Focus: Choral Music in Global Perspective

Focus: Choral Music in Global Perspective
Author: André de Quadros
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 213
Release: 2019-03-11
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0429656319

Focus: Choral Music in Global Perspective introduces the little-known traditions and repertoires of the world’s choral diversity, from prison choirs in Thailand and gay and lesbian choruses of the Western world to community choruses in the Middle East and youth choirs in the United States. The book weaves together the stories of diverse individuals and organizations, examining their music and pedagogical practices while presenting the author’s research on how choral cultures around the world interact with societies and transform the lives of their members. Through an engaging series of portraits that pushes beyond the scope of extant texts and studies, the author explores the dynamic realm of world choral activity and repertoire. These personal portraits of musical communities are enriched by sample repertoire lists, performance details, and research findings that reposition a once Western phenomenon as a global concept. Focus: Choral Music in Global Perspective is an accessible, engaging, and provocative study of one of the world’s most ubiquitous and socially significant forms of music-making.

Choral Singing

Choral Singing
Author: Ursula Geïsler
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 295
Release: 2014-10-16
Genre: Music
ISBN: 144386904X

What role does contemporary choral activity play in the construction of social and musical meaning? How can historical knowledge and analysis shed light on contemporary choral problems and possibilities? And how can choral research promote the development and expansion of new music today? Questions like these are addressed in this anthology from a wide range of disciplines and perspectives. The book comprises a selection of papers presented at the International Conference on the Concepts and Practices of Choral Singing in Lund, Sweden, in October 2012. The aim of the conference was to highlight the contemporary dynamic developments in choral research, and to explore interdisciplinary investigations and interaction between practice-based and historical approaches. The conference was also the fourth meeting of the network “Choir in Focus”, which was initiated in 2009 at Southern Choral Centre (Körcentrum Syd), a joint venture between Malmö Academy of Music, the Department of Musicology, Odeum (all at Lund University), Malmö Symphony Orchestra and Music South (Musik i Syd), Sweden. The continuous ambition of the network has been to provide a forum for co-operation across national and disciplinary borders and to encourage debates around the musical and social function of choirs in modern society as mirroring collective and individual needs for meaning, music-making and well-being. In the introductory chapter, the editors describe choral practice as a field of simultaneous (re)presentation, (re)production and (re)creation, and suggest that these three aspects may be seen as umbrella themes for the fifteen chapters of the anthology. The authors come from Sweden, Norway, Finland, Estonia, Germany, United Kingdom, Portugal and Belgium, and explore choral practice from differing theoretical and methodological starting points. Together, they contribute to a transdisciplinary discussion about the origins, functions and meanings of choral singing.

Perspectives on Males and Singing

Perspectives on Males and Singing
Author: Scott D. Harrison
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 360
Release: 2012-01-02
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9400726600

“Since singing is so good a thing,I wish all men would learne to sing” (William Byrd, 1588) Over the centuries, there has been reluctance among boys and men to become involved in some forms of singing. Perspectives on Males and Singing tackles this conundrum head-on as the first academic volume to bring together leading thinkers and practitioners who share their insights on the involvement of males in singing. The authors share research that analyzes the axiomatic male disinclination to sing, and give strategies designed to engage males more successfully in performing vocal music emphasizing the many positive effects it can have on their lives. Inspired by a meeting at the Australian symposium ‘Boys and Voices’, which focused on the engagement of boys in singing, the volume includes contributions from leading authorities in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States and Europe.

The Oxford Handbook of Choral Pedagogy

The Oxford Handbook of Choral Pedagogy
Author: Frank Abrahams
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 776
Release: 2017-02-01
Genre: Music
ISBN: 019937337X

