TACTUS WINTER 2022
THE OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE WESTERN REGION AMERICAN CHORAL DIRECTORS ASSOCIATION
REGIONAL CONFERENCE 2022 LONG BEACH, CALIFORNIA MARCH 2-5
Study with award-winning faculty TACTUS Winter 2022
Engage with professional artists
BM and BA Voice Performance BM Choral Music Education Perform in a world class venue
Sonoma State University Department of Music at the Green Music Center
Chanticleer in Sonoma Choral Workshop
June 15–19, 2022 | Green Music Center Receive in-depth instruction and performance tips from America’s premier classical vocal ensemble in a beautiful wine country setting just one hour from San Francisco. APPLY APP NOW! MUSIC.SONOMA.EDU/CHANTICLEER-SONOMA 2
Dr. Jenny Bent Director of Choral Activities Choral Director, Santa Rosa Symphony bentje@sonoma.edu
TACTUS Winter 2022
In this issue...
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EDITOR’S LETTER
07
PRESIDENT’S LETTER
10 Unveiling the Mystery: Arabic Choral Music for the Western Choral Conductor (Part 1)
15 Regional Conference Overview 26 Cross-Cultural Collaborations: Composer and Conductor DEI Column, Dr. Jace Saplan - William Culverhouse with Shireen Abu-Khader
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31 The Embodiment of Burnout: Releasing the Body to Release the Mind - Dr. Angelica Dunsavage
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Composer’s Lens: Conference of the Birds
- Saunder Choi
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Who Should Attend Festivals? YOU Should Attend Festivals!
- David Hensley
ADVERTISERS
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CSU EAST BAY CSU FULLERTON GRAPHITE PUBLISHING LA YOUTH PHILHARMONIC SAN JOSE STATE UNIVERSITY SNOW COLLEGE SONOMA STATE UNIVERSITY UC SANTA BARBARA UNIVERSITY OF REDLANDS UC BERKELEY UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
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EDITOR’S LETTER Dear Western ACDA Members,
projects, or anything you think would be useful for our organization. If you know of an article or author you’d like to see, please let us know by emailing tactuseditor@acdawestern.org.
As we begin a new year, it is a time of growth, of healing, and of new beginnings. We reflect on the difficulties of the past year, and look forward to a time of gathering in person once again. This edition of Tactus looks forward, both to our Regional Conference in March, and on the future of our profession.
I wish you all the best in this new year, and I’m looking forward to seeing you all at our Regional Conference!
Angelica Dunsavage Editor
I encourage you all first and foremost to look at our detailed Conference Overview, which includes everything you need to know about our Regional Conference in Long Beach, California. Read descriptions on our honor choirs, interest sessions, and our new Composer Track. Also included is information on registration, hotels, and our updated health and safety guidelines. Please note that these guidelines may change according to state and federal mandates.
Our articles in this edition center on moving forward mindfully and embracing collaboration. As we begin to gather again for in-person conferences and festivals, David Hensley's article gives insight and advice for navigating festival participation. Saunder Choi's article introduces a new piece for choreographed choir. Articles by Cari Earnhart, William Culverhouse, and Shireen Abu-Khader embrace cross-cultural collaboration, and share meaningful ways to engage your choirs in repertoire that may be outside their cultural backyard. While Dr. Angelica Dunsavage is the Director of Choral we look forward to the future, our bodies still hold Activities at Tennessee State University in Nashville, the tension of the past. My article on Alexander TN, where she conducts the University Choir and TSU Technique addresses ways our bodies hold burnout, Meistersingers, and teaches choral conducting and and how we can enter a new year with greater ease. literature. She has previously resided in the Western In future editions of Tactus, I would like to include more from our readers, making our publication truly reflect the diversity of our membership, and the wonderful things you are doing in your current positions. Please consider sending article ideas, pictures of your performing ensembles and recent
Region, where she has served on the AzACDA state board as editor of Antiphon. She is in-demand as a presenter, clinician, and mezzo-soprano soloist. Her research interests include German secular music of the Renaissance and early Baroque eras, and the application of Alexander Technique to conducting and choral pedagogy.
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WESTERN REGION LEADERSHIP “LIFT EVERY VOICE AND SING!” 2022 CONFERENCE COMMITTEE
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
Cari Earnhart, CA – Organizing Chair
Kim Ritzer, NV – Past President
Scot Hanna-Weir, CA – Organizing Vice-Chair
Michael Short, CA – President-Elect
Lori Marie Rios, CA – Special Assistant to President
Joe Svendsen, NV – Treasurer
Joan Steinmann, UT – Conference Program Editor Angelina Fitzhugh, CA & Emily Mercado, UT – Interest Sessions Chairs Kristina Nakagawa, CA – Site Liaison (Interest Sessions) Molly Peters, CA & Camille Killpack, UT – Performance Chairs Carolyn Teraoka-Brady, CA – Site Liaison (Performances) Marc McGhee, CA & Willow Manspeaker, CA – Honor Choir Chairs
Lou De La Rosa, CA – President
Ted Gibson – Arizona President Christopher Peterson – California President Jace Saplan – Hawai`i President Michael Polutnik – Nevada President Cherilyn Worthen– Utah President
ADVISORY COMMITTEE Ernest Harrison, CA – Lifelong R&R Coordinator Nicola Bertoni Dedmon, CA – Repertoire Specific R&R Coordinator Nicholle Andrews, CA – Collegiate R&R Coordinator
Tammi Alderman, CA – Reading Session Chair
Christina Swanson Hall, AZ – Youth R&R Coordinator
Dale Trumbore, CA & Nicola Dedmon, CA – Composer Track Chair
Peggy Spool, CA – Children’s & Comm. Youth R&R Chair
Heather Scobie, NV – Hospitality Chair Michael Uchino, CA – Equipment Coordinator Ryan Duff, NV – All Conference Choirs Coordinator Nicholle Andrews, CA – Conducting Master Class Coordinator Scott Glysson, CA & Alec Schumacker, HI –College Fair Chair John DiPalo, NV – Registrar & Student Worker Coordinator Jodi Reed, CA – Exhibits & Sponsorship Coordinator James Halvorson, NV – Conference App Liaison
DIVERSITY, EQUITY & INCLUSION COMMITTEE Jace Saplan, HI – Coordinator Alyssa Cossey & Nicky Manlove, AZ Ernest Harrison, CA Ryan Duff, NV Emily Mercado, UT
COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE Joan Steinmann, UT – Recording Secretary Anna Caplan, CA – Webmaster Elizabeth Baker, HI – Social Media Angelica Dunsavage, AZ – Tactus Editor
Marc McGhee , CA – Submittable Coordinator
Cover Image: Long Beach Visitors Bureau Tactus Logo images: Licensed by Adobe Stock
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PRESIDENT ’S LETTER First, it was COVID-19, then it was the Delta variant, now Omicron. To quote Yogi Berra, “It’s like déjà vu all over again.”
• Proof of vaccination or a negative test result will be required to pick up registration badges and materials.
Except it’s not.
• A WACDA Health & Safety Plan is required to be submitted to the Convention Center Health & Safety Coordinator no later than 30 days prior to the conference. The plan will include methods of ensuring all staff, contractors & attendees are adhering to the COVID protocols in the Terrace Theater and Long Beach Convention Center.
Two years ago, we didn’t have FDA-approved vaccinations, boosters, multiple modes of testing, peer reviewed studies targeted at the performing arts, easy access to portable HEPA filtration units, verification that masking stops the spread, not to mention two years of experience under our belts. Many of us lost loved ones in the initial waves, but with the advances in science that have been made available, COVID-19 is on its way to being like the flu: serious for some, deadly for a few, but an annoyance for most. Instead of Yogi Berra, I believe that we should take heed from the words of President Franklin D. Roosevelt who declared in the depths of the Great Depression that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” We locked down when we had no immunity; we had reason then to be afraid. Now that we have vaccines and boosters, we must resume our lives; not recklessly, but with caution. Between a cavalier attitude and fear, lies caution. We should follow the science, continuing to mask and distance ourselves in crowds to minimize spread out of caution and concern for others. But we cannot return to an isolation borne of fear. Fear is most often caused by uncertainty; the unknown is sometimes unnerving. To that end, I want to share that this conference will offer a high level of safety that just became more stringent, per Los Angeles County and the City of Long Beach Health Department:
• The floor of the Terrace Theater provides more than enough room for our conference attendees to distance as desired, and our rooms will provide ample seating for distancing in interest and reading sessions. • HVAC systems in the hotels and convention center filter the air at rates higher than those of our classrooms. This conference will not pivot to a virtual format, and aside from eight of the eleven reading sessions, we are not offering streaming sessions; it was just too much to organize. Plus, who among us can handle one more virtual conference? We are social creatures, and we exist in a very social profession. We learn and grow when we are gathered together, sharing and honing our craft, and just being with one another. We owe it to ourselves to join with our colleagues and friends at the WACDA Regional Conference in Long Beach, March 2 – 5, 2022. If anyone needs this time together, we do! I look forward to seeing you there!
