Programming

Programming I

Programming is, I believe, one of the most important—and challenging—jobs for the conductor. There are so many things that go into a successful concert program (and so many different types and level of ensemble) that it’s difficult to boil it down to just a few “rules” or suggestions. So, a place to begin:

It’s through the repertoire they sing that your ensemble will improve (or not), so this is one of the first things to consider. What’s does your ensemble need to improve its sound, technique, musicality? What music will stretch their abilities (but not break them)?

This is only one lens through which we can think about programming your concerts, but an important one: for your singers, for the development of your choir, it's essential.

Eric Ericson has always held that his choirs were built through the repertoire they performed. He has spoken of the struggle his Chamber Choir had in the 1940s with Ingvar Lidholm’s Laudi, and how much the choir learned from that challenge over the course of six months of rehearsals. He’s also called the 50’s the “training decade” for the Radio Choir, when major pieces (by Stravinsky, Dallapiccola and many others) taught the choir how to deal with difficult pitches and rhythms, culminating with another composition by Lidholm, his Canto 81, which summarized the challenges of that decade. Eric says that by meeting such challenges he can only imagine a better choir, conductor and chorister.

And yes, I know this will vary enormously from situation to situation! There are differing needs for a children’s choir program, school choir, church choir, community choir, university choir, professional choir . . . and whether it’s auditioned or a “Y’all come” choir. The point is to look to the areas in which your group needs to grow and then to find repertoire that moves them in the direction they need. You are the one who needs to think about what your choir does well and where they still need to improve—it doesn’t matter so much where they are now, but where are they going, and where will they might be in several years.

With this in mind, I always try to think about long-term growth of the choir when programming, not just of the next concert. What styles should my choir experience? What will push them each year to become better individual singers and musicians? If there’s repertoire they should be doing, but aren’t capable of yet, what are the “stepping stone” pieces that will gradually give them the skills and experience to meet it?

For example, with the Choir of the West at Pacific Lutheran University, which I led for 18 years, I had a choir which was quite select, expected to sing at a high level in relationship to its peers, toured regularly, and was made up of both music majors (who needed the education and experience to send them into the professional world as successful teachers or performers) and talented non-majors who were looking for a great and challenging musical experience.

This was therefore not a specialist choir, but one where my students needed to experience a wide variety of literature. As singers with limited repertoire behind them, they also needed to graduate having sung great masterworks as well as newer or less familiar repertoire.

Consequently, I wanted to make sure that a great variety of repertoire was covered in any given year, or at least over the two years that many students might spend in the choir: music from different style periods (renaissance, baroque, classic/romantic, twentieth century); music in different languages; a cappella music and music with accompaniment, including works orchestra; and some repertoire from the 20th century (yes, I know it's the 21st century, but I was at PLU from 1983-2001) that would push them hard in terms of different (and challenging) musical languages. These days I'd want them to also experience music from around the world, from different cultures (and you'll see some of this in a later section).

Early on, I decided that they needed to experience some music of Bach each year—great music in every sense of that word: from the baroque period, big technical challenges, and (after all) we were a Lutheran university! So almost every year they did a Bach motet, occasionally a cantata, or one of the major works with orchestra. While this much didn’t happen every year, my first year at PLU they did Cantata 80 on the first orchestra concert—planned before I arrived as part of the Martin Luther anniversary—Cantata 191 for Christmas, and the motet, "Jesu, meine Freude," on tour. Major works over the years included the Mass in B Minor (in 1985—the big Bach year), the Magnificat, and St. John Passion. I don’t think any of my students who were at PLU for all four years of their academic careers graduated without singing some Bach.

I was also lucky in my first ten years or so to have a situation where the choir toured each year during PLU’s January term. This was a special 4-week term, which encouraged students to take part in special courses—for my students this became their only class, which meant we rehearsed intensively (around five to six hours/day) for two weeks, and then toured for two weeks. Some repertoire was learned in the fall, but most of it during that intensive period. This allowed me to do a full (mostly) a cappella program at that point in the year, with the second semester free for other projects. It was in the second semester following tour that the B Minor Mass and St. John Passion were sung, along with the Brahms Liebeslieder with the McCabe sisters and Benjamin Britten's War Requiem; Handel’s Dixit Dominus and Britten’s Cantata Misericordium; a Peter Schickele commission (The Twelve Months, which is a “piano concerto” with choir instead of orchestra); a faculty commission for my colleague Richard Nance’s Mass for a New Millennium (which we also recorded); Beethoven’s 9th with our own PLU orchestra (and a different year with the Tacoma Symphony); and Alexander Nevsky along with several other university choirs and the Seattle Youth Symphony. We also did (and recorded) the Rachmaninoff Vespers during on second semester. In addition, we had the orchestra available for our Christmas concert, which allowed us to combine with the University Chorale and do works such as the Poulenc Gloria, a faculty commission by Gregory Youtz (Officium Pastorum with brass quintet), Finzi’s In terra pax, Bach’s Magnificat, Vaughan Williams’s Hodie, etc. This gave an extraordinary opportunity for the singers to experience a wide variety of works.

