore be an ideal platform”.3

The Kenyan musical scene is energized and continues to display an attitude of optimism.  There is progress in the quantity and quality of musical organizations and performance level, and as Kenyan composers continue to rely on their musical instincts, their output will continue to reflect the depth of their cultural heritage, and their music will truly speak of Africa.

____________

In my intention to turn this subject into an open forum for choral musicians, I welcome submissions to these sample questions for those who have visited Kenya in their quest to learn more:

  • What were you seeking to discover in your travels to Kenya?
  • Did your original mission statement transform upon arrival in the country?
  • Were you able to accomplish your original objectives?
  • Did you encounter barriers to research-gathering?
  • Did you find your local contacts to be supportive of your work?
  • In what way did you apply the results of your research upon your return home?
  • Do you have any future plans to continue your research?

These and more specific inquiries would appear to be useful in charting a future course for research of Kenyan choral music.

* * *
1Dale Rieth, A Study of Choral Music in Kenya: The Contributions of Its Composers and the Influences of Traditional and Western European Musical Styles (Doctoral thesis, University of Cincinnati, 1997): 87.
2Ibid., 162.
3Duncan Wambugu, Kenyan Art Music in Kenya’s High School General Music Curriculum: A Rationale for Folk-Song Based Choral Music (Doctoral dissertation, University of Florida, 2012): 131.

 

Filed Under: From Our Readers, International Initiatives Tagged With: icep, international, International Initiatives, Kenya

Musica International – Dr. John Warren & Jean Sturm

March 5, 2017 by T.J. Harper Leave a Comment

MUSICA: A Great Benefit for ACDA Members

If you are searching for choral repertoire, and the fact is, we are indeed searching for choral repertoire all the time, your membership in the American Choral Directors Association offers you the entire Musica choral database to track down repertoire throughout the world.

Why would you use Musica rather than a Google search? Great question! Here are some answers I think you will find compelling:

  1. The Musica database references the score for the choral piece you want to find and does not drown in all other areas that you will encounter in a typical Google search;
  2. Music is a structured database, which means there exists a specific field for each type of information describing a score—composer, title, voicing, number of voices, key center, genre, style, form, instrumentation, liturgical use, and much more (for example, try searching in Google for Swiss choral scores for mixed voices in French, for a harvest festival, lasting about five minutes – Good luck with that! But in Musica, your search can be pinpointed with these criteria.)
  3. A Musica record includes all the information about the score into a single entity; you will find the bibliographic description, but also the multimedia links (video, audio clip, translations, pronunciation of the text (sound file by a native), image of the page, and more);
  4. The information is monitored constantly and checked and improved (in other words, it is trusted) by the Musica coordination team, which is a team of choral conductors and music librarians (in other words, this is a trusted site, avoiding the negative aspects of Google searches);
  5. The videos selected for the choral works sought are only the good performances, unlike Google and YouTube that mix the best with the worst;
  6. Musica offers “favorite pieces of the month” for additional exploration and interest;
  7. Musica offers an “auditorium” where you can browse through the vast compilation of all audio and video links;
  8. Musica allows you to interact with the data by using a Musica Wiki or Facebook page;
  9. Musica offers a list of important anniversaries for composers.
  10. Musica can be used to manage your choral holdings or your choir’s holdings without need of doing your own database, by benefitting from private fields to input for instance your location.

Musica comprises four databases that can be consulted separately: choral scores-172,000 records; choral composers-32,000 records; authors of texts-14,000 records; choral publishers-2,500 records. These databases are interlinked so that it is possible to navigate directly between them.

The database of scores comprises a series of fields yielding as many as 100 different types of information about the score, including composer, arranger, publisher, title, genre, form, difficulty, type of choir, language, musical period, instrumentation, etc.

Musica currently contains more than 300,000 multimedia links. The multimedia fields are designed to provide a fuller understanding of the piece: image of one page of the score, the text, its translation in several languages, a sound clip of a good interpretation and/or a video, a sound file of the correct pronunciation by a native speaker of the language, a midi file, and links to pages external of the project. By the end of 2016, the Musica database contained more than 172,000 records, making it the leading virtual library of choral music in which all possible information about a score is available.

Since 2011, Musica has concentrated on the development of features allowing full interactivity with the actors of choral music. The choral world is able to contribute actively to its development through online forms, allowing every composer, publisher, conductor, musicologist, or choral music lover to directly input new pieces or their favorites, if not referenced yet, or use the Musica Wiki to leave comments, additional information and reports of experiences with the music. This interaction is now possible whatever the computer operating system (PC, McIntosh, Android, Linux…).