Effective December 15, conference attendees, performers, clinicians must be fully vaccinated OR must provide proof of a negative COVID-19 Antigen test taken 24 hours prior, or a negative PCR test taken 48 hours prior to first entry to the conference center. Lou De La Rosa is the current president of Western Region ACDA. He served as president of California ACDA and was instrumental in creating the California Choral Directors Association. Over the past 38 years, Lou has directed choirs in middle school, high school, community college and church. He is presently chair of the Department of Music & Dance in the Cilker School of Art & Design at West Valley College in Saratoga, CA. He is the happily married father of three grown daughters, all of whom were raised as die-hard San Francisco Giants fans.
Those who are vaccinated are not currently required to test, but all advisories including the definition of full vaccination are subject to change. In addition, • Convention Center security staff will be monitoring the mask policy at all designated entry points, and conference organizers will offer friendly reminders to mask up throughout the conference.
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LA YOUTH PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA Summer Music Festival
Honor Choir Audition Audition Application Now Open
For more information Visit https://layouthphilharmonic.com/
TACTUS Winter 2022
Unveiling the Mystery: Arabic Choral Music for the Western Choral Conductor
Part 1 How accessible are Arabic Choral pieces for the Western conductor/choir?
Written by Dr. Cari Earnhart WACDA Conference Organizing Chair
The impact of each country’s cultural and musical traditions accounts for broad influences found in Arabic music.
What questions might arise for conductors interested in this genre? The concept of choral music as defined by the Western world was foreign to Arab cultures until the colonization of the Arab world began in the seventeenth century. At this time, we began to see the Western choral style emerging in the churches of the Arab world. Group singing of traditional music was done in unison or heterophonic textures. Notated partsinging is a product of colonization, Westernization, Christianization, and now globalization. In recent years, singing music in mixed or multiple voicings not of a heterophonic nature has spread beyond the churches to the secular Arab world. As choral singing has increased in the Arab world, a new genre of Arabic choral music has emerged. In order for Western conductors to effectively teach, conduct, or perform these new works, it is important for them to develop a basic understanding of traditional Arabic musical styles and pronunciation of the language, thereby making Arabic choral music more accessible and enabling it to become a part of the larger world’s musical vocabulary. This serves as an introductory resource for non-Arab choral conductors concerning key elements related to performing Arabic choral music and provides a context for how these elements relate to this evolving choral genre. The Arab world spans many countries, numbering more than a quarter of the world’s population. 10
The Arab tradition in music is not singular, but is often mixed with Persian and Turkish influences as well, particularly in timbres, melodic structures, and even in performances. This is not to suggest that all music of the Middle East is the same, but, rather, that it derives from a common repertoire and practice, reflecting an interchange of cultural ideas throughout the history of Islam, due to changing political structures in the Arab world (O’Brien, 1994). When I began speaking on this subject a few years ago, a colleague asked me, “Why would you want to do this music and why would you do it right now?” My response was simple, “Why wouldn’t you do this music and why wouldn’t you do it right now?” I have seen firsthand the importance of cross-cultural music education. While living in the Middle East I first discovered Arabic choral music and though I was teaching Western music in a westernized university, this music gave me a means to better communicate with my students and our audiences…a way to meet them where they were and thus, enabling us to grow and eventually expand the musical vocabulary of where we were living. I began wondering, “How do we let the rest of the world know about this music? How can we use this music, as we have so much other music in the past, to serve as a bridge across the great gap that exists today?”
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What does the Western choral conductor need to know to effectively teach, conduct or perform these works? There are five distinguishing characteristics of Arabic music: the melodic mode (scale), embellishment, improvisation, rhythm and homophony. Scales
Ex: Nahawand maqam
Improvisation
The use of mawwal , a call and response between the The maqam (scale) is the center of Arabic tonality, a soloist and chorus, often sets the character of the collection of more than 70 scales or modes essential piece and allows the soloist to show his/her virtuosity to the musical timbre and melodic motion of a piece. through orrub (or ornamentation). A mawwal is often The tonality is based upon a quarter-tone system, preceded by a doulab, a short instrumental introduction divided into twenty-four equivalent intervals per that establishes the maqam and mood of the piece octave. The augmented second found in many maqamat generally performed in unison by a full ensemble or a is a signature interval. The classification of each taqsim, an instrumental improvisation that begins and maqam is based upon the beginning and ending tones, ends in the established maqam. This usually includes as well as the character of its consecutive seconds, modulations to related maqamat that abide by certain particularly the descending cadential sequence of rules of the established maqam. It is performed by a consecutive seconds leading to the final tone of the soloist, but may be accompanied by a percussionist piece. Rules for each maqam define the starting note or instrumental drone. These traditional elements are or Qarar and the ending note, Mustaqar. A series of found in much Arabic choral music. eight pitches define the Arabic scales or maqamat, each containing quarter-tones, semi-tones and whole-tones. Rhythm Each maqam has a defining character that is used Just as the maqam is the center of tonality, the rhythmic to convey different moods in the music. The sound modes in traditional Arabic music are based upon created by the use of maqam gives Arabic music its on iqa'at (singular iqa') or cycles of strong and weak identifiable characteristics or what one thinks of as the beats. The beat cycles range from 2 to 34 beats, and “typical” Middle Eastern sound. often include asymmetrical meters such as 5/8, 7/8, and 10/8. These rhythmic cycles alternate strong Arabic singers often display their virtuosity by and weak beats and rests. Each beat within the negotiating these scales or maqamat in an ornamented cycle represents one of two types of drum strokes manner. Due to issues of tuning, modern composers with varying intensities. The strong beat or the dum, typically avoid harmonizing the maqamat with quartertones. When quarter-tone scales exist, they will indicates a deep sound that might be produced by striking the center of a drum. often execute the quarter-tone as a passing tone or in a quick figure embellishment. Here is an example of nahawand maqam – it is the most used maqam in Arabic choral music as Western musicians identify this as the harmonic minor scale. This maqam contains an augmented second between scale degrees six and seven.
The weak beat or tak represents a clear, higherpitched sound symbolizing the sound produced by striking the edge of a drum with one’s fingertips. Most Arabic music is accompanied by drumming, and each melodic phrase follows the emphasis of the beat cycle. An example of one 10/8 rhythmic structure used in Arabic vocal music would be the Samai Thaqil. (Example on next page)
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Ex: Samai Thaqil rhythm
technique. In regards to the effect of authenticity of language pronunciation when such modifications are made, Shireen Abu-Khader stated, “I think finding a happy medium between Western singing style and Arabic language formation is the best you can do. You need to find that medium and soon enough you will figure it out.”
Musical Texture
Western conductors may find singing in Arabic problematic for two key reasons: first, in contrast to the vowel-centric approach in Western languages, clear and expressive consonants are paramount in Arabic singing, and second, singing “on the consonants” presents tuning challenges for the ensemble.
As stated previously, traditional Arabic music does not use harmony, but is normally sung in unison or heterophonic textures. Everyone in an Arabic ensemble plays/sings the melody, sometimes in different octaves, with the only exception being the occasional drone played under the melody. Traditional Arabic music’s heterophonic nature is mostly negated after setting it in a harmonic, choral style. While the influence of Western choral music on Arabic choral music is obvious through its use of such Western elements as harmonic structure, rhythms and multiple voicings, these choral works can still clearly represent Arab cultures and traditions. Language The Arabic language consists of twenty-eight consonants, six vowels, both long and short, and two diphthongs. Consonants are considered the structural basis for the Arabic language. Singing in Arabic is considered an extension of speech and the expressivity of the text is of the greatest importance. Arabic is a challenging language as it is unfamiliar to most Westerners, both to speak it and to read it. Language has a profound impact upon the performance of any vocal music, but the pronunciation of the Arabic language can be especially challenging for the nonnative speaker. Arabic “throat sounds,” due to their articulation in proximity to the larynx, may highly influence both pitch and articulation.
The use of transliteration systems is helpful when discerning your approach to singing in Arabic; however, they are not all currently uniform. There are as many different systems as there are dialects of the Arabic language. Salamu Aleikum, a series of Arabic choral works published by earthsongs, is currently moving the series towards the Bikdash Arabic Transliteration Rules. The BATR is designed as a highly phonetic guide that enables a person with little or no knowledge of the Arabic language to be able to read and pronounce the Arabic text in a reasonably accurate manner. Dr. Andre de Quadros stated in an interview that the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland was working to find a uniform system. Transliteration systems, when combined with the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) and the use of native speakers or their recordings, can assist conductors in more accurately teaching the Arabic text and aid in preserving the intended expressive quality of the piece.