As I said, I also wanted them to do some 20th century works that really challenged their ears. Music here ranged from Swedish works (surprise, given my history!) such as Sven-David Sansdström’s Agnus Dei and Hear my Prayer, Lars Edlund’s Gloria, Thomas Jennefelt’s O Domine, and Lidholm’s . . . a riveder le stelle (done together with my Seattle-based chamber choir, Choral Arts). Other works included Penderecki’s Agnus Dei, Arvo Pärt’s Credo (as part of the program opening our new concert hall), and Stravinsky’s Les Noces. Each of these works presented special challenges for them—pitches, rhythms, sometimes language (Les Noces in Russian), not to speak of my own challenges in convincing them to do these “strange” pieces!

Of course, this was for my own growth as a conductor, too. In the same way that the challenges of the repertoire encouraged (and even forced0 growth from the choir, it did the same for me.

Yes, I had an extraordinarily privileged situation, but the principle doesn’t change even if you’re working with the least skilled un-auditioned ensemble: what repertoire can you choose that will make them better?

My experiences with choirs at different levels tells me that doing challenging music is more often the limitation of the conductor/teacher—I’ve heard children’s choirs doing some amazing music, for example. They don’t know that mixed meters or other challenges are difficult. If it’s presented to them well and matter-of-factly, they just do it.

So this, to me, is essential: figure out what your choir needs in order to grow as musicians and people—musicianship, musicality, their ears, to sing in ensemble, their understanding about how to approach different styles, and to be expressive singers—and find the repertoire that will encourage, help, and push them to grow.

Programming II

So, in the first section I talked about the importance of thinking of repertoire in programming from the standpoint of the needs of the chorus and individual singers to maximize their growth.

But what about the needs of the audience? Or of the institution that supports you if you’re not an independent choir (or your board, perhaps, if it is)?

You can’t forget about those needs (or at least you shouldn’t if you want to keep your job!), but the challenge is to balance those with what the choir needs to do.

Again, your own situation will determine much of this. A church choir serves a specific function (which requires certain kinds of repertoire), but this can vary from an Episcopal/Anglican choir that draws almost exclusively from British Anglican traditions to a choir that does primarily praise music . . . and everything in between.

School choirs have their own educational requirements that may vary considerably. Those teaching in some public schools in the US may find it difficult to do much sacred music, or perhaps even have pressure to “entertain.” There are always external expectations (tradition, administrative, parents) to deal with as well.

Most choirs have repertoire expectations associated with them (sometimes clearly laid out, sometimes not), from those that specialize in music of a certain period or ethnic background, to choirs with a distinct educational purpose. You may also have other expectations: an annual Messiah performance, a spring pops concert, a tour program, or what have you. All of this has to be taken into account.

Pro Coro Canada, where I was Music Director and Principal Conductor from 1999-2012, an ensemble based in Edmonton, Alberta, is a professional chamber choir with (during my best years—it varied: see my blog post on The Pro Coro Years for detailed programs) a 6 or 7-concert series. My contract called for me to conduct 4 concerts, our associate conductor usually conducted one, and guests take the others (this was important for lots of reasons, which I won't go into here).

Since we were an independent choir that needed sufficient ticket income (and donations from patrons) to survive, I had to create programs that would be marketable and will appeal to our audience. While I was given the power by the board to make all programming choices (it was in my contract), with that went the responsibility to make sure I drew audiences, too. That’s where balancing my needs (or desires) and the choir’s needs (for growth and challenge) with what the audience is willing to hear. In the long run, I won’t keep my job if audiences disappear and no one’s happy with the music we do.

