Getting from point A to point Z; What comes first?
This workshop will focus on realizing one’s conception of a choral score by building an appropriate and interesting choral sound according to one’s reading of the composer’s intentions. A discussion of interesting, effective score marking and its practical application will be the focus of this workshop. Conductors will be exposed to an analytical approach based on the connection between the visual comprehension of a score and one’s accompanying aural awareness. Conductors will have the chance to rehearse with a lab choir and apply score analysis and preparation techniques discussed in the workshop. REPERTOIRE (with lab choir): WHITACRE Lux aurumque, THOMPSON Glory to God in the Highest
How does one build a TTBB choir in a city that might be rich with choral interest but not necessarily flush with male singers? How does one build a male choir without threatening the delicate balance in existing SATB choirs and forever offending conductors of those mixed choirs? Is there appropriate and challenging repertoire beyond drinking songs, sailor ditties, and cowboy ballads for men to sing? How can we interest and keep young men committed to choral singing? These are just a few of the many questions that will be explored in this session.
This lecture-demonstration will explore the power of Dalcroze Eurhythmics to transform choral singing experiences. Dalcroze Eurhythmics is an educational approach that uses movement to teach musical concepts. Based on the premise that the body is the primary instrument of musical instruction, Dalcroze techniques target the kinesthetic sense to bridge the gap between sound and thought. Engaging the kinesthetic sense boosts mindful participation in rehearsals and trains choristers to become musically independent and expressive.
In this session, we will explore the history and foundations of the Dalcroze method, including its three main branches: Eurythmics, Solfege, and Improvisation. Through a variety of movement explorations, improvisatory exercises, and listening activities, conductors will learn exciting ways to connect with the music. Dalcroze techniques will captivate your students and revitalize your choir’s tone. Be prepared to move, improvise, and have a little fun!
Our ability as conductors to develop healthy singing tone in our singers is a reflection of how we use our precious rehearsal time with them. The development of our singers’ tone, choral skills, and understanding of music is strongly connected to the diet we feed them week in and week out. This session will outline essential elements found in many readily available compositions and arrangements that create vital teaching/learning opportunities. It will help you make the right choice of music for your choir at this point in their development and ensure that they have a sense of accomplishment and success as they grow as musicians. Elektra Women’s Choir will demonstrate and delegates will sing through several suggested works.
Einojuhani Rautavaara's All-Night Vigil: From Cathedral to Concert Hall
Finnish choral music is gaining prominence in Canada as evidenced by the recent rise in popularity of Rajaton and composers such as Makaroff, Chynedius and Mäntyjärvi. Finnish composer Rautavaarahas also had some substantial exposure in Canada, but his All-Night Vigil is relatively unknown. This masterpiece is bound to follow in the tradition of the great Orthodox vespers and liturgies of composers like Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky.
The format of this session will be a combination of interactive lecture and reading session, detailing biographical and historical information and including a brief introduction to Finnish diction.
The
very bilingual Pat Abbott will help you and choir sing in French without fear. Find out how French pronunciation differs from English and learn to avoid the pitfalls of French texts. Pat will base the session on some of the most often performed French-language music by French and Canadian composers. Pat will also provide useful resources and references to help you perform music in French successfully.
Hidden Treasures in Provincial Choral Libraries
This panel discussion will give delegates an insight into the treasures contained in choral libraries across Canada and provide an insight into changes planned for the future.
It Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing: Singing Jazz
Jazz is one of the most liberating, exciting, creative, colorful, and limitless styles of music that any singer can explore. Whether as a choir or a soloist, singing jazz will expand your technical, musical, and creative range like nothing else! This workshop can be for beginning to advanced jazz choirs (or choirs with little or no experience singing jazz), soloists with choir, or soloists alone. The workshop includes:
Jazz rhythms: swing and syncopation; getting tight by getting loose!
