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The paper turns on the period when Dobroslav Orel worked as a teacher in church institutions and Austrian secondary schools (1894-1918). It focuses on the least studied part of his activity, choirmastering. Through the prism of contemporary pedagogical journals and school documentation, he attempts to reconstruct the choirmaster's methods used by him and, in particular, traces the dynamics of the development of his relationship with Battke's intonation method, from his initial enthusiasm to his awareness of the pitfalls of uncritical acceptance of this method to his warning against the danger of elevating the means of achieving correct intonation to the goal of singing education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigated the importance of using virtual reality (VR) technology to enhance choral conducting education thus highlighting its potential for rethinking traditional pedagogical approaches in this specialized field. It described an empirical study of the impact of VR technology on improving choral conducting skills with a special comparison of traditional teaching methods with VR-based training using Maestro VR. This study involved 220 student conductors divided equally into two groups: traditional training in choral conducting and training based on Maestro VR. The authors conducted pre- and post-tests in both groups to measure their conducting skills. They assessed hand coordination, temporal accuracy, and the ability to interpret and convey musical dynamics. After training, post-test results showed a dramatic intergroup difference in the improvement of conducting skills. Statistical analysis using paired sample t-tests showed a mean improvement of −29.545 (indicating an increase) in the experimental group with a standard deviation of 6.042. The mean improvement in the control group was −18.718 with a standard deviation of 5.877. These results indicated that VR-based training could significantly improve choral conducting skills compared to traditional teaching methods. The authors concluded that VR technology (Maestro VR) offered an effective and innovative approach to teaching choral conducting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compared to other types of musical art, the unity of three components - composer creativity, performance and education - in choral practice is the most deterministic. A vivid example of this is the choral art of China, each direction of which has its own characteristic features, peculiar ways of development, vectors of application determined by certain historical and socio-cultural factors, but in general they appear as an inseparable organic alloy. The purpose of the article is to highlight the trinity of composer creativity, performance and education as determinants of the development of choral art in China. The research methodology is based on a comprehensive approach based on historical-cultural, comparative, music-theoretical analysis of the material and theoretical modelling of the structural-logical and substantive characteristics of choral activity. The scientific novelty of the article lies in the fact that the trinity of composer creativity, performance and choral art education in China is considered for the first time as an immanent quality determined by historical development. Conclusions. Since the beginning of the 20th century, Chinese choral culture has been actively assimilating compositional, performing, and educational traditions of a foreign, mostly European, model. In the first half of the century, this was especially evident in the work of composers. Choirs by Chinese composers created in this period are based on the melody of patriotic songs in an organic synthesis with European writing techniques (including polyphonic). In the second half of the 20th century, the emphasis shifted towards performance, which was determined by the socio-political involvement of art, when choral work was a tool of political propaganda. At the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century, choral art in China becomes independent, specialised educational institutions are opened in the country, where the training of conducting and choral personnel is carried out. At each stage, each branch of choral art in China had its own characteristics, development trajectory, vectors of application. In general, separate components - composer creativity, performing and educational activities become an inseparable whole during the entire development. This determinism of Chinese choral culture ensured its successful development in the 20th and early 21st centuries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the work is to determine the foundations of meaning-making by the conducting gesture of the regent and choirmaster according to the specifics of choir management in the church-applied and concert-art spheres of identifying the specified specialisation, based on knowledge about the possibilities in this regard of the luminaries of the Odesa choral school in the persons of K. Pihrov, D. Zahretskyi, L. Butenko and other well-known representatives. The methodological basis is the intonation approach of the school of B. Asafyev in Ukraine, comparative-hermeneutic and cultural prolongations of intonation in the works of D. Androsova, T. Verkina, O. Kozarenko, I. Kotliarevsky, I. Liashenko, Liu Binjan, O. Markova, O. Muravska, O. Sokolova, H. Shpak, V. Shulhina, with the use of scientific and research methods: art history-analytical, descriptive-historical, cultural-regionalist, religious studies, intellectualbiographical definition. The scientific novelty of the work is determined by the fact that, for the first time in Ukraine and abroad, the executive discoveries of the named great representatives of the Odesa choral school became the subject of analysis in the specifics of the understanding of individual techniques, stylistic findings, the separation of the regent component of the choir master's heritage according to the function of the semantic core of the executive expressiveness of choir management. Conclusions. For the first time in Ukrainian musicology, a distinguishing feature has been clearly drawn between the regent and choirmaster general principles of choral conducting, taking into account the applied nature of the former, but that which marks the genesis and attribution of choral vocals as a special meaning of expressing the ideal guidelines of the human worldview, while the artistic significance nourishes the choirmaster's work both in the temple and in concert-theatrical spheres. The "instrumental" levers of the choir master's activity as the adjustment of the "instrument" of the choral multi-level rhythmic sound are also highlighted - and the vocal-"speech" layer in particular. The first of them relies on the conductor's minimal gesticulations, while the second requires a certain plastic expressiveness of hand movements, but bypassing the self-importance of that "hand ballet", which under certain conditions interferes with the intonation accuracy of sound expression. For the first time, the question was raised about the intonation performance of the conductor's sound presentation at the level of training and performance of the choir master. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The flipped classroom model (FCM) has gained popularity throughout the past decade as an alternative instructional methodology. In the FCM, instructional content is delivered asynchronously through the completion of homework. In class, students apply and expand upon the homework through various learning activities. As an instructional methodology the FCM offers collegiate professors an alternative learning environment that provides for active and experiential learning opportunities during class with instructional content assigned as homework. This article introduces collegiate choral educators to the FCM, discusses its advantages, and suggests methods for its implementation in the tertiary choral methods and conducting classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the historical context and significance of the choral composition "Lament for the Stolen" premiered in 1938. Topics include the background of composer Sophie Drinker and her criteria for repertoire selection, the tragic kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh's infant son as a catalyst for the composition, and the premiere and reception of the work.