As the landscape of choral education changes - disrupted by Glee, YouTube, and increasingly cheap audio production software - teachers of choral conducting need current research in the field that charts scholarly paths through contemporary debates and sets an agenda for new critical thought and practice. Where, in the digitizing world, is the field of choral pedagogy moving? Editor Frank Abrahams and Paul D. Head, both experienced choral conductors and teachers, offer here a comprehensive handbook of newly-commissioned chapters that provide key scholarly-critical perspectives on teaching and learning in the field of choral music, written by academic scholars and researchers in tandem with active choral conductors. As chapters in this book demonstrate, choral pedagogy encompasses everything from conductors' gestures to the administrative management of the choir. The contributors to The Oxford Handbook of Choral Pedagogy address the full range of issues in contemporary choral pedagogy, from repertoire to voice science to the social and political aspects of choral singing. They also cover the construction of a choral singer's personal identity, the gendering of choral ensembles, social justice in choral education, and the role of the choral art in society more generally. Included scholarship focuses on both the United States and international perspectives in five sections that address traditional paradigms of the field and challenges to them; critical case studies on teaching and conducting specific populations (such as international, school, or barbershop choirs); the pedagogical functions of repertoire; teaching as a way to construct identity; and new scholarly methodologies in pedagogy and the voice.

Nineteenth-Century Choral Music

Nineteenth-Century Choral Music
Author: Donna M. Di Grazia
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 543
Release: 2013-03-05
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1136294090

Nineteenth-Century Choral Music is an in-depth examination of the rich repertoire of choral music and the cultural phenomenon of choral music making throughout the period. The book is divided into three main sections. The first details the attraction to choral singing and the ways it was linked to different parts of society, and to the role of choral voices in the two principal large-scale genres of the period: the symphony and opera. A second section highlights ten choral-orchestral masterworks that are a central part of the repertoire. The final section presents overview and focus chapters covering composers, repertoire (both small and larger works), and performance life in an historical context from over a dozen regions of the world: Britain and Ireland, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latin America, the Philippines, Poland, Russia, Scandinavia and Finland, Spain, and the United States. This diverse collection of essays brings together the work of 25 authors, many of whom have devoted much of their scholarly lives to the composers and music discussed, giving the reader a lively and unique perspective on this significant part of nineteenth-century musical life.

Choral Music in the Twentieth Century

Choral Music in the Twentieth Century
Author: Nick Strimple
Publisher: Amadeus Press
Total Pages: 615
Release: 2005-11-01
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1574673785

(Amadeus). Nick Strimple's all-encompassing survey ranges from 19th-century masters, such as Elgar, to contemporary composers, such as Tan Dun and Paul McCartney. Repertory of every style and level of complexity is critically surveyed and described. This book is an essential resource for choral conductors and a valuable guide for choral singers and other music lovers.

A Different Voice, a Different Song

A Different Voice, a Different Song
Author: Caroline Bithell
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 377
Release: 2014
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0199354545

Caroline Bithell explores the history and significance of the natural voice movement and its culture of open-access community choirs, weekend workshops, and summer camps. Founded on the premise that 'everyone can sing', the movement is distinguished from other choral movements by its emphasis on oral transmission and its eclectic repertoire of songs from across the globe.

Transforming Choral Singing

Transforming Choral Singing
Author: Charles W. Beale
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2024-02-02
Genre: Music
ISBN: 019765780X

Choral conductors and clinicians often focus on honing the technical and artistic elements of their choir's performance, but what is the true purpose of choral singing? Choral performances sound beautiful, but they also tell stories, "say something" to someone, and create change in them. In that fundamental sense, they are always activist. In Transforming Choral Singing: An Activist's Guide for Choir Directors, author Charles W. Beale draws from his nearly 20 years of leading major choirs in the LGBTQIA+ choral movement internationally as well as his long experience as a singer, organist, conductor, and educator to put forth a new vision for choral singing: to move audiences and change the world. Four main principles underpin this vision: connection, impact, social justice, and stylistic openness. Beale lays down a non-canonical and inclusive framework, grounded in critical musicology and pedagogy, for mission-driven and activist-oriented engagement with the choral arts, and provides practical takeaways for choral practitioners and conductors through a lively mix of practical, rigorous, and fun workshops, tips, and suggestions. Starting from the premise that all styles deserve equal space, the nine chapters cover the core aspects of choral directing, including mission, vocal sound, rhythm and groove, improvising, programming, conducting, and leading a choral community, teaching and learning, and the daily practice of equity and inclusion. The book closes with a series of calls to action and lays out a potentially transformative activist vision for the whole field, which foregrounds participation and engagement, and conceives of all choral singing as a powerful catalyst for musical and social change. The result is a provocative and contemporary approach to building choral communities with profound implications for why we sing, what we sing, how we sing, and how we conduct, teach, rehearse, and lead a choral community.