"How can we use this music, as we have so much other music in the past, to serve as a bridge across the great gap that exists today?”
So how do Western conductors handle this? In order to overcome tuning issues, conductors and composers of the genre have suggested finding a compromise between the production of Arabic vowels in the back of the throat and the bel canto style of singing most Western choirs use as the basis of their 12
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Ex: Transliteration System with IPA for Arabic Language
Works Cited Abdelfattah, Mohammed Abdelwahab. Ai’yu. Edited by André de Quadros. Corvalis, OR: earthsongs, 2008.
Images: Half Sharp and Half Flat
Dr. Cari Earnhart serves as the Director of Choral Activities at California State University, Fresno, where she conducts the Concert Choir, Chamber Singers, Masterworks Chorus, and teaches undergraduate and graduate conducting. In addition to her teaching responsibilities, she is in high demand as an adjudicator, clinician, guest conductor and presenter. Prior to her appointment at Fresno State, she served as DCA at the American University of Sharjah in the UAE. She holds BM and MM degrees in Vocal Performance/Pedagogy from Oklahoma State University and a DMA in Choral Conducting with related field studies in Vocal Pedagogy from the University of North Texas.
Abu-Khader, Shireen (arr.). Lammaa Badaa Yatathannaa. Edited by André de Quadros. Corvallis, Oregon: earthsongs, 2011. Earnhart, Cari L. “Cross-Cultural Choral Music Education: Issues for Western Choral Conductors related to the Performance of Arabic Choral Music.” DMA diss., University of North Texas, 2015. O’Brien, James P. Music in World Cultures: Understanding Multiculturalism Through the Arts. Dubuque: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Co., 1994. Slobin, Mark and Jeff Todd Titon. “The Music-Culture as a World of Music.” In Worlds of Music: An Introduction to the Music of the World’s Peoples. 1-14. New York: Schirmer Books, 1992. Torikian, Edward (arr.). Yal Asmar Ellon. Edited by André de Quadros. Corvallis, Oregon: earthsongs, 2013.
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Vocal Music
CSUEB is located in the heart of the culturally vibrant and diverse San Francisco Bay Area and offers aspiring singers and conductors an outstanding, personal, and thorough vocal and choral music education through inspired performances, significant podium time, tours, conferences, and world-renowned guest artists. Graduates can be found singing in major concert halls, theaters, and opera houses and conducting at prestigious schools, colleges, universities, and institutions around the world.
See yourself in music …
TACTUS Winter 2022
2022 REGIONAL CONFERENCE OVERVIEW The Western Region Conference Committee has been working over a year to put our vision for a more diverse and inclusive conference into action. Our lineup of interest sessions, reading sessions, and concert sessions featuring auditioned choirs, invited choirs and honor choirs reflects that vision.
Additionally, Western Region ACDA is excited to highlight outstanding video performances from the last 18 months in a conference video series titled Stories of the Pandemic. The videos selected reflect innovative performance practice, evidence of resilience and grit, and a representation of a diversity of voices from throughout the COVID 19 pandemic.
We hope you will plan to join us in Long Beach, March 2-5, 2022.
This conference will be a celebration of a return to ensemble singing, and we are so excited for you to be part of the experience!
Following a brief welcome including a land acknowledgment from descendants of the first people who inhabited the Long Beach area, we will hear a keynote address from Eric Whitacre.
There will be nine concert sessions from Wednesday through Saturday. The ensembles selected address the conference theme of Lift Every Voice and Sing, highlighting the diversity of our membership. Geographically, every state in Western Region is represented by our accepted ensembles. We are proud to include outstanding high school groups, community ensembles, vocal jazz, and both 2-year and four-year college choirs.
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In addition to the annual Brock Commission, this year featuring a work by Eriks Esenvalds to be performed by the BYU Singers, the 2022 WACDA Conference will feature two additional commissions:
• National Concerts has commissioned a work by thenhigh school student Liv Grace, who has worked with Jocelyn Hagen, to be performed by the High School SSAA Honor Choir.
• Leaders of the six ACDA Regions have created the Regional ACDA Consortium Commission which will feature composers from underrepresented communities, to be shared at all conferences. This year’s commission went to Dr. Raymond Wise and will be performed by the Gospel SATB Honor Choir.
Invited ensembles include: • VOX Femina, directed by Iris Levine • Tonality, directed by Alexander Blake • Bach Collegium San Diego, directed by Ruben Valenzuela • Nation, featuring Tim Takach and Jocelyn Hagen
TACTUS Winter 2022
Repertoire – “Enlarging the Choral Canon: Discovering and Performing Choral Works from a Broader Perspective” | Brent Wells and Andrew Crane; “Forgotten Gems: Exploring Works of the German Renaissance and Early Baroque” | Angelica Dunsavage and Jeff Vanderlee; “Magic in the Middle” | Roger Emerson
The conference will conclude on Saturday with our honor choir concert. Over 250 singers, ages 12 - adult, from across the Western Region will perform under the direction of three renowned choral conductors: • Youth Honor Choir, directed by Dr. Marcela Molina • High School SSAA Honor Choir, directed by Mr. Tesfa Wondemagegnehu
Vocal Pedagogy — “Inclusive Vocal Pedagogy for the Choral Rehearsal” | Desiree LaVertu, Olga Perez and Lori Marie Rios; “Building Beautiful Voices: Tools and Principles” | Frank Eychaner and John Martin Petzet
• Gospel Honor Choir, directed by Dr. Rosephayne Powell Rehearsals will run concurrent with conference sessions. However, due to COVID-19 safety protocols, these rehearsals will be closed to visitors and conference attendees. Please join us for the concert on Saturday, March 5, 2022 at 3:00pm in the Terrace Theater.
Youth Choirs— “Let All Children Sing! Creating a Community Connection through Youth Choirs” | Erin Bailey and Leslie Walker University — “Re-Writing History: Curriculum Redesign for 21st-Century Conductors” | Elizabeth Schauer; “The creative potential in diversifying our ensembles and redefining our musical values” | Fahad Siadat
The Western Region ACDA Conference will host thirtytwo interest sessions for educators and conductors of all ages. Topics and sessions will include but are not limited to:
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion— “Choral Intersectionality: Gender, Race and Reimagined Excellence” | Josh Palkki and Jace Saplan; “Amplifying Womxn’s Voices: An Intersectional Approach to Equity in the Choral Ensemble” | Alyssa Cossey; “Beyond Programming: Creating a More Inclusive Choral Space” | Corie Brown and Jeffrey Benson
Conducting Technique— “Dynamic Body Balance: Unlocking Communication” | Nicole Lamartine Rehearsal Technique – “The Residue of Thought: Cognitive Science in the Choral Rehearsal” | David Edmonds; “Modelling Creativity Within the (Interactive) Choral Rehearsal” | Jerry Ulrich
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For the first time, the Western Region ACDA Conference will host a Research/Best-Practice Poster Session during the Thursday evening social hour in the Exhibits, beginning at 6:30 pm.
The Western Region ACDA Conference will host three conducting workshops with master teachers Dr. Charlene Archibeque, Dr. Jo-Michael Scheibe and Dr. Edith Copley. Candidates selected to work with Dr. Scheibe will conduct the University of Hawai’i Chamber Singers, candidates selected to work with Dr. Copley will conduct San Jose State University Choraliers and candidates selected to work with Dr. Archibeque will conduct the Bob Cole Chamber Choir, CSU Long Beach
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During this poster session, attendees will have access to beverages while they move about the posters and chat with the presenters about their research. Poster topics include culturally relevant pedagogy, Alexander Technique, Korean music, and Kirke Mechem’s new opera, Befana: A Christmas Fable.
NOTE: Change to COVID Protocol for Attendees, Clinicians and Performers Effective December 15, conference attendees, performers, clinicians must be fully vaccinated OR must provide proof of a negative COVID-19 Antigen test taken 24 hours prior, or a negative PCR test taken 48 hours prior to first entry to the conference center. This is a change from the previous 72-hour window, per directives from Los Angeles County and the City of Long Beach Health Department.
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New this year, the Western Region ACDA Conference will feature a Composer Track, with the goal of connecting composers and conductors to encourage new and long-lasting collaborative relationships.
Wednesday, March 2, 2022
Composer’s Lounge – Thursday & Friday
Meet fellow composers and conductors on the first evening of the conference. Cash bar at The Harbor (130 Pine Ave).