As with many of you, we did a Christmas concert that has fairly broad appeal each year. Pro Coro also had the tradition of a Good Friday concert, one which started with the previous Music Director when the new Symphony Hall opened—this didn’t have to be specifically music for Lent, Good Friday, or Easter, but should fit generally—thus we did a number of different Requiems, Bach’s Mass in B Minor, Ivan Moody’s Passion and Resurrection, a wonderful commissioned work by Alberta composer Allan Bevan (Nou goth sonne under wode—the audience came to hear the Mozart Requiem, but Allan’s was the piece that got the extended standing ovation that day), and Rachmaninov’s All-Night Vigil.

As a professional choir supported by the Arts Council of Canada, we were mandated (and wanted) to do significant Canadian works each season. Additionally, for a number of years we had a grant from the Wirth Foundation for Central European Studies to support doing all the late masses of Haydn (i.e., to pay for the orchestra), along with works by other composers from central Europe. There were then a lot of “givens” in any season I planned. I also wanted guest conductors to bring something special to the choir (thinking of the choir’s long-term growth, remember?) and I therefore wanted them to do music they love and do well. I had to advise them (since they didn’t know the choir or audience expectations) and they’d have budget limitations, but I tried to give them as much freedom as I could. Guest conductors included Maria Guinand, Anders Eby, Gary Graden, Ivars Taurins, Simon Carrington, and Leonard Ratzlaff, all who brought something important to Pro Coro and the Edmonton community.

Every one of you has “givens” as well that are necessary and important in your repertoire planning/programming. And I know that while much will be laid out for you ("limitations" if you will, that shape what you must do), you shouldn’t forget to balance those with the needs of your choir for their own growth as well (Programming I). "Givens" aren't necessarily negative: working with whatever limitations we have also inspires or requires your own creativity (which also forces growth).

Interlude — The Ensemble Concert at PLU

Around 1989 or so I decided I needed a way to get the singers in my choir to be more independent musicians. At the same time I felt there were gaps in the repertoire the students experienced. Given two mixed choirs of 45-50 voices each, plus a men’s and women’s choir, we never did any madrigals, just for one example. We also didn’t have a vocal jazz ensemble at the time, and in the Northwest, jazz was big in the high schools, so lots of my students missed this. It also filled a gap for my music education students, who would then know some repertoire they’d need.

With those problems in mind, I created an Ensemble Concert: my choir was divided up into (usually) 10 or 11 one-on-a-part ensembles (most SATB, some SSATB and occasionally SSATBB), I gave them some time from our regular choir rehearsals (usually half rehearsals until the last few before the concert), and each ensemble prepared one madrigal and one lighter number (most vocal jazz ballads, but occasional other pieces, too). All had to be a cappella and true one-on-a-part (no doubling allowed). We didn’t use microphones, since going back and forth from amplified to un-amplified in concert wouldn’t work acoustically, and too many students didn’t have experience with microphones (also a huge extra hassle). Most ensembles arranged their own rehearsals outside of choir time, too.

The concert was a big success, was done every year after that, and something the students looked forward to each year.

Things evolved over time. Students got creative in all sorts of ways, from costuming to choreography. Some students wrote or arranged their own pieces. One year two quartets asked if they could collaborate and did a very good version of Michael Jackson’s Thriller (complete with choreography from the music video and me doing the Vincent Price bit from the organ loft). The Ensemble Concert was tremendous fun for the students and the audience, and I also think the students learned a lot from the process.

How was it organized?

First, I figured out how many ensembles there would be and chose “leaders” for each ensemble. “Leaders” is in quotes because they weren’t the “boss” of their ensemble, although they would help with organization and organize rehearsals. However, other members of the ensemble were expected to take part in evaluating, giving interpretive ideas, etc. I tried to get as many of my music ed students in leadership spots as possible to give them valuable experience, but it was important to have leaders the other singers would respect. I also worked to have fairly equal numbers of male and female leaders.

Next was choosing the members of each ensemble, which was done by the leaders choosing the members (privately, in my office), much like choosing sides in sports. There were rules, however:

- no discussions of what happened inside the room (no one should know they were the last chosen)

- they drew numbers to see who got first choice, so that was random. For the next round, those who chose last got first choice on the next round. If there was an SSATB ensemble, I tried to give someone who needed two sopranos an early choice. We worked one part at a time, sopranos, then altos, etc.)

- if several people wanted the same singer, I’d decide who prevailed. Then whoever “lost” would get the nod for the next choice

- they sometimes needed advice, since they might not know each singer’s voice. I provided this and the other leaders who knew that person's voice sometimes chimed in, too

- I was always cognizant of keeping ensembles well-balanced in terms of size of voice: in a one-on-a-part ensemble, three big voices and one small one would only lead to frustration in trying to balance

This process worked well and there were remarkably few disagreements.

