Day 1 posts:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Previous Day 2 posts:
Part 1
Part 2
Okay, so I am going to ram all of the rest of what I attended at Day 2 into this part, so it may get long. For your knowledge this post will review three session: (1) Sharri VanAlstine of UW-Whitewater on Madrigal Dinners, (2) Tesfa Wondemagegnehu's entertaining session on Vocal Pedagogy for Adolescent singers, and (3) the Great Northern Union concert and information session. Are you ready? Well here we go.
1:15 PM SESSION
During the 1:15 PM session, I attended Dr. Sharri VanAlstine's session entitled: The Educational Value, Creation, and Running of a Madrigal Dinner. Dr. VanAlstine is an assistant professor of vocal music and music education at the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater. Her own experience in directing madrigal dinners came during her time as choir director at St. Francis High School in St. Francis, MN. When she arrived the madrigal program was already well established, so she admitted that she never had to create a madrigal dinner tradition from scratch. However, she gave a very detailed description on all of the administrative tasks that go in to creating a madrigal dinner concert at the high school level, and how such a concert will benefit your music department both educationally and from a community PR stand point.
I have long been kicking around the idea of beginning a madrigal dinner tradition at schools that I have worked at and have attended a number great sessions and spoke with many colleagues in the past including speaking with former Dubuque Senior High School director Dan Nye, purchasing Paul Brandvik's Compleet Madrigal Dinner Booke, and speaking a little with Iowa Western Community College Director Luke Johnson who wrote his master's thesis on Madrigal Dinners. I think I might be ready to start jumping in the pool for this one.
2:30 SESSION
At 2:30 Tesfa Wondemagegnehu lead a session entitled, Vocal Pedagogy for Adolescent Singers: The ABC's of Healthy Choral Singing. Mr. Wondemagegnehu, or Tesfa as he encourages many of his colleagues to call him, has been a welcome addition to the Minnesota choral scene since relocating from Florida a couple of years ago. Currently working as MPR's Choral Stream Representative, he has worked with MPR to be a readily available asset and partner with Minnesota choral directors.
The session on vocal pedagogy gave choral directors practical tools to communicate proper vocal technique to novice adolescent singers to produce a better more unified choral tone. Along with giving very practical tips, Tesfa directly referenced a number of great sources for the directors present to either revisit or read for the first time to help improve our instruction to our classes full of singers. Three that stood out from the session include Richard Miller's Structure of Singing and Solutions for Singers, Dr. Rodney Eichenberger's What They See is What You Get, and Dr. Alan Zabriskie's text Foundations of choral tone. These are three resources, along with others listed, that I will be sure to review or consult for the first time.
Additionally, I need to make sure I invite Mr. Wondemagegnehu down to work with my choirs in the near future. I think it would be a great experience for my singers.
3:45 SESSION
The Great Northern Union Chorus presented an educational concert on barbershop harmony singing in the Central Lutheran Church sanctuary. I have had the privilege to "sing in" on a number of GNU rehearsals in recent years. My current schedule has prevented me from joining the ensemble, but there rehearsals are always open to new singers (and singer educators) to learn more about them as a group and barbershop singing. In fact, GNU is one of the leading organizations in the Barbershop Harmony Society in advocating and encouraging singing opportunities for young male singers. Over the past couple of years, I have gotten to know some of the leadership in the ensemble and they are passionate about helping educators excite and recruit young men into choirs.
In my opinion, the session was under attended, and I believe many educators missed out on a great opportunity to see what GNU can do for them. I highly recommend that choir directors bring their young men to the GNU Real Men Sing Festival on October 3rd, 2015. Open to male singers in grades 7-12, the GNU Real Men Sing is a fantastic opportunity to get your men excited at the beginning of the school year. In previous years, my students have loved the experience. Oh, and it is FREE!
Additionally, there are other Real Men Sing Festivals sponsored by other great institutions in the Upper Midwest throughout the year:
1. The Staples Area Men's Chorus - The SAM founded by Stan Carlson has been a pioneering group in RMS festivals in Minnesota, having hosted one in mid-October for a number of years. If you live near Staples in North Central Minnesota it is a great event. If not, it might be a good retreat for your men, their dad's and you. And it is FREE!
2. St. Cloud State: Brothers Sing On! - Alan Hawkins and Dr. Matthew Ferrell of SCSU. The cost is $30 per singer, and includes lunch and a "Brothers Sing On!" T-shirt.
3. Wartburg College: Real Men Sing - Dr. Lee Nelson of Wartburg College in Waverly, IA has begun the tradition of hosting a Real Men Sing Festival in early October. Cost $10 per student, $25-35 for adults. Another opportunity to bring your high school men and their fathers together.
4. Minnesota Valley Men's Chorale - Although currently not scheduled, the MVMC under the direction of Steven Boehlke, has hosted men's choral festivals for high school students in the past, and are great advocates for men's choirs in the Twin Cities.
5. The Apollo Men's Chorus - Under the direction of Dr. Sean Vogt, the Apollo Club has hosted a festival for high school men in recent years.
I am sure there are a number of events which I am missing. If you know of any feel free to leave information in the comments section and I will update.
