The interview process...

This evening I will be interviewing for a church music position in the Twin Cities metro area, and in preparation for the interview the pastor sent me two questions to contemplate ahead of time.  I appreciate it when future employers give me opportunities to think of my answers ahead of time.  In this situation, I found the questions to be quite thought provoking. So much so, that the questions alone make me more excited at the prospect of working for this particular church.

As I began meditating upon these questions, I thought, "This would make a good blog entry, and making it a blog entry may help me articulate my answers better." Out of respect for the church, I will keep the identity of the church and its denomination out of my answers below.

Question #1 - Being a choral director in a church involves the intersection of music, theology, and the worship life of the church.  How do you understand these multiple aspects of the job?


This question describes the essential distinction between the job of the church choir director, and a choir director in any other position.  I believe it is the job of the church choir director to enhance the worship experience of the congregation.  However this "enhancement" is not done by merely adding wonderful choral anthems to the worship setting, but by inviting and encouraging the members of the congregation to become  more actively engaged in worship.  As a church musician, it is my job to prevent congregants from becoming mere spectators in the liturgy.  Too often in recent years, I have observed congregants of various denominations and social make ups exist as non-participating members of the worship service.  As a musician and person of faith who believes that speaking the prayers and singing the liturgy is an essential part of the worship experience this trend baffles, and to an extent, frightens me.

Early on in my professional career I had the fortune of working for two ELCA churches that were very traditional in their liturgy, but also maintained strong congregational participation.  As a liturgical snob/traditionalist, I took great pride to work for such churches.  I realize now that this is the exception.  However over the past decade, I have attended churches that utilize worship and praise bands and a more contemporary liturgy, but suffer from the same spectator worship.  This has lead me to the conclusion that it is not entirely the music, nor is it the fault of the congregation.

The worship leadership must find a way to implement music in the liturgy that members of the congregation will feel comfortable singing.  Part of this process is selecting quality music in a singable range.  Some older hymns and contemporary worship songs have melodic material that ranges to wide or sits in a higher tessitura.  The other part is educating the congregation.  The choir can be utilized either directly or indirectly when introducing new music to educate and provide support to the congregation.  If a new hymn is being introduced, it would be wise to teach it to the choir the week before, and then allow them to sit with their families throughout the sanctuary to provide a security net for the remainder of the congregation.  If an unfamiliar or new liturgy is implemented for a portion of the church year (ie. Lent), I have found it is beneficial to educate the congregation regarding the unfamiliar music with the choir and cantors directly.  More often than not, congregants want to participate in the liturgy, but if they are unfamiliar with the text or music they do not feel comfortable doing so.

In conclusion, the choir director can provide very beneficial leadership within the worship team to invite the congregation to actively participate in the liturgical celebration.  In the end this is what we all want when we attend worship.  We want to "get something out of it", but to do so we must participate, and help others to do so.

Question #2: (The church) designates two Sundays each year - one in Advent and one in the Spring - as "Choral Music Sundays." The choir director has the creative license to design the entire service.  What kinds of "all music" Sundays would you envision?


I am certain other choir directors who might read this blog share my view that his aspect of the job is awesome.  To be entrusted with the planning of two worship services in a year that features your preferred art form as a central component to worship is a tremendous honor and responsibility.  This is an extremely exciting aspect of this particular position, because it hints to the importance that the congregation and pastor holds the use of music within the liturgy.  As a choral musician how I could help but not want to work in an environment like that.

Enough of my gushing... onto the actual answering of the question...

As a member of the American Choral Director's Association and specifically and extremely active member of the Iowa chapter over the past five years, I have participated in and witnessed some wonderful worship and music sessions and services at regional and national conventions, and state summer conventions.  Clinicians that particularly struck a chord with me include Dr. John Ferguson of St. Olaf College and Dr. Joey Martin of Texas State University - San Marcos. Ferguson and Martin have drastically different approaches to music in worship with the former taking a more traditional approach, and the latter using a more eclectic/contemporary approach.  However both are successful in touching the congregation on a musical and spiritual level.  That is what is important.

Advent...
During the Advent season the natural approach is to have a service of lessons and carols, which is an Anglican tradition that many denominations have embraced. (Forgive the wikipedia reference, not very "academic.")  The options vary. The most obvious is to begin with the established Nine Lesson and Carols tradition at King's College, and modify the selection of hymns and carols based upon the traditions of the church and the ability of the choral ensemble.  One would be to create my own selecting readings, hymns, and anthems that interconnect from the church's established choral library, with a few newer purchases depending on the allowance of the budget.  In this approach, I sometimes like to replace some of the scriptural reading with sacred poetry.  This was an approach I used frequently as a Catholic high school choir director in Iowa.  This particular thread from Choralnet was invaluable in developing this idea.  Another idea is to purchase a complete published Lessons and Carols service from a music publisher. In recent years composers and librettists have created entire compositions around this idea.  Some publishers that have these compositions within their catalogues include: Augusburg Fortress, MorningStar, Concordia Publishing, among others.  I would admittedly need to more fully examine each potential composition before recommending this approach.