Jazz phrasing: the "elastic line" and rhythmic freedom
Jazz harmonies: fine-tuning your ear to extended harmonies
Jazz color: "playing" your voice like an instrument; expanding your palette of sound
Improvisation: allowing your own spontaneous musical ideas to bloom
The history of western choral music from the beginning - from the caveman to the present. Historically accurate in very broad strokes-Mary Lou Fallis and PT combine to illuminate the real function of vocal cords, the Oratorio Top Ten, the meaning behind plain chant, a new Handel Anthem (very new) and spiced up Canada Day Material . Also including a Canadian Commission about the Building of the Railway. Commissioned and performed very successfully with a number of community choirs-to date, Chorus Niagara, The Cellar singers, The Orpheus Choir, The Kitchener Philharmonic Choir, The Festival 500 Chorus, the Fanshawe Singers and the Mississauga Festival Chorus.
Audiences and singers alike love to be moved and inspired by the rhythmic, passionate, and soulful experience of spirituals and gospel music. Combining elements of classical vocal technique with jazz and blues stylings, your choir will experience musical benefits that apply to all styles of music. This workshop consists of easy-to-learn songs taught in the oral tradition (or: polishing your current gospel or spiritual arrangements). Fun and inspiring for all! The workshop includes:
Freeing the body and the voice by integrating singing, gesture, and movement.
Feeling the rhythm rather than counting the beats.
Stylistic elements such as "swung" rhythm, scooping and bending pitches, syncopated accents.
Expanding vocal color and expression.
Making Gesture Meaningful
Robert Ingari
Efficient, organic movement is the key to a solid and expressive choral sound. The workshop will focus on finding one’s 'core' gesture and modifying it according to the rhythmic, melodic and harmonic language of a given work. Breathing as a conducting technique will also be discussed as well as ideas on movements to liberate and energize the choral sound. Conductors will have a chance to experiment with these techniques with a lab choir. REPERTOIRE: Brahms, Nänie, Op. 82; Poulenc, Gloria, movement no 6.
The Master Classes with Dr. Julia Davids will include information on designing a rehearsal, programming, achieving a particular sound, balance and tuning. Each of the four successful applicants will be given the opportunity to prepare and conduct set pieces with the Canadian Chamber Choir. Each conducting session will be followed by discussion and consultation with the master conductor while the fourth and final session will be a concert featuring all four apprentice conductors. The sessions are open for observation by Podium delegates.
I will highlight lesser known compositions by emerging and established American composers. A variety of voicings, genres and levels of difficulty will be covered.
Oldies But Goodies: Senior But Still Skilled Singers!
It's time to recognize, encourage and celebrate the ever-increasing role of 'seniors' choirs!
Aging doesn't have to mean the song's over for senior singers. Learn how to work with a choir of senior but still skilled singers. This session will present information on how to set programs, pick appropriate repertoire for those programs, create 'friendly' auditions, work with vocal problems that come with age and more. Watch as Diane works with EnChor, Vancouver's celebrated Ambassadors for Senior Choirs, to demonstrate these techniques and more.
SATB Reading Session
Find some new treasurers and old pleasures for SATB voicing. Materials supplied by Long & McQuade.
Discuss the fast paced changes of our world and some of the particular challenges of dealing with today's student, the "Digital Native." Learn how technology can impact the essence of what we do in our profession in both the narrow scope of our individual jobs and the larger potential implications for the world of choral music. Discover technologies that can advance communication, protect privacy and refine a choral director's personal digital strategy and talk about the current and future technology trends Dr. Copeland sees for choral music.
This presentation and discussion will focus on the positive results for singers/students when conductors and voice teachers work together. Topics covered will include transfer of technique from the studio to the rehearsal, pedagogical opportunities in the rehearsal and how to address various concerns.
The Choral Music of Robert Evans - Bridges to Humanity
The choral music of Canadian composer Robert Evans (1935-2005) offers numerous opportunities for conductors to inspire, challenge, and delight their singers, as well as their audiences. I propose to present to Podium delegates, through score samples and listening excerpts, a few of the most famous of Evans’ pieces, as well as some of the unjustifiably neglected scores. The delegates will be invited to participate as singers where practical.
In discussing Mr. Evans’ choral repertoire, I focus on the ways in which Evans’ humanity informed his composition. Just as for other distinguished composers, Evans’ expertise as a musical craftsman served as a vehicle for his spiritual journey, sometimes clearly and other times much more subtly expressing his philosophical positions and posing questions that challenge us on many levels.