Sunday, March 1, 2015
MMEA Mid-winter Clinic - Day 2, Part 2
Day 1 posts in three parts posted in the following links:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 1 of Day 2 is posted here.
On Friday, February 13th, Dr. Brad Holmes of Millikin University in Decatur, IL led an interest session entitled: Which Choir is this Anyway? A Practical Approach to Variety in Sound. Many choir directors (including me) have longed admired Dr. Holmes' work with the Millikin University Choir. Dr. Holmes excels at encouraging his choral singers to use a variety of timbrel colors in their singing through a varied selection of repertoire, but grounding these vastly different vocal colors in a healthy pedagogical approach.
During his presentation Dr. Holmes, with the benefit of handouts and recordings, illustrated his approach to programming a wide variety of tonal colors for his choirs. He first does this through repertoire selection. Below is a picture of the chart that Dr. Holmes created placing different genres of choral music on a grid system.
In this chart, Dr. Holmes places various genres of vocal / choral repertoire in relation to the desired shape of the singers vowels to the amount vibrato present in the voice. He places vibrato on the "x axis" with less vibrato on the left and more vibrato on the right. On the "y axis", he places accepted vowel shapes from wide (horizontal) on the bottom to long (vertical) on the top. Holmes readily admits that this is his interpretation of his observations of accepted performance practice, and one can debate where each genre is placed. Looking at the chart I tend to agree generally with his interpretation of these genres.
In creating a program, Dr. Holmes will often begin with a piece that sits in the "core" sound which utilizes a moderate level of vibrato with vowel shapes leaning toward vertical placement, but not overly so. He then will pick pieces that will branch out in a certain plane away from the core, return to a genre that utilizes a core sound, and then program pieces that plane away in another direction. He always returns to a core sound to allow his singers to recalibrate his or her instrument. Below is a picture laying out a sample program using recordings from 2014, 2012, and 2010. Please excuse my notes in the margins cluttering up the diagram, but the program when compared to the above chart illustrates the use of the core sound to create balance.
Dr. Holmes gives a lot of credit to his colleagues on the Millikin University Vocal Music faculty for working hand in hand with him to help teach his singers sound and healthy pedagogical approaches for creating all of the desired choral timbres. As a collegiate choral director, he is still dealing with relatively immature and developing vocal instruments. So he feels it is important to be aware of where each singer is on his or her vocal development. To negate wear and tear on the instrument he will strategically place rests in the music for individual singers. He finds this especially necessary for lighter or higher passages in the music.
In the end, this session was probably the one I was most looking forward to attending during the Mid-Winter Clinic. Strangely, I had never previously had the opportunity to learn from Dr. Holmes, and I thoroughly enjoyed learning from him.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 1 of Day 2 is posted here.
On Friday, February 13th, Dr. Brad Holmes of Millikin University in Decatur, IL led an interest session entitled: Which Choir is this Anyway? A Practical Approach to Variety in Sound. Many choir directors (including me) have longed admired Dr. Holmes' work with the Millikin University Choir. Dr. Holmes excels at encouraging his choral singers to use a variety of timbrel colors in their singing through a varied selection of repertoire, but grounding these vastly different vocal colors in a healthy pedagogical approach.
During his presentation Dr. Holmes, with the benefit of handouts and recordings, illustrated his approach to programming a wide variety of tonal colors for his choirs. He first does this through repertoire selection. Below is a picture of the chart that Dr. Holmes created placing different genres of choral music on a grid system.
In this chart, Dr. Holmes places various genres of vocal / choral repertoire in relation to the desired shape of the singers vowels to the amount vibrato present in the voice. He places vibrato on the "x axis" with less vibrato on the left and more vibrato on the right. On the "y axis", he places accepted vowel shapes from wide (horizontal) on the bottom to long (vertical) on the top. Holmes readily admits that this is his interpretation of his observations of accepted performance practice, and one can debate where each genre is placed. Looking at the chart I tend to agree generally with his interpretation of these genres.
In creating a program, Dr. Holmes will often begin with a piece that sits in the "core" sound which utilizes a moderate level of vibrato with vowel shapes leaning toward vertical placement, but not overly so. He then will pick pieces that will branch out in a certain plane away from the core, return to a genre that utilizes a core sound, and then program pieces that plane away in another direction. He always returns to a core sound to allow his singers to recalibrate his or her instrument. Below is a picture laying out a sample program using recordings from 2014, 2012, and 2010. Please excuse my notes in the margins cluttering up the diagram, but the program when compared to the above chart illustrates the use of the core sound to create balance.
Dr. Holmes gives a lot of credit to his colleagues on the Millikin University Vocal Music faculty for working hand in hand with him to help teach his singers sound and healthy pedagogical approaches for creating all of the desired choral timbres. As a collegiate choral director, he is still dealing with relatively immature and developing vocal instruments. So he feels it is important to be aware of where each singer is on his or her vocal development. To negate wear and tear on the instrument he will strategically place rests in the music for individual singers. He finds this especially necessary for lighter or higher passages in the music.
In the end, this session was probably the one I was most looking forward to attending during the Mid-Winter Clinic. Strangely, I had never previously had the opportunity to learn from Dr. Holmes, and I thoroughly enjoyed learning from him.
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