Spring...
When examining potential options for Choral Music Sundays during the spring there are many more variables.  Is this particular Sunday occurring in Lent, during the Easter Season, or after Pentecost?  What are the scheduled readings for that Sunday?  Is there a special occasion that occurs on this Sunday?  Hymn sings are a possibility.  However in these incidents, I am inclined to explore unique worship music possibilities.  In recent years I have been increasingly interested in the work of the All Saints Company attached with St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco. The ASC's program of Music that Makes Community focuses upon learning congregational music from rote based upon the folk traditions of the past.  I have only scratched the surface of ASC's ideas, but I think it is something worth exploring and has great potential.


Well the interview is tonight.  Hopefully, my thoughts on the questions above will help me in the interview process.  If nothing else, the questions have helped me in greater depth about the role of the choral director in a church setting.

Sifting through the trash to find treasure...

One of my greatest joys over the past year was serving as the R&S Chair of Ethnic and Multicultural Music for the Iowa Choral Director's Association.  Part of the fun was sifting through all of the new octavos published by the various music publishers in the past year and determining which had value. That was also a major part of the burden of the position. "Value" is a difficult label, because much of what is published does not excite me as a "choral snob", but one must look at each score from different perspectives to determine its merit.  To be perfectly honest too much of what is published is not worth performing.

First and foremost, one must determine the intended audience of each octavo.  Was this piece written for elementary choir or an advanced collegiate / professional ensemble (or somewhere in between)?  How well does this piece serve the purpose for the given ensemble?  Admittedly, there is a lot of music written for elementary and middle school choirs that lacks substance and quality, and I as an educator would avoid programming many of these pieces.  There are composers and arrangers for young voices who do outstanding work to create worthwhile octavos for those embryonic performers. (Christi Cary Miller is an arranger that is outstanding for young choirs.)  Conversely, there is also repertoire written for advanced ensembles that appear composed as a compositional exercise, and fail to move me as a listener.  Difficulty for the sake of difficulty.

How do we find pieces that inspire and move?  None of what I will say here is ground breaking.  In fact these are beliefs "stolen" from teachers and colleagues with whom I have had the fortune to come in contact over the course of my career.  Often these same inspiring mentors unabashadly admit they "stole" their successful ideas from someone else.  I am merely paying it forward.

My first qualifier is the text.  Do the words inspire me?  Now granted there are moments in concerts where we as directors will program pieces from the popular or broadway repertoire that are meant to humor or entertain an audience.  But, if you look closely, even those pieces grab us because of the lyrics.

My second qualifier is the part writing.  Is the melodic line that the composer shapes memorable?  Are the harmonic parts accessible for the interior voices without being too dull (poor altos).  Are the root movements in the bass line singable for those men?  Are the different voice parts written in a manner that all components can be heard, or is the part writing too dense to reveal the true beauty of the piece. 

My third qualifier is generally a result of the sum of the previous two:  Does the piece have a moment that leaves the audience moved in some way (awestruck, shaken, smiling, or entertained)?  For a piece of music to be memorable for conductor, performer, and audience alike it needs to have a moment that stands from the rest, some sort of "climax" if you will.  However the climax does not have to be loud or audacious, it can be as simple as one lone voice pleading for forgiveness.

Over the course of my time writing this web-log, I intend to look through my stacks of choral rep (multicultural or otherwise) and give my thoughts on the subject.  If anyone follows, it would be great to hear your thoughts on the manner.  I wish I had started this venture sooner, I am excited for the intellectual stimulation it may create.  Admittedly, I will post about other aspects of a life as a choral director and educator, but as my graduate school mentor Dr. Brad Barrett always said, "Repertoire, repertoire, repertoire."

Choral Conductor as "Addict"

So what is the purpose of this blog?  Will anyone read it?  Or is this merely an exercise for me to work out my own intelluctual problems?

First the genesis of the title of this blog, which is a long convaluted story.  Recently, I have been reading a book that I have been planning to read for a long time, Parker's "Once a Runner".  I was a competitive distance runner in high school and college, and took pride in my athletic achievements no matter how humble.  Early in the book Parker describes the obsessively regimented life of a competitive distance runner.  I remember it well.  My entire schedule was centered around when I was going to "get my miles in" for the day to contribute to my ever increasing weekly mileage goal.  I miss that compulsion, which leads me to the greater realization I have what one might call an "addictive personality". 

How so...

It is human nature for people to harbor some sort of compulsion or addictive behavior. I would venture to label my compulsion is border line hoarding.  Looking back on my life I have collected or horded a lot of things: comic books, sports cards, video games, CDs, books, and now choral music octavos.  Unfortunately, I still possess many of these items, which reminds of the idea that we can be "weighed down by our possessions."  I need to declutter, especially now

Conversely, I would argue that being single-minded or compulsive in our pursuits and behavior is not all bad.  As long as I pick and choose where I allow my addictive behavior to manifest itself, it can contribute positively to my life.  So I have decided to be addicted to these things:

1.) My family - my wife and children always number one on my list.
2.) My faith - when I remain active in a faith a community, and my own spiritual development, that is when I feel focused.
3.) Running - I know I won't run a mile in about 4:45 again, but I could sure stand to get back in the healthy habit of distance running.  I often equated my distance running sessions in my youth as "mobile meditation".
4.) Choral music - however, admittedly I could stand to pair down the choral octavo library, and book collection.  This blog will serve as an outlet for this addiction as I write about choral topics I find interest in.

That means all the fairly meaningless distractions of my long ago youth need to be sold off, given away, or just thrown out.  Only by simplification and focus can we maximize our potential.