Musica is now a benefit of membership in ACDA. From the ACDA.ORG webpage, click the Membership Resources pull-down menu. Musica is the bottom button listed. There, many above mentioned features are accessible through the link “View Full Musica Site”.

If you are coming at the ACDA National Conference in Minneapolis, there are two ways to learn much more on Musica. First, come by exhibit booth #343 anytime the exhibits are open, meet the staff, explore the database. Second, on Saturday, March 11 at 10 a.m. in the Convention Center room L100 A and B, Jean Sturm, creator and Executive Director of Musica will demonstrate the many uses and features of Musica, including its interactivity with the user and the ability to manage your own or your choir’s library. Until then, explore the database at http://acda.org/musica.asp.

Much of this article is a 2017 update of a blog by ACDA Executive Director, Tim Sharp (used with his permission), which appeared on the website of the 2016 ACDA Eastern Division Conference in Boston.

John Warren with Jean Sturm

Filed Under: International Initiatives Tagged With: ACDA, International Initiatives, Jean Sturm, John Warren, Musica International, tim sharp

Reaching a Global Audience – Deke Sharon

February 26, 2017 by T.J. Harper 1 Comment

Reaching a global audience, by Deke Sharon

Since the beginning of recorded history until the advent of recording, music was local, as sound waves could only travel as far as the breeze would carry them. Recordings and radio waves allowed music to travel through space and time, but recording and distribution was an expensive process, and there were only a limited number of radio stations. Only those with a record deal or invitation to perform on a broadcast were able to have their music heard elsewhere.

We live in a brave new musical world in which the effective cost of recording and distribution are so low as to be negligible in most cases. Billboard charting albums are recorded on laptops using digital recording technology that allows for endless number of tracks and takes, and if anything isn’t perfect, notes and rhythms can be nudged and pitched into place. As for distribution, iTunes and YouTube have taken the place of physical recordings, allowing anyone to upload their music at no cost, where it can be seen and heard by anyone on the globe with access to the internet.

The a cappella community in particular has benefitted greatly from these advances. Straight No Chaser were discovered by Atlantic Records after a video of theirs went viral, now they’re international recording and touring stars with two gold records and a fan base most rock bands could only dream about. Collegiate a cappella ensembles now release recordings that are of a quality unimaginable only a decade ago, with fans worldwide eagerly awaiting their newest album and videos. Pentatonix has used technology especially well, graduating from simple iPhone videos to award-winning music videos; they’ve had such success that they have more subscribers on YouTube than Beyonce. Other groups, such as Home Free, have found an audience where one never existed, being the first a cappella country band.

The benefits have reached traditional choral music as well. Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choirs have seen tremendous success online, catapulting him to celebrity status (who was the last choral composer to have that kind of popular recognition?). The PS22 chorus has several viral videos and a significant following, having inspired middle school music teachers around the globe. From gospel choirs to barbershop quartets, the internet is full of vocal harmony, and the results have been a boon to educators who are seeing increased enrollment, and to students who are finding inspiration.

Reading this, you may think “well, what about me and my chorus? How do we benefit?” You can use the internet initially to:

* Find new ideas for your group, from repertoire to look and staging

* Listen to different performances of songs you will be performing, to help hone your vision for your performance

* Use great online performances to excite your singers

* Use less effective performances as an opportunity to learn and critique

…and once your group is performing to your standards

* Capture concert video and upload to the internet for archival purposes

* Take live audio recordings and make them available for sale online (companies like loudr.com can handle clearance)

* Consider making a simple, fun “behind the scenes” video of rehearsals to attract more members

* Create a vlog (video log) of any tours, so your families and fans back home can keep up with you daily

Finally, when you have the right song that sounds great and captures the essence of your group, consider spending some money and making a professional video. The money that in times past you might have put in to making an album is better spent on video nowadays, as it’s a more immediate, compelling record of your group’s creativity and craft. Recordings only present part of your group’s character and charisma, as an audience needs to see singers’ faces to be fully transformed by vocal harmony.

The international scope of our current digital musical landscape need not be daunting. The world’s great choral music has never been closer at hand, for you and your singers. Listen, learn, and in time add your own voices to the rich tapestry of singing online. The benefits to listeners and viewers worldwide – now and in future generations – are greater than ever before. The increase in number of singers, recordings and videos has an impact, as the world over time, slowly but surely, is becoming a more harmonious place.

Deke Sharon is considered “the father of contemporary a cappella.” For more please visit: http://www.dekesharon.com

Filed Under: International Initiatives Tagged With: ACDA, Deke Sharon, icep, International Initiatives

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