Composer Reception: 9:45 p.m. (or Post-Concerts)
A place to rest and recharge throughout the conference, meet fellow composers, and network with conductors. Composers can bring perusal scores to put out on display; conductors are encouraged to stop by to meet composers and pick up scores. Located in the Exhibit Hall during open hours.
Thursday, March 3, 2022 Interest Session:
Conductor Database
1:30-2:45 p.m.
Receive a list of conductors actively seeking new music, with contact information and a list of what voicings/ themes they’re currently seeking.
Come Together: Fostering Meaningful Collaborations between Composers and Conductors. Dr. Zanaida Robles and Dale Trumbore discuss best practices for creating meaningful collaborations between composers and conductors.
Composer Database Register on a list of Western Region Composers, with a link to your music, that will go out to all conductors in attendance at the conference.
Social Hour in the Conference Hall: 6:30 p.m. Mingle with composers and conductors and view poster sessions.
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Friday, March 4, 2022
Saturday, March 5, 2022
Panel Discussion:
Reading Session:
1-2:15 p.m.
1:15-2:30 p.m.
Writing for the Voices You Have: Composing for Middle School, High School, 2-Year Colleges, and Church Choirs.
New Music from Graphite Publishing. COLLEGE FAIR
Composers Jocelyn Hagen and Timothy Takach will moderate a discussion with tips and strategies for writing for young and amateur voices. Featuring panelists Alexander Blake, Angelina Fitzhugh, Brandon Elliott, and Zanaida Robles.
March 4, 2022 12:00-2:00pm Hilton Ballroom Lobby The College Fair provides an opportunity for colleges, universities, and conservatories to meet with high school and two-year college students from the WACDA honor choirs. Lunch will be provided.
Reading Session: 2:30-3:45 p.m. Emerging Western Region Composers: Hear inspiring new works from five local composers.
Space for booths is limited. For more information contact Scott Glysson sglysson@calpoly.edu or Alec Schumacker aschumacker@hpu.edu.
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WESTERN REGION ACDA would like to formally thank the following organizations for their sponsorship of the 2022 Long Beach Conference:
Groundbreaking works from
Jocelyn Hagen & Timothy C. Takach
Helios
Timothy C. Takach
Here I Am
Jocelyn Hagen
SATB a cappella - 65’
SATB, chamber orchestra, illuminated portraits - 40’
An exploration of humanity, chaos and order inspired by our solar system.
A multimedia symphony celebrating the rise and power of women’s voices.
Jocelyn Hagen
The Longest Nights
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci
SATB, string quartet (or piano) - 20’
SATB, orchestra (or chamber ens.),video projections - 35’
A secular cycle that moves through the winter season, and each movement is stand-alone. Includes the a cappella gem “Winter Walk.”
Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks are brought to life through his words and drawings in an unforgettable multimedia symphony.
Timothy C. Takach
Jocelyn Hagen
These scores and more can be found at GraphitePublishing.com
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CROSS-CULTURAL COLLABORATIONS: COMPOSER AND CONDUCTOR Written by William Culverhouse with Shireen Abu-Khader Introduction I believe that the choral craft and communal song are intrinsically connected, naturally holding space for musical perspectives and traditions outside the western gaze. For when we open our classrooms and rehearsals to the cultural tapestry of the world, we also acknowledge that our skillset as conductors must include intercultural practice. For example, when facilitating repertoire, we may consider how we navigate the many approaches to literacy and vocal techniques worldwide and how this information is often found through the consultation and building of right relationships with culture bearers and elders within our communities. However, we must also realize that cultures do not live in museums. Cultural knowledge is not solely found in the past. I believe that cultural knowledge is future driven. In fact, when we navigate our opening question, perhaps we realize that our work in expanding the perspectives of our singers and students is often found in our work with living composers, especially when composers bring perspectives that open our imagination to sound worlds, languages, and cultural knowledge. While these experiences may be exciting, how do we facilitate these experiences for our ensembles? The next installment of our DEI series embraces collaboration between composers and conductors and the importance of intercultural practice, or approaches that center collaboration, cyclical and honest dialogue, active participation on both sides, and understanding and respect for all involved. When collaboration is rooted in intercultural practice, we meaningfully link the choral craft to the world around us in nuanced ways. On behalf of the DEI committee, we are excited to introduce a case study between Dr. Shireen Abu-Khader (she/her), a Toronto-based Palestinian-Jordanian composer/conductor & founder of DozanWorld Publishing, and Dr. William Culverhouse (he/him), Director of Choral Activities and Associate Professor
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of Music at Binghamton University in New York. Their collaborations are a meaningful intercultural model of collaborative learning and beautifully articulate the role of cultural knowledge within a conductor’s practice. Enjoy! - Jace Kaholokula Saplan, D.M.A., (they/he) Chair of the ACDA Western Region Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee Article As we seek to diversify our choral repertoires more and more and expose our singers to a wider and wider variety of experiences of the choral art, we invariably run up against the challenge of how to shape respectful performances of choral music from repertoires with which we feel inadequately familiar. We hear a wide range of opinions from expert colleagues about how to approach this challenge, and we also are coming to understand more and more the limitations placed on this endeavor by composer access and publisher availability. How are we to navigate the often tumultuous sea of possibilities and still do right by the repertoires, the composers, our singers, and our audiences? This is a question to which there is no easy set of answers. But sometimes, asking further questions can help tackle a complex challenge like the one described above. It is my hope in this article to ask some questions that might shed light on the challenge, questions that have arisen from my own experience collaborating across cultures with a composer whose works I have performed frequently. Along the way, I’d like to borrow two concepts from the field of language acquisition for use in the discussion: the notion of saturation and the notion of native versus non-native accent, and explore how we might apply them helpfully to choral music.
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By saturation, I mean the experience of growing up, from early childhood, with one’s ears immersed in particular genres and styles of music. By accent, I mean the extent to which one’s performance of these genres and styles demonstrates such saturation to another pair of ears saturated in the same genre or style. Thus, we may think of performing a genre or style with a native musical accent or a non-native one. A non-native musical accent may be recognizable as such yet still permit a respectful performance that can be enjoyed by ears fully saturated in the genre or style.
of the questions I have tackled in preparing to conduct her work can be applied fruitfully to a wide variety of cross-cultural interactions between composers and performers.
The composer with whom I have collaborated crossculturally is Dr. Shireen Abu-Khader. A PalestinianJordanian, Dr. Abu-Khader and I met during our undergraduate studies in music education at Oberlin Conservatory. She went on to complete a master’s in choral conducting at the University of Southern California, and subsequently returned to the Middle East to found and conduct choirs in both Palestine and Jordan. She subsequently completed a doctorate in music education at the University of Toronto and is currently based in that city. During her work in the Middle East, she began to compose and publish works which set Arabic and Aramaic texts, several of which have subsequently been published first by earthsongs and then by her own publishing company, Dozan World.
All humans, including musicians, and especially composers and arrangers, grow up with ears saturated more by some musics than by others. I use musics in the plural intentionally: Most of us live our lives exposed to multiple styles and genres of music, some more familiar than others, yet there are also styles and genres from around the world and in our own backyards to which we have far more limited or even no exposure at all.
As part of my collaboration with her, I have been able to travel to her native country of Jordan as well as to Lebanon, Egypt, Palestine, and Morocco. Along the way, I studied the Arabic language (and some Turkish as well), Arabic singing, and ‘oud playing. Through this travel, I gained a tremendous appreciation for the complexities and nuances of the musics of the Arab World, both as a listener and as a performer. I have taught courses in this content even though I am not an ethnomusicologist by training, and I would by no means say that I have achieved anywhere near “native” fluency in the genres and styles of the region. However, the experiences have taught me that this need not always be a roadblock to performance, and, as I suggest above, it is indeed possible for singers outside the region to offer respectful and rewarding performances of her compositions. I have had the opportunity to conduct her pieces with American choirs at all levels from elementary through collegiate. Many
Considerations of Voice, Authenticity, and Respect for Composers and Arrangers What does it mean to have an authentic cultural voice as a composer? Can a cultural voice be “adopted” without appropriating it? These are difficult questions without easy answers.
However, the market demand for choral music from cultures beyond white North America and western Europe has resulted in composers creating compositions based on musics in which their ears are not saturated, and to which they have no long-standing cultural relationship. It is beyond the scope of this article to trace the development of the inclusion of what was once referred to as “world music” in North American and western European choral ensemble programming, nor to explore in detail the questions around cultural appropriation that arise when considering compositions by North American and western European composers and arrangers based on material from cultures that have not saturated their ears. Rather, I suggest that instead of viewing the issue as a binary (problematically appropriative versus verifiably authentic), it can be viewed along a continuum which can include respectful arrangements by non-saturated composers as well as compositions by more stylistically saturated composers. Such arrangements can serve two purposes. First, they are written by practitioners familiar with the musical capabilities of particular levels of choral ensembles and can therefore be tailored to those choirs’ capabilities. Second, they can often serve as accessible introductory choral experiences of musics from unfamiliar cultures due to the name recognition of the arranger and the support the arrangement receives from major publishers and distributors.