Next was choosing repertoire: we had a collection of madrigal books in the library and the vocal jazz library was available (later, when we had a vocal jazz ensemble again, the vocal jazz director would help as well). Leaders presented possibilities to their ensemble, then the ensemble voted on what they wanted to do. They had to bring choices to me and if two ensembles picked the same piece, first to me got the choice—this helped keep them from procrastinating.

I supplied everyone with a handout about how to work in rehearsal, the importance of getting notes learned quickly (practice outside!) so they could work on musical/expressive issues right away and not at the last minute. The importance of their doing a one-on-a-part ensemble is that everyone is totally responsible for his or her own part—no one else could cover for you! (We very occasionally had someone ill enough that they couldn’t sing—on at least one occasion I jumped in to cover a part, but this was rare).

When they began rehearsing, I’d rotate around (they were usually in practice rooms) to see how they were doing. I told them I wouldn’t interrupt their rehearsal, but just observe, unless they wanted help with something. It was great fun for me to watch and see my students in a different light.

I also had to begin working on the program order at this time. I knew the pieces they were doing, the mood, and what keys they were in. Each ensemble sang once piece on each half, their vocal jazz piece on one half and the madrigal on the other. On each half I always alternated jazz (or whatever lighter piece they were doing) with a madrigal. Essentially, I tried to create a concert that would flow, and not have too many pieces in a row with the same mood or key. I also knew which ensembles were doing particularly well, so tried to get them towards the ends of each half to make sure the final few pieces were strong.

Finally I also made it a rule that they had to be in the concert hall listening to the other ensembles, leaving to get ready only one ensemble before they were to go on. That meant they got to hear one another, which was the point, too (early on some ensembles wanted to wait backstage to warm-up more or rehearse—nope!).

This was a fun and creative way to solve what I perceived as weaknesses in our program.

Programming III

It seems obvious, but it’s easiest to program if you have the broadest possible knowledge of the repertoire for your choir. The bigger the lists of “possible pieces” and your knowledge about their demands (whether they’re appropriate for your group), the more options you have. For young conductors this is a challenge. For them in particular, but for all of us, searching for new repertoire is a constant occupation, whether browsing at the local music store or music library, subscribing to various publishers’ new issues, noting pieces on someone else’s concert program, following repertoire postings on choralist, enlisting your colleagues’ help, listening to recordings, or attending reading sessions at music conferences or workshops.

I was lucky to have some great mentors early in my career. Neil Lieurance was a student teacher at my high school during my sophomore year, took a non-music job there my junior year (but accompanied the small ensemble, and I also started to take voice lessons from him at that time), and then took over the choral program my senior year. Neil loved learning new repertoire and provided me with a great role model. Even after I graduated and went on to university, I’d visit with him and he’d share whatever new music or recordings he’d added to his library. His excitement about this was catching.

Since he was working on a master’s degree at Western Washington University in the summers, I got to know Bob Scandrett, who headed the program there, and attended several summer workshops with clinicians such as Gregg Smith, Günther Graulich (editor/owner of Carus Verlag) and Louis Halsey (a fine conductor in his own right, but probably best known now as the father of conductor Simon Halsey—who’s been Simon Rattle’s choral conductor since the beginning of Rattle’s career in Birmingham). Just with those three conductors/workshops I learned a wealth of American contemporary repertoire, European repertoire (particularly baroque), and British repertoire.

Rod Eichenberger was my first teacher at the University of Washington and also had a great appetite for exploring new repertoire. During my sophomore year (after Rod had come up to Western for the end of the Gregg Smith workshop and we collaborated on making a rather potent punch at the after-party) I started hanging around his office with the grad students (I learned a lot from them, too—during that time I sang in almost all of their graduate recital choirs). Rod always received lots of new issues from publishers—ah, the days when it was easy to get complimentary copies!—and had them stacked all over the place. He made a deal with me: if I’d file all this music for him, I could keep any duplicate copies. That was the beginning of my personal reference library. I got some fantastic music, but just as importantly began to get an overview of the repertoire. If I filed a piece by Hindemith, let’s say, I looked through the file to see what else he’d written. This was an incredible gift to me.

All of us need to continually expand our knowledge of repertoire. This will also be shaped by the ensembles you conduct: the choral repertoire is broad and has so many sub-genres: treble, male, mixed, sacred, secular, for large ensemble, for small ensemble, etc., plus all levels from the most inexperienced choir to advanced repertoire only a professional choir could attempt.