The article offers information on the experiences of Meg Stohlmann, director of choral and vocal studies at Gonzaga University, who participated in the International Conductors Exchange Program (ICEP) in Germany. Topics include the life-changing nature of the exchange program, the forging of meaningful connections with colleagues from the United States and Germany, and the lasting friendships and professional relationships established through the program.

The article offers information on Universal Design for Learning (UDL) in choral education, focusing on creating flexible approaches that increase access and learning for all students. Topics include the origin and development of UDL, its principles rooted in Universal Design, and how UDL aligns with the structure of the brain to support engagement and learning.

The article highlights the unique experience of directing choirs at the Perkins School for the Blind, emphasizing the practical techniques developed over decades of working in this distinct environment. Topics covered include the school's supportive music program catering to a diverse student body, the audition process focusing onpitch accuracy, and innovative rehearsal techniques that incorporate music theory concepts through rote teaching and vocal warmups.

This article investigates the procedures used by amateur choir conductors for learning scores. For this purpose, a mixed-methodology approach has been designed, allowing for a dual focus. On one hand, the procedures recommended in a bibliographic selection of three choir conducting treatises are analyzed. On the other hand, a semi-structured interview was conducted with five Valencian female conductors, all of whom have more than six years of experience. The results highlight the significant differences between theoretical recommendations and the participants' practice. It is concluded that the existing theory does not meet the needs of amateur choir conductors. Therefore, this article compiles procedures that satisfy the needs of this sector in the specific Spanish socio-cultural context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sharing experiences of the academic, artistic and professional life on the Conducting field, leads to a reflection about the formation of conductors. What takes to be a Maestro? How to balance theory and praxis? Which teaching techniques are essential in a conductor formation? This interview is the first of a dialogue circuit with national (Brasil) and international Maestros. The first guest is the Professor and Maestro Eduardo Lakschevitz. On his path between Brazil and The United States, Lakschevitz works hardly as the coordinator and pedagogue of FUNARTE Choral Conducting Pannels, and his actions reflect on the production and dissemination of the choral repertoire and on training courses to conductors and musical educators. Giving voice to Maestros such Lakschevitz allows us to visualize new practical, conceptual and pedagogical perspectives, and leads our attention to the real necessities on the Conducting field: thinking and acting beyond the gestural techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article "Names and News" in the Church Music Forum from November 2024 informs about the appointment of Christian Otto as the new cantor at Magdeburg Cathedral, succeeding KMD Barry Jordan. Furthermore, it reports on the International Heinrich Schütz Prize, the election of KMD Christian Finke as chairman of the DMR Federal Specialist Committee for Music in Religions and Churches, as well as the winner of the XVI International Gottfried Silbermann Organ Competition, Kilian Homburg. Other topics include the appointment of KMD Prof. Christoph Georgii as professor for Jazz/Rock/Pop Church Music at the University for Church Music in Heidelberg and a seminar on the psychological aspects of choral conducting. [Extracted from the article]

The article focuses on philanthropic and fundraising suggestions for American Choral Directors Association student chapters, emphasizing the importance of blending musical experiences with community impact. Topics discussed include setting fundraising goals, financial considerations, and diverse strategies such as concerts, choir festivals, educator workshops, singing telegrams, GoFundMe campaigns, scholarships, grants, university support, and volunteer opportunities.

The article focuses on the importance of considering the singer's experience in choral rehearsals, emphasizing the impact on conductor effectiveness and ensemble quality. Topics discussed include efficient rehearsal techniques for vocal health, repertoire selection based on vocal demands, and the significance of gestures, vocal modeling, and auditions in fostering a holistic approach to choral singing.

The article focuses on strategies for enhancing the choral rehearsal experience, emphasizing the importance of efficiency, effectiveness, and enjoyment. Topics discussed include repertoire selection criteria, balancing difficulty levels, theming concerts, creating rehearsal plans, and utilizing technology and internal leadership.