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This second point is a double-edged sword, however, since there are so many composers who do not have the advantage of this support from major publishers and distributors, and it is particularly difficult for composers from outside North America and Europe to gain access to such support. This is where it is incumbent upon us as conductors to challenge ourselves to move beyond familiar, “safe” arrangers, publishers, and distributors and to create demand for wider access to and distribution of compositions by composers who are truly saturated in the idioms in which they write. By directing effort towards the promotion of more composers who are writing music out of experiences of deeper saturation and more innate cultural connection, we increase our singers’ opportunities to experience unfamiliar musics as much as possible “from the inside.” Considerations of Voice, Authenticity, and Respect for Conductors and Singers The question of what it means to perform with an authentic cultural voice, and whether such a voice can be adopted without appropriation, is just as thorny as the corresponding question for composers. Here is where I believe it can be illuminating to break the issue down into more specific questions as we make programming, rehearsal, and performance decisions: • If we make the decision for our choirs to perform music(s) in which their ears are not (yet) saturated, what are our responsibilities concerning repertoire selection?
saturated ears, they invariably still sound “accented” due to this unintentional misprioritization of features. It then ends up coming across to the saturated ear as mimicry instead of respectful performance. What therefore distinguishes a respectful performance from mimicry? This is another question for which there is no simple answer. But we can be guided in our preparation process by focusing on a few important elements. Doing Our Homework Many of the following suggestions have been in widespread circulation for quite a long time. My intention here is not to claim invention of the wheel; rather, it is merely to point out the elements of a respectful performance that avoids mimicry and can create a positive experience for an audience member whose ears are in fact saturated in the music being sung. Obviously, pronunciation of the language of the text is of tantamount importance. Many published arrangements with texts in less familiar languages have “pronunciation guides” which use variants of English spellings that can be more ambiguous and confusing than helpful. This is particularly true of languages that do not use Latin script. It is incumbent upon all of us to become sufficiently comfortable with IPA that IPA becomes the standard for phonetic transcription for choral music. When IPA is not available, a Google or YouTube search will often yield recordings of the text by native speakers or singers that can serve as better guides than English-based transcriptions. The best possible solution, however, is a live native speaker serving as a coach. A native speaker can actively correct aspects of pronunciation that saturated ears find particularly jarring. And fortunately, a silver lining of the pandemic has been the discovery that a native speaker is only a Zoom call away. Often, professional forums on the internet can quickly help conductors connect with native speakers around the world.
• What are our responsibilities concerning teaching methodologies and content? • What is the difference between mimicry and the respectful study and application of performance practice? • What creates a performance that would be a positive experience for an audience member whose ears are saturated in the music being sung? These last two questions are perhaps the most useful. It used to be the case that choirs sought as exact a replication of the sonic features of unfamiliar musical styles as they were capable of recreating in performance. But we have begun to realize that those very features are inevitably already selected by ears (our own) which are not saturated in the style, and therefore the selection process itself is not inherently reliable. When these performances are heard by 28
The other crucial textual feature, of course, is translation. Sometimes only a non-literal “singing” translation is available in the octavo; occasionally no translation is provided at all. Word-for-word translations are essential if the choir is to sing with understanding. Here again, a Google search can often be helpful, and failing that, the same native speaker that serves as a pronunciation coach can often provide a word-for-word translation on the spot.
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The question of vocal production, and how much to adapt it outside the choir’s defaults, is a particularly challenging one, and there is a wide range of opinions on the matter. As conductors, we must be pragmatic. What are the realistic adaptations we can make in our available rehearsal time with our choirs that will result in (once again) a positive experience for an audience member whose ears are saturated in the music being sung, rather than superficial mimicry?
authentic performance practice of musics of other cultures beyond the details of stylistic re-creation and mimicry to the broader dimension of respectful and meaningful collaboration. Such an endeavor has the potential to set the collaborators on equal musical footing and provide a far richer and deeper experience for composer, conductor, singer, and listener alike.
Finally, many of the musics we may wish to explore with our choirs call for instrumentation we will not be able to access, because we do not have access to the instruments themselves, or because we do not have access to adequately skilled practitioners, or both. Once again, we must be pragmatic. What resources do we have, both in terms of actual instruments and in terms of players? Sometimes, an instrumental part is better left out than mimicked. Other times, a simplification on a similar instrument may add just the right touch without feeling overdone. One last observation: In all of the above points, an emphasis has been made on being pragmatic and determining what elements of authentic performance practice are accomplishable given the choir’s skill level and the available rehearsal time. The corollary to this, however, is that there William Culverhouse, D.M.A., (he, him) is are times when there will not be adequate available skill, Director of Choral Activities and Associate resources, or time, and discretion is the better part of valor. Professor of Music at Binghamton University in New York. He holds degrees in music As exciting as it may be to want to share choral musics of education and choral conducting from Oberlin other cultures with our singers, we do need to commit to Conservatory and the University of Maryland. making time to do our homework. If we can’t, the more honest choice may well be to “stick with what we know” for a particular concert cycle. Shireen Abu-Khader, Ph.D., (she, her) is a Toronto-based Palestinian-Jordanian composer Conclusion Through my collaborative relationship with Dr. AbuKhader, I have had the opportunity to work cross-culturally with a composer whose ears are deeply saturated in a musical tradition I myself have experienced much more superficially. Dr. Abu-Khader’s compositions, however, are also intended to be performed by singers whose ears are not saturated in that tradition. I have learned over the course of our collaboration that shaping a performance that balances the skills, resources, and rehearsal time of the choir I am conducting with a focus on stylistic features that are priorities to ears saturated in the tradition results in a far more respectful, meaningful, and ultimately authentic performance than does mimicry of what I myself may hear as prominent stylistic features of that same tradition. It has been my hope, in this article, to move the discussion of
and the founder of DozanWorld Publishing. She conducts the Cantare ensemble of the Main Choir at the Toronto Children’s Chorus. She holds degrees in music education and choral conducting from Oberlin Conservatory, the University of Southern California, and the University of Toronto. Dr. Jace Saplan is the Director of Choral Activities at the University of Hawaiʻi, Assistant Professor of Music, and Artistic Director of Nā Wai Chamber Choir. Their research focuses on decoloniality and indigeneity within choral musicking, approaches of cultural sustaining intersectionality in choral pedagogy, and the positionality of wellness for BIPOC and LGTBQIA+ singers within choral communities.