For example, when I taught at Mount Holyoke College for three years (from 1980-83 and is a women’s college), I had a crash course in women’s literature and learned as much as I could about it and searched it out. Later, when I wasn’t conducting a women’s ensemble, I didn’t keep up with this repertoire so much—but with the advent of the men’s chorus at PLU (which I led), I began collecting men’s rep appropriate to my beginning level ensemble. When I spent a year in an interim position at The Church of the Incarnation in Dallas (where we sang Evensong every Sunday during the academic year except Christmas and Easter), I had the joy of learning a large number of Mags & Nuncs and Preces & Responses by a wide variety of composers, in addition to leading Anglican chant each week (both in the 11 AM service and Evensong). A great experience!

Whatever your choir(s), you’ll want to explore and acquire as much literature that’s appropriate as you can. When you take on a new choir with a new and different repertoire, get to know experts in that area and pick their brains, look at their programs, browse their libraries. When I became Artistic Director of Pro Coro Canada, Jon Washburn (conductor of the Vancouver Chamber Choir, whom I’d known for some time) let me come up to visit and spend an afternoon browsing through his extensive personal library, specifically looking at Canadian choral works. Again, an incredibly gracious and valuable gift.

One of the glories of the choral medium is that there is such a wealth of repertoire to explore. We’ll never run out of it, and that’s one of the joys of this job. It should never be dull.

Programming IV — The story of programming one program

I don't do programs around a theme as often as some do, but here IS one: a concert with Pro Coro Canada, One Earth Many Voices.

Even without a "theme," this shows a lot about the process I go through to select a program.

The theme came about because we were experimenting with a larger set of concerts called, "The Lighter Side of Pro Coro." Originally, our associate conductor, Trent Worthington, did a couple programs with that title (Trent's a talented composer and arranger himself), and the thought this year was to have a full season of six programs, three "Pro Coro Classical," and three "Pro Coro Light." Since I do four programs each season with the choir, and we had a guest conductor (Len Ratzlaff) doing a "classical" program, that meant that in addition to the Christmas program (which can count for the light side), I'd do one other concert that had to fit the "lighter" concept.

I chose to do a program based around folk music, to which we gave the above title (I actually liked, One World, Many Voices better, but there you go!).

This now gets into my programming process, as exemplified by this particular program, anyway.

With most of my programs, I start with a work or works I really want to do, then start building around it. For me, it's all about how the pieces chosen work together: they can contrast nicely, or several works can complement each other. In that sense, I want the audience to either feel the connections I've made or, in going from one set to another, to move to something that feels very fresh. For that reason, once I come up with a work or two that will "anchor" a program, then it's often a matter of figuring out what else will work well with it. Although I have to say, sometimes I start with an anchor piece, but that's ultimately discarded, because it doesn't work best with the rest of the program as it evolves. My posts on my own programs (by time period or group) will let you know a lot about my taste in setting up programs.

Because I didn't want all the arrangements to be traditional (harmonic language, style), I chose to begin each half with something quite different. The first half opened with Jan Sandström's Biegga Luothe, which is based on a Sami "Yoik," or improvised chant. The Sami are the ethnic people in Lapland in the north of Sweden, who for centuries have herded reindeer. Sandström grew up in northern Sweden and for some time has taught composition in Piteå, which has the furthest northern School of Music. A friend, Erik Westberg, has also taught there for a long time and also has his own, professional vocal ensemble. Erik's worked closely with Jan and this piece was premiered by his vocal ensemble. The Yoik is by Johan Märak, a Sami who's been a logger, reindeer herder, and is also ordained in the Swedish church. Since hearing about the piece from Erik in 2002 at the IFCM conference in Minneapolis, I'd gotten a score and it was "on my list" of pieces to do someday. Sandström's piece is challenging for the choir, uses a baritone solo for the Yoik, along with ceremonial drum, and includes barking dogs (the choir singing clusters on the text, "Zagga" in fast mixed meters), and the sounds of the ptarmigan (made by members of the choir as well). For those interested in the music, it's published by the Swedish publisher, Gehrmans. It now exists in a shorter version as well. I also did this piece later with the University Singers at the University of North Texas, which is on YouTube.

To make the opening even a little more dramatic, after I verbally introduced the concert in general and the piece specifically, we played a cut from Erik's CD, Across the Bridge of Hope, which has Johan Märak singing the chant himself and playing the drum, while the choir walked on stage. It's a wonderful piece, well worth doing, if you have a choir that can sing it.

