Conducting: Choral: Books/eBooks

Practical strategies & expert guidance on leading a first-rate choral ensemble, with tips & techniques for successful auditions, schedules, rehearsals, concerts, budgets, fund-raising, publicity, & more.

From the nation's top choral master-teachers! Choral Conducting provides direction and guidance for beginning choral conductors and stimulates the practicing conductor who is receptive to alternative approaches to choral development and problem solving. A wealth of experience is revealed in this unique compendium. Virtually every topic is addressed. The cumulative effect is one of breadth and depth.

From common to not-so-common problems facing choral conductors of all experience levels, Michael Kemp brings a lifetime of experience living and working in the choral world to create a truly remarkable and practical book of solutions. This comprehensive handbook starts with a myriad of quick fixes to familiar choral challenges and then provides in-depth explanations for choir directors who need more. What follows are sections on planning and preparation—including 62 warm-up exercises—as well as enlightening discussion on motivating and recruiting choir members. True best practices are poured into a single incredibly useful and well-organized resource.

In shaping choral tone, directors often wish to improve the sound of their choir, but are challenged to pinpoint underlying problems or to guide singers toward solutions. Now, in Prescriptions for Choral Excellence, skilled vocal pedagogue Shirlee Emmons and leading choral director ConstanceChase equip choral directors with the practical tools they need to help singers achieve peak choral performance. Drawing on years of experience, Emmons and Chase help choral directors and singers effectively diagnose and resolve problems. They cover topics ranging from breath management and diction to range and intonation, and much more. Beyond describing vocal difficulties, the book provides concreteinstructions on how to apply the concepts in day-to-day rehearsal and performance. The numerous practical exercises and planning aides allow directors to maximize both time and talent to elicit the highest potential from their singers. While grounded in the most up-to-date research in voice science,the discussion of vocal anatomy and function is accessible to readers with no previous knowledge of voice science. Going beyond other vocal and choral guidebooks, the authors also apply the most current theories in leadership principles and group dynamics to choral settings, helping directorstranslate their natural musicality and charisma into inspiring and motivational leadership. A comprehensive and unique blend of practical expertise, voice science, and leadership psychology, Prescriptions for Choral Excellence is an invaluable guide for all choral directors seeking to create memorable and remarkable performances.

Choral Repertoire is the definitive and comprehensive one-volume presentation of the canon of the Western choral tradition. Designed for practicing conductors and directors, students and teachers of choral music, amateur and professional singers, scholars, and interested vocal enthusiasts, itis an account of the complete choral output of the most significant composers of this genre throughout history. Organized by era (Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and Modern), Choral Repertoire covers general characteristics of each historical era; trends and styles unique tovarious countries; biographical sketches of over 500 composers; and performance annotations of more than 5,000 individual works. This book will be an essential guide to programming, a reference tool for program notes and other research, and, most importantly, a key resource for conductors,instructors, scholars, and students of choral music.

This book presents the fundamentals of the choral experience, vocal production, choral diction, ensemble singing, basic musicianship that will be useful to the choral conductor & student training in a choral career.

The techniques and philosophy outlined in this book are based on the author's more than twenty years experience in teaching, eighteen years experience in training junior church choirs, and ten years experience training the Toronto Children's Chorus, a professional choir of 85 auditioned singers. The author offers practical advice on recruiting, organization, rehearsal techniques, concerts and performances, and the role of the piano accompanist. Also included are repertoire lists for primary and junior school choirs, the junior church choir, and the community (or professional) children's choir. Jean Ashworth Bartle, an honor graduate of the University of Toronto and the Royal Consevatory of Music, is the recipient of two choral conducting fellowships: the Leslie Ball Scholarship and the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir Foundation's Sir Ernest MacMillan Scholarship. She has also studied at Westminster Choir College in Princeton and with Margaret Hillis and Sir David Wllcocks. She is in demand as a choral clinician, lecturer, adjudicator, and guest conductor of children's choirs throughout North America.