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THE EMBODIMENT OF BURNOUT: RELEASING THE BODY TO RELEASE THE MIND Written by Dr. Angelica Dunsavage
WACDA Tactus Editor
Let’s talk about the b-word: burnout. Not a day goes by in which news articles, teacher forums, and social media aren’t inundated with statistics on teacher and student burnout. Students are adjusting to life in the classroom after over a year out of it, and teachers are facing the seemingly impossible task of navigating their students through this transition amid increasing pressure from parents, administration, and society. As music educators, we feel this even more deeply in the pressure to perform, to recoup lost time, and to rebuild our programs. It is, in short, a lot to handle, and burnout is the result. As a disclaimer against oversimplification, dismantling teacher and student burnout is a complicated issue, and one that cannot be untangled by any individual effort. This article, however, is meant to highlight how mental and emotional burnout presents itself in our bodies, and what we can do to alleviate it. In a quote from F. M. Alexander, founder of the Alexander Technique, “You translate everything, whether physical or mental or spiritual, into muscular tension.” While the causes of burnout may be beyond our power to control, we can gain awareness of its embodiment. Noticing Tension Habits As we go about our day, external stressors have an impact on our bodies. These can be small things, like having a frustrating conversation with a student or coworker, to large things, like injuries. The large things are easy for us to remember – we carry physical scars, must go to the hospital, or have a long period of rehabilitation. The small things tend to go unnoticed but have the largest unconscious impact on our physical tension. Over time, these small things build to big problems. The principles of Alexander Technique encourage awareness and observation of our habits, and the effects that our day-to-day activities have on our bodies. In my first few months studying AT, I was encouraged to do reflections similar to this one to build awareness of my tension habits. I encourage you to take 10-15 minutes to
reflect on the following guided prompt. This can be done silently, aloud, or as a journal exercise. • Imagine one of your most stressful days – a day where nothing seems to go right. • Walk yourself through that day, from the minute you wake up until the minute you go to bed. • As events occur, notice how you feel and how your body responds to these events. Does your posture/alignment change? Do you feel tension in the back of your neck or around your eyes? • Try to embody this physicality as you create your imaginary day. • When you finish, compare your body from when you started the exercise to now – what is different? If your physical habits are similar to mine, you may have noticed after that exercise that you carry tension in your neck or the beginnings of a headache. You may feel exhausted, even though this day was merely imaginary. This exhaustion is reflected in your alignment, which is curved inward as a means of protection and security. In total, you have created the physical embodiment of burnout. If this is the embodiment of a stressful day, how often have we been feeling like this? How often do we observe this in our students? If this physical misuse happens on a regular occasion, it is understandable that burnout has serious physical, mental, and emotional implications. These risks are compounded for womxn and members of the BIPOC community. These observations may feel discouraging, but this is merely the first step of change. While we hope that the changes to education that we desire are on the horizon, it is up to us to take this body/mind observation into our daily lives. When we realize our habits, we can practice intentional release. Practices of Release Alexander stated, “Change involves carrying out an activity against the habit of life.” There is no quick fix to burnout, as there is no quick fix to the muscular tension that embodies it. 30
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Awareness of these three main habits, however, can begin the process of releasing the body from chronically held tension, leading to a better quality of living in the long-term. While I highly recommend private study with a certified AT instructor, this is meant as an introduction and a helpful tool for those whom private study is not an option. In each topic we will discuss common habits that lead to tension, and how they can be released. 1. Spinal Alignment: What is tall? Think back to the first time someone corrected your posture. What did they describe as “tall?” Was it “chest out, stomach in?” Whatever you were taught as “good posture” as a child or young adult has stuck in the mental map of your skeletal structure. Unfortunately, many of the ways children are taught to have good posture tend to undo the natural our bodies already possess. Observe the graphic from AT practitioner Glynn MacDonald (Figure 1). Body #1 shows our spines at their most elongated, with a natural curve to the lower back, and the sternum at ease. Body #2 stands in what most of us depict as “slumped” or poor posture. Here the front of the body is curved inward, with rounded shoulders, collapsed sternum, and distended belly. Though we may do this often, we are aware that this image is not in alignment, and is not socially viewed as confident, successful, or happy. Observe Body #3. This image would be seen by some as the ideal posture: it is the “chest out/stomach in” approach and is often the correction of Body #2. Many would say this person seems commanding, authoritative, and if this mannequin had a voice, it would have a “teacher voice.” This spinal position, however, is also shortened, and can cause severe stress on the lower back on shoulders. The sternum is unnaturally lifted, which cause the shoulder blades to draw together and tighten. The raised sternum necessitates an exaggerated lower back curve to balance, causing tension and pain over time. The person in this alignment also has a more difficult time breathing, although it is not as obvious. If we use this posture daily as teachers and conductors, we often adopt Body #3 to fake our burnout, which more accurately reflects Body #2. In doing this daily, however, we increase our risk of chronic lower back pain.
Figure 1. Spine Alignment (MacDonald) Remapping our spines to undo years of misalignment cannot happen in one session or exercise. A short, guided sequence can bring greater awareness to our spinal alignment, which can gradually lead to lasting change. This practice can be done in a desk chair, at the piano bench, or anywhere you have 10 minutes to ground yourself. • Close your eyes and breathe. Bring your attention to your body and how you are seated. Is your spine curved inward, or are you pulling yourself up and curving back? • Focus your attention on your lower body. If possible, try to form three 90-degree angles between your feet to ankles, your knees, and your upper legs to your upper body. Once in this 90/90/90 position, how has this alignment shifted your spine? Take time to breathe here. 31
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• Bring your awareness to your hips/pelvis and its connection with the chair. (You may need to sit on your hands for a minute to feel this connection.) Are your hips tilted too far forward or too far back? Experiment with tilting your pelvis forward and back in your seat, noticing the effect either extreme has on your spine. Find the happy middle ground for you. • Now that your lower body has adjusted, how has your upper body reacted to this adjustment? Does this sensation feel new or uncomfortable? Has tension lessened or increased? Breathe and observe this without judgement – note “oh this is new!” Figure 2. Neck Alignment (Studdard)
• Beginning from the base of your spine at your pelvis/tailbone, think up slowly from the bottom of your spine to the top. As you ascend, repeat the words “lengthen” and “widen,” feeling as though each vertebrae is suspended on top of the other. Think through your ribcage, shoulder blades, into the neck and out through the top of the skull. Repeat if desired.
In times of stress, we become front-body oriented, and as a result, our back body tension is ignored. The first practice for releasing neck tension is an awareness of our body as a three-dimensional object, what AT practitioner Sally Ahner refers to as “Three Space Thinking.”
• Bring your hand to rest on your sternum. Feel its weight on your chest, inviting you to ground and center. Take a few deep breaths, inviting your sternum to relax and drop without caving in.
• Take five minutes to bring awareness to the back space, the space between your pelvis and the floor, and the space above your head. • Focusing on the space above your head, feel a connection between the crown on your head to the ceiling, suspending your skull off your spine.
After doing this exercise, you may feel a greater sense of ease in your body and in your mind. While the tension may reappear later in the day, taking 10 minutes to focus on you can have profound impacts on your productivity and mental health throughout the day.
• Just like the spine exercise above, breathe deeply, and release the crown of the head forward and up. The second practice comes from awareness of the skull as separate from the spine. Due to muscular tension, we feel a deep connection from the base of our skull to the back of the neck. The shortening of these muscles can feel as though there is little to no space between the back of the neck and the skull.
2. Neck and Skull Alignment The relationship between the neck, which is really the upper part of the spine, and the skull is a contentious and often confusing topic. We tend to place great importance on the neck without truly understanding its connection to the skull and the ways in which neck misalignment can affect almost all aspects of our body. Observe the neck diagram below (Figure 2). On the left, the neck is in alignment, with a slight curve extending up from the ribcage into the skull, where the spine ends roughly between our ears. On the right, the head is extended forward, causing the curve of the neck to exaggerate, and tensing the muscles in the back of the neck which connect to the skull and around the jawline. How many times during the day do we or our students adopt this alignment while using screens? Alignment of the neck and skull can alleviate stress, tension headaches, shoulder pain, and extend relief down the arms and back. Unfortunately, our neck is the first thing that tenses when we are anxious, angry, or overwhelmed.
• Breathe, and imagine your skull as a cup or bowl balancing on a dowel rod. • Observe how much space there is between the brim of the bowl and the rod. • See if more space can be created between your neck and your skull. This exercise may take time, especially if tension is deepseated.
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3. Sitting in a Chair It’s 2022. Let’s be honest: have any of us truly processed 2020-2021 yet? No, and neither have our bodies. The over a year we have spent on Zoom rehearsals and meetings, audio and video editing, and endless emails has changed our body map, and likely not for the better. Our primary mode of work, development, and leisure was shifted to a seated position for so long, and our bodies are still feeling its effects. While sitting is not necessarily a dangerous activity, overuse of screen time at a certain desk or work area influences our whole selves. Hip alignment and tightness, lower back, chest, shoulders, neck, and even eye strain can be influenced by how we sit. It is no wonder, therefore, that teachers of Alexander Technique focus large amounts of time on “chair work.” Figure 3 shows two examples of sitting at a desk computer. The one on the right, like Body #2 in the spine example, shows obvious signs of misalignment: his spine and ribcage are collapsed inward. His legs are tucked in, making his lower body absent from his support. In an attempt to bring his eyes closer to the screen, (how many of us have needed to do this?) he has lost all structural awareness. While it is not visible, body absence also leads to a heightened mental state: we are not grounded, and we let our head take over. I cannot speak for everyone, but I have unfortunately spent much of last year in this exact position, despite knowing its dangers.
Alexander said, “Specific prevention is permissible only under conditions of non-doing, not in doing.” The reason for much of our muscular tension is a result of doing rather than allowing. The human skeleton can support itself, yet we pull it upward rather than allowing natural suspension to occur. When this effort fails, we collapse. As we continue to work while seated, here are a few tips to help your space work for you rather than adjusting yourself to your desk. • Check if your chair is the right height for you. Are you able to sit in a 90/90/90 alignment in it? Can it be adjusted? If not, you may need to invest in a new chair. • When you are seated, try a shortened alignment exercise from above to help center your body in the space. This will also help your mental focus for the activity ahead. • If you’re using a laptop, prop the laptop up so it is closer to eye level. This discourages bending toward the screen. • If possible, invest in an external microphone to improve the volume and quality of sound without leaning. • If you are writing or working with music notation software, consider zooming in rather than leaning in to see.