For the opening of the second half, I chose Australian composer Sarah Hopkins' Past Life Melodies, which many of you may know. It's inspired by aboriginal music and sounds, in three large sections, the first with a broad melody that's first hummed, then sung on ah, then on "yeah." The second has an aboriginal chant that begins while the final chord is held, and gradually adds voices to the chant on each repetition, while the chord gradually becomes a drone on b. The final section has members of the choir doing overtone singing above the drone. Again, for more drama, I spread the singers out in the formation that Hopkins herself recommends, but in the large choir loft above the stage at the Winspear Auditiorium. If you're interested in doing the piece, Hopkins' website offers a recording of her teaching the piece to a choir, including overtone singing, as well as a complete performance. I have ALWAYS found singers who could learn to do this, including high school singers (in one performance I heard, one of the overtone singers suddenly sang the opening of "Amazing Grace" in overtones).

So, after I'd chosen these two "anchors" to open each half, I had to find the right pieces to accompany them. In many ways, this was a difficult program to plan: there are lots of possibilities, I don't normally like doing programs with lots of "little pieces," etc.

I knew I wanted to do some Canadian works and I knew I wanted a set of spirituals. I looked at LOTS of Canadian works. Early on I decided I wanted to do a set of French Canadian works as well, so knew I'd end with Robert Sund's (yes, I know he's a Swede!) delightful arrangement of Alouette. So, after asking friends (Pat Abbott, Executive Director of the Association of Canadian Choral Conductors, who's well-versed in French Canadian repertoire, and some of my Francophone singers), I decided on a set of three: Donald Patriquin's Ah! si mon moine voulait danser (which uses the traditional French Canadian folk instrument of spoons for percussion along with piano),Dégénérations (more in a bit), and Alouette.

As a passing note, I most often have chosen sets of three pieces that are otherwise unrelated (Christmas pieces, motets, etc.). It allows for a set that feels connected and organic, but enough variation (in key, mood, etc.) that there is variety. There's no magic number here, but it allows me to do smaller works as a set (and I usually try to get the audience not to applaud in between each one). I usually dislike programs with a lot of short works that are not organized in some way.

Dégénérations is an unusual piece, not really choral, and more of a pop/folk song, originated by the group Mes aïeux, who characterize their style as "funklore." Arranged by Suzanne Lainesse, the song expresses the desire of Québécois to connect with their roots. It deplores the loss of family, speaking of the "great-great-grandmother who had 14 children, the great-grandmother with almost as many, the grandmother with three, your mother, who had you as a mistake, and you, who get rid of the child you conceive. The piece "went viral," so to speak, with huge public demand forcing radio stations to add it to their playlists more than two years after the song came out. We did it with the addition of spoons, a broom, drum, and hockey stick (all as percussion—we had to add a piece of sandpaper to the floor to make the broom sound!) I chose this not because it was great music or great choral music, but because within the context of the program it showed that the "folk" are still creating music. I believe you can find its original in a music video with English subtitles on the web.

So, for the first half, I have an opening and closing set. I chose to follow Biegga Luothe with a big contrast, two of Astor Piazzolla's tangos, in vocal arrangements by Oscar Escalada: Verano Porteño and Primavera Porteña, both published by Kjos. I got recordings of these pieces (in several versions) as played by Piazzolla himself with his quintet, partly for my own edification in style, but also played examples for the choir at one rehearsal to show Piazzolla's own approach.

To follow the Piazzolla, we went to Indonesia by way of Canadian R. Murray Schafer with his Gamelan, quite a fun piece imitating bell sounds using Balinese solfege syllables (dong, deng, dung, dang, ding) for their scale (C, D, F, G, Bb).

Quite a trip on the first half from Lapland to Argentina to Bali to French Canada!

As I said, I'd also early on decided I wanted to do a set of spirituals, and I also had in mind doing a set of folksongs from the British Isles. So that's how I followed Past Life Melodies on the 2nd half.

From the British Isles, I chose three classics: Vaughn Williams' arrangements of Just as the Tide Was Flowing and The Turtle Dove, plus Gustav Holst's I Love My Love (and in that order). I'd wanted to do Canadian Jonathan Quick's clever arrangement of Loch Lomand for some time, so that became the end of the set. I also had the idea to do one or more of Michael McGlynn's beautiful pieces or arrangements for his group Anúna. I listened to a lot of his music and found one, My Lagan Love, which was a perfect solo match for one of my tenors (Caleb Nelson). Unfortunately, it wasn't listed on McGlynn's site for sale, so I wrote him through his (and this is aging me!) MySpace site and he quickly replied. Michael was nice enough to send me the arrangement in a pdf file, saying just buy any arrangement on his website to compensate him. Thanks, Michael! Notice this breaks my usual pattern of groups of three pieces—just to show you that I'm never totally consistent!

