arrange • compose • conduct
The last time I was on a retreat was in 2019, and this weekend I’m (with school approval and as safely as I can) on a retreat with the Rockford Aces. I’ve noticed a trend in my own retreat planning towards more human connection and away from actual musical rehearsal. […]
In rehearsal, I heard myself say, “It’s your group – I’m just here to help you achieve your potential.” I really believe that. I call them “my students” or “my singers” but they don’t belong to me. On the other hand, “their director” is a good description – my role […]
I love a mix of recipes I know by heart and recipes I’ve never made before. I have so many things in my weekly repertoire whose recipes I don’t even look at anymore – I bake and cook from memory many times a week. But life gets stale if you’re […]
My least favorite part of September, I told my students in rehearsal tonight, is all the sight reading. Sure, we’re reading music all year long. But the balance of reading and polishing evolves over the course of the year, and in the beginning, it’s much more reading than polishing. It’s […]
For many of the things in our lives, there is something holding us there. A paycheck. A graduation requirement. A life commitment. When I look around the room of my ensemble in rehearsal, I think, “There is nothing holding them here.” No obligation, no law, no requirement. The only thing […]
We’ve talked a lot about starting – only natural as we consider this book and its many ideas at the beginning of a school and concert year. And yet, closings are important, too. I’m thinking about ends of rehearsals, about ends of concerts, and about ends of years (ends of […]
Chapters 5 & 6 had a lot to say about choral rehearsals and gatherings. Chapter 7 pivots with this statement: “Enough about warmth. Let’s talk about heat.” (225) And it has rather less to say about choral rehearsals and performances, even as it has more to say about choral conferences. […]
For this chapter, we’re going to focus on the choir retreat, and specifically about those non-musical hours spent specifically on building the group’s trust and vulnerability with each other. One of the activities I like to include in my retreats is “Special Object.” Each member is asked to bring with […]
…and never start a choir function with talking… “Your gathering begins at the moment your guests first learn of it. […] The intentional gatherer begins to host not from the formal start of the event but from that moment of discovery.” (145-146) I’m thinking a lot about first rehearsal right […]
“A gathering’s blandness is a symptom of a disease….And what is the disease? That the gathering makes no effort to do what the best gatherings do: transport us to a temporary alternative world. (112) The emphasis of this chapter is about creating effective rules – “pop up rules” that might […]