The image on the left is like Body #3 – he looks like he’s trying to sit “correctly,” but has actually instilled a state of overall tension. Over time, his muscles will tire of this constant contraction, and he will end the day like the person on the right. How many of us know we are sitting incorrectly, and attempt to pull ourselves up? It typically never works in the long-term, and we tire easily. Figure 3. Alignment While Sitting (MacDonald) 33
Conclusion
Works Cited
These past few years in the education field have been difficult, and many things, including our personal wellbeing, may have been set aside in an effort to “just get through it” (or in Alexandrian terms, end-gaining). As choral musicians, we’ve made the transition to virtual choir, hybrid choir, and other variations that we never knew possible. Our body/minds have suffered as a result, and we are aware that this self-sacrifice is not sustainable. We cannot eliminate the external stressors that affect our and our students’ physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing. We can, however, bring awareness to how our bodies respond to these stressors in order to mitigate lasting damage. In releasing our bodies, we can release our minds. While systemic problems cannot be solved by releasing the neck, that release may give you the strength and clarity needed to get through one more day.
Sally Ahner: Taken from individual private practice.
For ways to incorporate AT into your ensemble rehearsals, please check out the poster session Alexander Technique for the Choral Classroom at the upcoming WACDA Regional Conference! If you would like a virtual AT clinic with your choirs, you may email me at adunsava@tnstate. edu.
F. Matthias Alexander, The Alexander Technique, 1989. F. Matthias Alexander, Aphorisms. Mouritz (2000). F. Matthias Alexander, The Use of the Self, 1932. Glynn MacDonald, The Complete Illustrated Guide to Alexander Technique. Elements Books (1999). Ellen Melamed, Moving Meditation: The Alexander Technique for Performing Arts Students…and the Rest of Us!, Cognella (2020), 20-21. Coriander Studdard, “Music Therapies: Alexander Technique,” Classical Music. Nov. 3, 2020. https://www. classical-music.uk/resources/article/music-therapiesalexander-technique Tim Walker, “Getting Serious About Teacher Burnout,” NEA News. Nov. 12, 2021. https://www.nea.org/ advocating-for-change/new-from-nea/getting-seriousabout-teacher-burnout
The University of Arizona graduate choral program embodies its commitment to and value of diversity and equity through an innovative curriculum, intentional programming, and recruitment, support and inclusion of a diverse population in each conducting cohort. For more information, please go to choral.music.arizona.edu or contact Dr. Elizabeth Schauer at erschaue@arizona.edu
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MM and DMA degrees Regular podium time and private lessons for all students Opportunities to safely sing together Graduate teaching assistantships and scholarships Professional choral leadership opportunities in the Greater Tucson area · A successful track record of job placement
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COMPOSER’S LENS: CONFERENCE OF THE BIRDS Written by Saunder Choi A few years ago, an article on The Emerging Art of Choral Theater was published in the Chorus America journal. It highlighted the trend of engaging choral singers in movement and theater, on top of the music. Some of the works that were highlighted were Jake Heggie’s choral opera Radio Hour, Marisa Michelson’s Tamar of the River, Peter Sellars’ staging of Di Lasso’s Lagrime di San Pietro with the Los Angeles Master Chorale, and others. Indeed, the trend of choral theater has reemerged. In this article, I would like to introduce everyone to Fahad Siadat’s Conference of the Birds — a new movement driven, semi-staged oratorio for a cappella choir. I decided to interview Fahad and get a deeper insight on the work. S: Briefly introduce us to what Conference of the Birds is about. F: Conference of the Birds is an old Persian epic story from the Islamic Middle Ages. It tells of the soul’s search for truth, using birds as metaphor, and lays out the spiritual path according to Sufi philosophy. It has been lifted up as one of the great works of medieval Persian literature. S: Why did you want to tell this story? F: Conference of the Birds is a Sufi story and I’ve been studying Sufi philosophy since I was 16 years old; it is a near and dear part of my life. I grew up with my dad telling me this story and the meaning behind it. It is about the birds of the world embarking on a search for the sovereign of birds, a metaphor for God. The climactic reveal is when they come to the gates of the Simurgh (a great, wise, mythical bird), they find that there is nothing there. Instead, they look at each other and discover that they are Simurgh. It’s a story about one’s inner divinity, and I am deeplymoved by the belief there is vast, divine potential in us.
S: Many great composers have expressed their faith through their music. We see this evidently in various motets by Bach, Palestrina, even someone spiritually conflicted like Poulenc. Would you say the same goes for you? F: I’ve always kept my religious and musical experiences outwardly separate from each other, and this was a journey to acknowledge that they are not separate parts of my life, they are radically intertwined. I can only write little chunks at a time because I get so overwhelmed by the spiritual power of the story. My spiritual practice is my musical practice. In a way, Conference of the Birds is a declaration of that. S: Is it Islamic or Persian or both? F: There is some debate (around it). Attar, the person who wrote it, was Muslim, and it is definitely a Sufi story. There is some contemporary debate about how intrinsically tied Islam and Sufism are. At one level, people refer to Sufism as the mystical branch of Islam the way that the Kabbalah is the mystical branch of Judaism. One another level, there is growing popularity in the interpretation that Sufism is a universal spirituality that is free from the dogma of specific religious traditions. Sufism in itself is about removing a sense of the ego. S: Why an oratorio instead of an opera? F: I think it’s operatic in its nature, but there aren't really that many consistent characters for it to be an opera. The format of the piece felt more like how Messiah tells a story, compared to Tannhäuser. There is also something about the religious connotation of an oratorio that spoke to me. Actually, the original concept of the piece is that it wasn’t going to be staged —it was going to be a concert work.
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S: And to that note, how did it end up as a staged work? How does this piece benefit from choreography?
voice. That’s one of the reasons why I felt comfortable not having instruments because if we exploit the versatile sound possibilities of the voice itself, we won’t necessarily need instrumental symphonic color, we can have vocal symphonic color. A lot of that stuff comes from my own performance practice and exploration of the voice.
F: Maybe the first question is why add music at all? The book is there, the poetry exists, beautifully translated by Sholeh Wolpé who also wrote the libretto for the oratorio, but there is an emotional subtext to the experience of the work that I wanted to bring out by adding music. As Sholeh and I started working on the piece, I brought the idea to André (Megerdichian), who I’ve been collaborating with for 12 or so years now. André is such an amazing choreographer, and a dancer, and for me, the movement adds another dimension of story-telling.
Being a performer-composer takes the composition experience and removes it from theory. It reignites performance and music as an acoustic phenomenon. The notation is an instruction for that acoustic phenomenon. I’m not writing for an abstraction of instruments. I am writing for specific voices. S: Your choral style is known for using different vocal timbres, particularly overtone singing and belting. How did you incorporate those in this piece?
S: And specifically involving the singers in elaborate movement rather than hiring dancers? Why a cappella? F: I wanted the work to be logistically simple to produce and have wide access. I don’t want things like the cost of hiring an orchestra to get in the way of people experiencing the piece directly. One of the primary audiences of the work are the singers themselves because they are the people who spend the most time with the piece and get to go on that journey.
F: We have strong aural and cultural assumptions on what vocal/choral music sounds like. With the overtone singing, I was interested in creating textures that remove the sense of voice from it. And when you have groups of people doing it, it creates symphonic color and texture that’s far removed from what we expect from the voice. Similarly, vocal fry adds an element of noise. Other “extended techniques” add an otherworldly color and texture, like electronic effects.
There’s also something about the performers physically and musically embodying it altogether that helps involve them in the narrative in a deeper way, they aren’t just telling the story, they are going on the journey themselves.
In Western music, we often focus on the implication of melody and harmony on subtext (i.e. on the most basic level, major chords are happy; minor chords are sad) What about timbre? What is the timbral expression of feeling distraught? Ecstatic?
S: Many composers are increasingly engaging in musical work outside of just composing. Similar to you and I who also sing and direct. How do these experiences inform the composition of this piece?
Western notation doesn’t focus on (vocal) timbre as an expressive device. Most of them have to do with instrument choice. It doesn’t take into account all of the different ways that the voice is used all over the world.
F: The performer-composer model is having a resurgence. It’s an old model for being a musician. You have composers like Bach, Rachmaninov, Paganini, Meredith Monk, who are virtuosos in their performance medium, and because of that, they were able to more deeply explore what is possible with the instrument. I have this familiarity and comfort in writing for the voice that has led me to explore the different expressive possibilities in color for the 36
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S: What do you want the audience to take away from this piece?