For my set of spirituals (here I did choose three), the last group on the program, I chose three favorites: Warren Martin's arrangement of Great Day, Norman Luboff's Deep River, and William L. Dawson's Ezekiel Saw de Wheel. I don't know how it happened (since I've always liked the arrangement), but I'd never conducted Ezekiel, but what a great arrangement! This made for a very strong, fun end to the program.

However, I also planned one encore. I'd originally planned for a set of Canadian folksongs in English, including Harry Somers' well-known Feller from Fortune, but decided the program was a bit too long, so dropped the set. One of my singers suggested we use it as an encore (thanks, Janet!) and (being smart enough to recognize good advice), I said yes.

Choosing this program was not a quick process. I had a folder and piano music stand that got filled with possibilities (gradually smaller as pieces went back to my files after I eliminated them). I had sticky notes with the groupings written on them (Biegga, Piazzolla, Spirituals, etc.), which I switched around in different potential orders. For a long time (as mentioned above) I had two Canadian groupings, so when I finally dropped one, that meant other groupings changed positions and even what half of the program they were on. It's a matter of trial and error, seeing how a particular group works with another, seeing how a particular piece works in each group. Music I love had to be put away because it didn't fit as well as another piece. But bit by bit, the program came together.

One final note: I sometimes (if I think it'll be helpful) give verbal program notes during concerts, and for this program thought it would work well to better connect the audience with what we were singing. So I asked members of the choir to volunteer to give the intros (making even better connections with the audience, since they get to experience the singers' personalities). My singers did a terrific job (well, I had a talented and creative bunch!) and the response was great. One of my singers, Gillian Brinston-Kurschat, is originally from Newfoundland, where Feller from Fortune  originates. She not only helped the choir and me with proper "Newfie" pronunciation ("Feller from Fahrchun"), but she and her husband Michael came up with a brilliant idea: in the verbal introduction she spoke "Newfie" and our British, proper, soft-spoken accompanist Jeremy Spurgeon, "translated." A brilliant and fun idea—more creativity!

Programming V — Creating an atmosphere

Many conductors "produce" their concerts, whether using lighting, movement of choirs, or other ways of making the program more interesting.

For one of our Good Friday concerts with Pro Coro Canada the first half of the program was the Victoria Requiem.

This is gorgeous music, but never intended for the concert hall, so I was concerned with how to help the audience approach the music in such a way to appreciate its beauty. Our concert was in the Winspear Centre, a beautiful concert hall that seats 1600 or so people, but it's not a Cathedral or intimate chapel. I didn't want the audience to lose focus or simply be bored.

Several years before when we did the Rachmaninoff All-Night Vigil, the programs were inadvertently sent to the wrong hall by a new printer. I simply gave verbal program notes before the concert and then we gave the performance without the audience having anything in their hands or texts to follow. The effect was quite magical, since the audience had nothing to pay attention to but the music. It made for an interesting lesson.

So, when I considered the Victoria for this program, I decided to do a couple things to create atmosphere. First, we did not have texts printed in the program. I had a member of the choir who reads beautifully give short introductions with the title (Communion, Offertory, Gradual, etc.), sometimes a context ("in the liturgy this is sung as Holy water is sprinkled on the coffin"), and a part (not all) of the translation before each section. In addition, we set up the choir with stand lights, so we could take all the light out of the hall other than stand lights reflecting on their faces, a spot on me so they could see me (and so I could see my music!), and a spot at the front of the stage for the first section of the Victoria, which we did with a solo quartet. Of course, in my introduction I introduced the idea of this meditative, prayerful music and encouraged the audience to imagine themselves in a great Cathedral or beautiful chapel.

