Complicating leadership: choral conducting training through movement theatre practice

Conductors are typically presumed to possess the physical, interpretative control in choral performance. Questioning that presumption, this article explores how student conductors might be encouraged to engage physically with the musical sound – and sounding bodies – of a choir. It argues that singers’ vocal performance directly and fruitfully impacts on a conductor’s gestural leadership. Borrowing techniques from established physical/movement-based performance and theatre, it explores how conductors might act as the embodied nexus of the poietic and esthesic dimensions of interpretation (Nattiez, 1990), thus collaboratively constructing a performance. To frame the discussion, a conceptualisation of the overlap between body and voice is set out. This conceptualisation emerged during the development of vocal-physical performance projects (2015-16) and was subsequently developed into a broader philosophical orientation. Focusing on issues of embodiment and empathy, this orientation is enlisted to re-examine choral conducting training practices. The influence of these explorations on Daniel Galbreath’s choral conducting teaching is outlined. Additional action-research with theatre practitioner and teacher Gavin Thatcher is then detailed to demonstrate further developments and disruptions to Galbreath’s practice. As a result, a conducting training practice emerges from these practical enquiries that exploits performers’ mutual, direct physical contact via sound.

Collaborative learning and choral confidence: the role of peer interactions in building confident amateur choirs

This article describes some of the collaborative processes that take place within adult amateur choirs, and demonstrates some associations between group dynamics, peer learning and the development of choral confidence. Three focus groups and 16 individual interviews provided 40 hours of verbal data. The research aims were: to explore the lived experience of amateur choral singers in relation to their confidence levels; to identify some of the factors affecting singers’ confidence in their vocal skills and choral performance ability; to use the data to extrapolate strategies designed for managing confidence issues amongst amateur choral singers. Data was collected during semi-structured interviews and focus groups with amateur singers. The superordinate themes, which emerged from the data, included collaboration and teamwork, reciprocal peer learning, and the contribution of unofficial team leaders to effective learning and performance. All of these factors were reported as increasing individual and collective confidence levels. The findings highlight the role of peer interactions and social learning in developing the confidence of choral singers, and suggest ways in which conductors might optimize these interactions to build confidence during choir rehearsals and performances.

When are initial consonants articulated in choral performance? Cases studies of choral works sung in German

The process of rehearsing and performing a choral piece involves numerous decisions by the conductor. One part of this decision-making is related to the sung text and includes aspects of diction that are not indicated by Western musical notation, for instance the exact instant of articulation of initial consonants. Although choices related to diction have consequences for elements such as clearness of enunciation, rhythmic precision, or intonation, only a few writings on choral conducting are explicit about them. This paper aims to discuss conductors’ choices concerning the instant of articulation of initial consonants in choral performances of works sung in German. It compares conductors’ theoretical suggestions with analyses of six recordings of Johann Sebastian Bach’s movement Trotz dem alten Drachen, BWV 227/5, and four recordings of Franz Schubert’s part-song An die Sonne, D439. Methods include analyses of writings on choral conducting, interviews with conductors, and analyses of recordings using the software programme Sonic Visualiser. Similarities are observed between the theoretical suggestions of conductors and the analysed recordings, however there are some striking differences, including conductors’ underestimations of the actual duration of consonants. Analyses of the recordings reveal that initial consonants are nearly always anticipated (i.e., articulated ahead of the beat to which they are assigned). Exceptions to this concern the plosive [kʰ] and the second consonant of a cluster on occasion. Analyses of recordings also point to the impact on timing anticipation due to the consonant’s surroundings and from the ability or otherwise for the sound of a consonant to be lengthened (i.e., its “lengthenability”). Evidence from the recordings is discussed in relation to conductors’ varying theoretical suggestions on the articulation of consonants, flagging up inconsistencies as well as considering practicalities, and providing insights for choral conductors into the nuances of consonant articulation with ramifications for conducting pedagogy and future research.

Leading with score study: changing priorities in undergraduate conducting curricula

The purpose of this study was to examine student learning in an introductory conducting course in which score study was the primary foundational focus; gesture was viewed as part of a larger conducting process and a secondary learning goal to score study. Research has indicated a need for greater emphasis on score study in introductory conducting courses (Silvey, Springer, & Eubanks, 2016; Stewart, 2011). Student reflection is often used to guide students in understanding the relationship of their gesture to the sound of a live ensemble; however, within the studied course, reflection was expanded to focus on the score study process – developing score study skills, practice habits, and concepts. Researchers analyzed student reflections (N = 25) in order to understand student learning and identify potential improvements to the course. Student reflections were coded using a general inductive approach. In their reflections, students discussed evaluating, revising, refining, and integrating approaches; making connections between conducting and other coursework; analyzing the conducting process; and developing their own conducting philosophy. A model that captures the students’ collective learning process is described. Focusing on score study in this introductory conducting course resulted in substantial student learning about an array of conducting skills and concepts in relation to score study. Reflection assisted students in developing a score study process and a growth mindset, both of which support future learning. Findings provide a springboard for future research that examines how a comprehensive and integrated score study process occurring over time can best contribute to the learning of beginning conducting students.

Performing Beethoven’s musical dynamics

Twentieth-century musicology frequently invoked the music of Beethoven to validate its work-centred, textualist and structuralist agenda. This article re-orients Beethoven’s music towards the performance studies paradigm, which places the music making body and material contexts of performing at the centre of its disciplinary epistemology, by weaving a novel discursive context around the composer’s unusual dynamics markings. Through a historical case study of the premiere of his Op. 70 No. 2 piano trio, I explore the connections between the performance experience of Beethoven’s dynamics and some of the philosophical and cultural discourses emerging in Europe during the early nineteenth century on the body and the self, and thereby construct novel meanings for his expressive performance practice. By bringing together interdisciplinary historical scholarship, phenomenological reflection, analytical thought and practice-based enquiry, I open up a neglected area of research that lies at the intersection of the performance experience of musical dynamics, sensory history and somatic musical archeology.