Saunder Choi is a Los Angeles-based Filipino composer and choral artist. He wears several hats as the Director of Music at the Unitarian Universalist Community Church of Santa Monica, a composer-teaching artist for the Los Angeles Master Chorale, a lecturer at Cal Poly Pomona, and a composer, arranger, and orchestrator. He regularly sings with the L.A. Choral Lab, Tonality, and Pacific Chorale. His works are accessible through saunderchoi.com
F: I think the mission of the piece is a spiritual one. That the audience will have a glimpse of something —that it will touch a part of their inner selves and spur on their own spiritual journey. The sound and movement are all in service of getting the story out to an audience who will be inspired by it, and, at the minimum, be kinder to each other and more in touch with their own humanity and the humanity of other people. S: And that is something we all sorely need. Conference of the Birds premieres at Scripps College on March 27, 2022 — with repeat performances at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica, CA on June 18 and 19, 2022. For more information, please visit www. resonancecollective.org
Image: Bird Parliament by Farid ud-Din Attar
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TACTUS Winter 2022
WHO SHOULD ATTEND FESTIVALS? YOU SHOULD ATTEND FESTIVALS!
Written by Dr. David Hensley Reprinted from ChorTeach
The past year has seen festivals curtailed as the world has suffered through the Covid-19 pandemic. The lifting of restrictions and the return to relative “normalcy” will, no doubt, bring forth seasons of choral festivals. Brand new teachers along with those conductors who were early in their careers when the virus created "shut-down” may all be facing their first opportunities to attend festivals. Many choirs may have lost numbers due on-line learning restrictions, and it may be several years before once large choral programs are able to regain their previous performance dynamics. With this in mind, the strictly competitive nature of festivals may be somewhat lessened. The time is right for everyone to attend festivals. As choral directors, whenever our back is to an audience our credibility is, so to speak, on the line. We are the “silent instrument” in a business that makes music, but unlike a soprano section with many voices (instruments) working together, we are the only one playing ours. Selfevaluation is a necessary part of conducting, constantly checking gesture and, in rehearsal, those things we say to our singers. But attending a choral festival gives both singers and conductors the opportunity to be judged, and in the right circumstances can be a career enhancement (especially for the novice director). Some beginning conductors fear the festival (or contest) because of the possibility of less than favorable comments from adjudicators, but just as a young quarterback learns from actually playing the game, we learn from our experiences, and a festival presents three opportunities for learning in one venue: It gives you and the choir an opportunity to be professionally evaluated; it gives you and the choir an opportunity to hear other similar ensembles; and it gives you and the choir an opportunity to perform for peers. All three of these reasons should be shared with singers (so they will understand and appreciate the event in advance) and administrators (who often must give their consent for the choir to attend). What constitutes a choral festival? Although festivals may vary depending on the sponsor, there are, basically, two types – adjudicated and non-adjudicated. In an
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adjudicated choral festival, one or more “expert” clinicians (hereafter referred to as adjudicators) evaluate the performance of the various choirs according to standards, relying on his or her expertise as a choral musician. However specific the standards, there is necessarily an element of subjectivity in this evaluation. Non-adjudicated festivals usually involve choirs performing either for one another or in combination, and while the opportunity to be professionally evaluated may be missing, the dynamics of performance and of hearing other ensembles make these worthwhile events, too. Choral festivals have long been a part of the music education process, giving student singers a goal to achieve a high rating as evidence of a performance of high quality. These can be sponsored by the local, county, regional or statewide music teachers’ organization (such as the National Association for Music Educators or the American Choral Directors Association), or one of many other such groups. Each of these groups has certain standards for evaluation; these are usually printed on a generic form used by adjudicators at all of their events. The goal is a fair hearing of all ensembles by adjudicators whose reputation and expertise are trusted and whose adjudications and ratings will appear at once correct and also serve to instruct conductors and singers who participate in the festival. Because of this implied instruction, many school choirs nationwide make festival participation an annual expectation, and many administrators see festival ratings as viable and visible evidence of the success of their own school’s choral program. From time to time a community-based choir or collegiate choral department may host an adjudicated festival and will usually develop a similar adjudicative instrument. These festivals may be on an “invitational” basis, with the organizing sponsor inviting choirs that are known to be at or above a particular level of proficiency, assuring a high quality performance by all who participate. The organizing sponsor of these festivals will usually seek wellrespected choral directors to serve as the clinician(s).
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Having such an “expert” as a clinician is at once a reason for choirs to attend the festival and an opportunity to compete against higher than usual standards.
festivals select an overall “best-of-show,” or highestrated ensemble (this is very common at vocal jazz and popular music contests). Regardless of how the choir is rated by the adjudicators, the role of the latter is to provide a fair, accurate, impartial and musically intuitive evaluation from which the participating conductor and singers can learn and, hopefully, improve their skills.
There are also a number of enterprising organizations that run “for-profit” choral competitions, often in conjunction with some sort of amusement park, popular vacation destination, or significant performance venue. While they may employ competent, noted choral experts as adjudicators (whose comments and evaluations are genuinely appropriate), the very existence of these organizations is based on having enough choirs pay for the privilege of traveling to the festival site and taking advantage of the nonmusical amenities that are offered (travel/tourist locations, amusement parks, points of interest, and even airline reservations and hotel bookings that are contracted by the festival host). These festivals may attract choirs through a competitive set of rankings (first, second, third place in distinct categories that can range from size of school to the style of literature to the composition of the choir, i.e. mixed chorus, men’s chorus, women’s chorus, high school, or middle school). Needless to say, the cost of attending these “for profit” festivals often includes the expenses of lodging, meals, and amusement park tickets, and these expenses must be a consideration of participation and may limit ensembles whose members are less affluent or must travel a great distance in order to attend.
It has been previously mentioned that an adjudicator is an individual who is selected because of his or her demonstrated expertise in the choral field. Some organizations appoint adjudicators based on the reputation of their own choir’s performances (the conventional wisdom suggests “if their choir sings well, the conductor must be good and must be a good clinician”). While this logic appears sound, not every successful conductor does a good job evaluating the work of other choirs and conductors. Some festival hosts have a training process (a “vettig”) for their adjudicators, which strives to achieve some sense of uniformity in evaluations. Some hosts, usually of invitational events, rely on the recommendation of others as to whom they ask to serve as an adjudicator. Broadly speaking, this is a vetting (of sorts), and meets with a high level of success for the festival host and participants. The typical festival sponsored by the state or local music educators association will give ratings; at many contests these ratings are posted for all to see. Along with the overall ratings are ratings in specific categories of choral skills, and most forms allow for limited written comments by the adjudicator. Many festivals now utilize recorded comments made by the adjudicators as the choir is performing – this adds greatly as the conductor and singers can hear exactly what the adjudicator is referring to as he/she speaks. Some schools or districts require their music ensembles to attend festivals (contests); principals or music supervisors may call for the adjudication forms. Invitational festivals may or may not give overall ratings or create a ranked, competitive order (1st place, 2nd place, etc.) at the discretion of the festival sponsors. Most of these structural questions can be easily answered in the invitation or registration materials that are received well in advance of the event.
There are many regions where vocal jazz, show choir, or popular music festivals afford the same competitive options to these kinds of ensembles that traditional festivals provide for mixed, men’s, or women’s ensembles.1 Some commercially sponsored festivals also have performance categories for these types of choirs. The role of the adjudicator in any of these situations called festivals is to evaluate each participating choir, based on a set of criteria that are known to be standards of excellence in choral performance. At most festivals hosted by a music teacher’s organization, adjudication can result in an overall rating. The terms “superior,” “excellent,” “good,” “fair,” and “poor” are common, as are letter grades (A-B-C-D-F). Some 1. “Mixed,” Men’s” and Women’s” in this context refer to the traditional voicings, with an understanding that the membership of ensembles is not at issue here.
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While most festivals take place during the spring semester, there are a number of organizations that sponsor a fall festival. There are even a few festivals during the first two weeks of December, which becomes a good opportunity to share holiday literature with others. Whenever the festival is available, directors should avail themselves of the opportunity to participate. This is especially true for those who are new to the business, as it affords such a great opportunity to share literature by hearing other choirs while being evaluated in a professional environment.
Whether you host or travel to a choral festival, there are few if any opportunities that provide so many teachable moments in just an hour or two of performances. Please…as you develop your career in choral music, consider it a responsibility to you and your singers to perform at choral festivals and learn from the experience.
David Hensley has taken choral ensembles to festivals for 40+ years, serving as director at Lompoc High School (1980-94) and Porterville College (1994-2017). He has also made himself available as a long-term substitute since retirement. David earned his BA in Choral Music Education from California State University, Fullerton; his MM in Choral Conducting at Northern Arizona University; and his DMA in Choral Studies from the University of Kentucky. Visit http://www.davidhensley.org for additional information.
Hosting a choral festival requires reasonably good organizational skills. Often, a school will be asked by a sponsoring organization to act as the site host. The opportunity to for the first time invite a number of choirs to your campus or local auditorium is at once exciting and somewhat daunting, but observation of the mechanics of a well-run festival and seeking the advice of former festival host directors makes this process rewarding for your choir, as the host ensemble, and all of those choirs who choose to attend.
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