The crew at the Winspear was always a joy to work with and this concert was no exception. The lighting and sound techs had my plan and the narrations, so the mic could come on at the right time, lights up and down when desired. During my introduction, the lights gradually went out in the house and on stage (except for the spot on me), the stand lights came up to half, and the quartet (we used just one-per-part) for the opening Taedet came on stage quietly (no spot on them yet). As I finished, the spot on the quartet came up for that movement. Then, in the middle of the movement, the choir came on stage quietly, in the near darkness (I should note that we didn't wear usual concert garb, but all black--the idea was again to help the audience focus on the music in a different way, not simply as concert music—so I didn't want any distractions from it). After this the quartet moved into their places with the choir, the stand lights came up full, and the introduction to the Introit began. We were also careful to turn pages at the end of each movement only after it was over, since turning early at different times was distracting (with stand lights, the page, as it was turned, reflected light upward). So each movement had time to come to rest before we turned to the next section.

This all worked magically and the audience response was fantastic—they absolutely loved the Victoria. Of course, the choir's performance was a major part of it, too, and they did magnificently! To do this music well, tuning needs to be pure and the choir must have a great sense of the text, word stress, and where each phrase is going.

I know I'm not unique in trying to find new ways to present music to our audiences. So if you have some wonderful ideas or experiences, please share them in the comments. Certainly all of us need to explore ways to do the music we love in such a way that the contemporary audience has the best chance of falling in love with it as well.

By the way, I did the Victoria with my Collegium Singers at UNT and at the Berkeley Early Music Festival. While I didn't use lighting as in Edmonton (not possible in the church we were in), the way the music is presented (narrator introducing the different movements) was done that way, and that performance can be found on YouTube (recorded by and credit to Early Music America).

Programming VI — Music that comes from another context than just a concert

Bernstein's Choruses from 'The Lark'

I did two performances with the Vocal Arts Ensemble of Cincinnati and opened the program with Leonard Bernstein's Choruses from 'The Lark'. I've programmed this several times: with Choral Arts NW (a one-per-part version), with my PLU Choir of the West (two times, both on tour), and Pro Coro Canada.

These are terrific pieces, but when they were published were divided into two sets: French choruses and Latin choruses. The problem is, this has nothing to do with the way the music was originally conceived and ordered.

I'm not the only one to realize this, of course. I sang them when an undergraduate in the correct order with Rod Eichenberger, so I can't take credit for figuring this out myself (although I hope I would have looked at the play to see context!). But there is at least one recording (by The Sixteen) which simply puts them in the published order, which makes no sense at all.

The music was originally written as incidental music for a play originally by Jean Anouilh, adapted by Lillian Hellman in 1955. The play was about Joan of Arc and Bernstein was asked to write incidental music for it (Hellman was also the original librettist for the first version of Candide, done about the same time). Bernstein chose to use the pioneering early music ensemble, New York Pro Musica, for this, so the music was written for seven singers (one-to-a-part), plus hand-drum and bells. The music was, of course, recorded for the play (not done live). The seven singers were three women, three men, and counter-tenor (the pioneering American countertenor, Russell Oberlin. The music is recognizably Bernstein, but he borrows some of conventions of music of the period to create a wonderful hybrid of old and new.

As I said, I've done the work several times, once with a one-on-a-part ensemble, but more usually with chorus. One of the times I did it at PLU, the drama department was inspired to do the play in the following year and used our concert recording during the play—the music adds much to the "flavor" of the play. My last year at PLU we did it for our Scandinavian tour (2001) and I used a short narration which I wrote, that two singers read at performances, putting each of the movements into context within the action of the play.

Just before doing it with VAE I looked online to see if I could find the original recording anywhere. I couldn't, but found a recording by Robert DeCormier and his new group, Counterpoint, done one-to-a-part and with a narration (using Joan's words from the play) done by his wife. His narration is very effective, sometimes done over the ensemble singing. I bought it through iTunes just to hear the narration—the performance isn't terrific, but the narration is great.

I've also seen that the original production was filmed for a Hallmark Hall of Fame Production with the original cast. The New York production of "The Lark" by Jean Anouilh opened at the Longacre Theater in New York on November 17, 1955 and ran for 229 performances. Boris Karloff was nominated for the 1956 Tony Award for Actor in a Drama for "The Lark" for the role of Cauchon and recreated his stage role in this movie version. Bruce Gordon, Michael Higgins, Ralph Roberts, and Julie Harris (as Joan) also recreated their stage roles in this movie version (also Denholm Elliott, Basil Rathbone, Eli Wallach, and Jack Warden). What a cast! Unfortunately, I haven't yet found it anywhere for purchase or rental. I'd love to see it.

This is a reminder to always look for context when you perform a work—who was it written for? for what kind of space (church, theater, concert hall)? what size and kind of ensemble? what purpose (liturgical, court, home)? These are always questions that can inform your performance . . . and give much greater engagement by the audience.