For Evans, composition was a process involving much more than the music and the poetry. Like Britten’s War Requiem, Evans’ compositions drew much of their significance from the performance context, which Evans planned carefully in accordance with his in-depth preparation. In order to demonstrate this, I examine the context and music of Evans’ composition Bridges, interjecting excerpts from the premiere performance. Bridges was composed on a text that Evans personally collected from teenagers living in an institution for young offenders. After numerous visits with Evans, these children wrote poignantly of their tragic experiences, exposing their deepest fears, and tentatively exploring the hope for redemption. Evans’ personal engagement with these young people was an integral part of the compositional process. Equally important, however, was the inclusion of these ‘poets’ in the premiere performance, and the opportunity for them to interact meaningfully with the members of the Toronto Mendelssohn Youth Choir, who presented the piece under conductor Robert Cooper.
While highlighting the ways in which Evans imbued his work with his humanitarian values, I would provide repertoire lists and relevant material on hand-outs, in order to make this a practical session for those who may wish to pursue Mr. Evans’ music.
The Choral Music of Robin John King, Canadian Composer
Robin John King has written a wide range of choral music – from accessible short church anthems to significant commissions by professional Canadian choirs. While some is in print, much is still in manuscript. Through recordings and reading, his music will be introduced and shared by John Hooper, a collaborator and colleague of the composer. His rich chords, expressive dissonances and innovative rhythms are particularly attuned to the meaningful texts which he selects. Rev. King is now a pastor in the United Church of Canada and will be celebrating his 50th birthday in 2011, an opportunity to program his works. Thanks to King’s generosity, sample music will be made available.
The Surviving & Thriving High School Music Teacher
High school music teachers quit the profession after four or five years, on average.
Nickel explores the reasons for this depressing phenomenon. What does it take to survive and succeed? Teaching strategies - the fun factor, stress management, recruitment tactics, working with budget restraints, motivational techniques, winning over the administration, repertoire recommendations, learning to listen, making music theory a natural part of each lesson, ideas for Festivals, trips tours and fundraisers, etc. Nickel will share his best discoveries!
Transform Your Choir's Sound with Bel Canto Vocal Principles
Choral sound can be so exhilarating - at once full of colour and human emotion. Yet it is undeniable that, in a quest to achieve a tone where all voices blend into one cohesive whole, certain important aspects in an ensemble’s tone are sometimes left behind and blend can become rather bland. This session will present an alternate approach by advancing the core principles of the bel canto method of singing and how they can transform a choir’s tone and vocal technique in a very positive manner and in a style that is completely appropriate for choral singing. Principles of beautiful tone will be presented from both artistic and scientific perspectives. State-of-the-art acoustical analyses will help to reveal why these techniques allow choral sound to be more pleasing to the ear; why they enable a choir’s tone to carry over the sound of an orchestra with less effort and to be more consistently in-tune while also enabling each word to be understood. Conductors and choristers alike will hear and see how bel canto principles not only elevate the level of choral singing from a technical standpoint, but also enhance the expressive character of the human voice in the context of that most fascinating of musical instruments - the choral ensemble.
This session will address principles of healthy physical alignment by introducing simple exercises to lengthen the spine and bring more energy into the legs and feet. By engaging the full body to produce sound, the voice becomes more securely supported and free. Some minimal movement will be involved, inspired by the work of F.M. Alexander and the yoga teachings of B.K.S. Iyengar.
Everybody has rhythm! And much of today's contemporary choral repertoire features exciting African, Latin, and jazz rhythms. This lively, hands-on workshop will give you and your singers a solid start in getting a groove happening in your choir. Exercises include clapped and spoken rhythm "rounds", syncopations, African and Afro-Cuban music, and more. The rhythms are learned through movement, clapping, speaking, and singing. Easy-to-learn and fun musical games and songs will help your choir listen better, loosen up, and become a tighter ensemble. A guaranteed good time! For all ages and levels.
You've heard of extreme sports - how about extreme singing? Wowing your audience takes more than singing the right notes in the right place!
One of the most common challenges choirs face is to break away from "mezzo"-itis; that is, a middle-of-the-road approach to making music. Watch your choir come alive musically by taking its current or new songs to the extreme: in dynamics, phrasing, tone color, rhythm, and articulation.
People who sing in choirs and people who direct choirs should ideally be the ones writing music for choirs - they know how the instrument really works! Dr. Nickel will talk about factors that can make choral music approachable, convincing and enduring.