This paper first presents the O2O teaching strategy for choral conducting and analyzes specific methods and processes for teaching choral conducting using the O2O model. Then, the TFAHP choral conducting teaching evaluation model was constructed, and the judgment matrix was used to calculate the comprehensive degree of fuzzy value of the evaluation criteria and to compare the importance value between the indicators. Lastly, the impact of teaching was evaluated using indicators such as grades, comprehensive performance, and learning emotions. The mean value of the achievement of all knowledge modules is much higher than the mean value before teaching, and the average value of the achievement of each knowledge module is between 0.6-0.85, and the P value of each knowledge module is lower than 0.01, which is an extremely significant difference, indicating that the teaching effect is significant. The innovative development of music education is promoted, and this study greatly impacts choral conducting education.

An interview with Donald Nally, conductor of the chamber choir The Crossing based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is presented. Nally describes his process as a choral conductor when working with new music. He discusses the importance of building enough lead time when working with composers in order to achieve goals as the artistic director and conductor and to help them realize their artistic vision. He offers advice to people who might be interested in developing a choral organization.

The article provides guidance for choral conductors on how to approach the first rehearsal of a new work. It emphasizes the importance of comprehensive score study, using piano or recordings to learn the music, consulting scholarly editions, and understanding elements such as phrasing, dynamics, and translations. The article aims to help conductors plan and conduct a productive initial rehearsal by being well-prepared and mindful of techniques.

Copyright of Revista MAD is the property of Revista MAD and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article describes the history of foundation of musical education at Khabarovsk State Institute of Arts and Culture. The activity of two departments – of choral conducting and the folk choral art and of orchestral conducting and the folk instruments is viewed. The richmusical and pedagogical experience in training of highly skilled specialists in the sphere ofarts and culture is presented.

The article emphasizes the importance of staying grounded and mindful of the privilege and responsibility that comes with serving choral communities during the busy holiday season. Topics include the conductor-choir relationship as a dance partnership, the need to foster creative personal expression within the ensemble, and the joy of creating meaningful music together while maintaining community bonds.

The article previews the choral performances to be held at the American Choral Directors Association's (ACDA) National Conference during February 22-25, 2023 in Cincinnati, Ohio including Insight Choirs, GenOUT's Choral Community, and Tacoma Refugee Choir.

The purpose of this study was to explore participants' value ratings of specific methods course topics in the choral teaching preparedness of non-choral music education majors . Forty-four university/college level choral methods instructors, identified through the College Music Society membership list, participated in the survey . Participants rated 16 choral methods topics using a seven-point Likert-type scale (1 = Not Very Important; 7 = Very Important) in their importance to non-choral music education majors' choral teaching preparedness . Participants identified choral rehearsal techniques, vocal techniques, and choral repertoire as the three most important topics . Participants also identified choral student recruitment and retention, choral conducting techniques, choral student recruitment and retention, and choral class administrative tasks as the three least important topics . The findings of this study may provide undergraduate choral methods instructors information on developing effective course experiences in the preparation of non-choral music education majors for future classroom choral instruction . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Professional Art Education is the property of H.S. Skovoroda Kharkiv National Pedagogical University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article presents an interview with Sharon A. Hansen is Emerita s and Director of Choral Activities at the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee. She discussed her and how has it influenced her approach. She discussed the impetus for founding the "On The Voice" article series in the Choral Journal. She described the challenges she encountered with "On The Voice".

Curious as to why conducting gesture are both acknowledged and ignored by choral singers, this article investigates the enigmatic nature of the act of conducting. Education and research are biased toward gestural aspects of the choral conductor role. At the same time, research shows that gestural skills rank strikingly low compared with other musical skills and interpersonal skills. This study endeavors to unpack this enigma, based on 40 interviews with choral singers and conductors in Norway and Sweden. Taking a phenomenological approach, analysis of the fieldwork reveals that singers are more aware of gesture when something out of the ordinary happens, is unclear, or is even particularly appealing. The enigmatic role of gesture is partly due to conceptual ambiguity—gestures are signals that conductors "do" as well as embody the integral conductor "being." Moreover, four "enigma busting" contextual dimensions were found: complexity of the music, the irreplaceability of gestures in the specific situation, singers' receptiveness to gestures, and the gestural proficiency of the conductor. The article points at some implications for education as well as future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article informs on the Lift Every Voice Concert Program Sponsored by the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and the American Choral Directors Association that was held on April 22, 2022. It mentions it is a mentoring program for talented young choral conductors from under-represented groups, and the week included private conducting lessons, conducting classes, and participation.

In current college music education, choral conducting is a required course for students. The course implementation aims to cultivate excellent and high-quality choral conductors. The requirements for choral conducting teaching in college music education under the new media environment have been further improved. First, this study gives the value of applying new media technology in choral conducting teaching in colleges and universities. Then, based on the key point that choral conductors' expression of music mainly relies on gestural language, an action recognition model in college choral conducting teaching is proposed. The model is designed with an adaptive deep graph convolution model, and a spatio-temporal convolution submodel with a small number of parameters is created using group convolution. After the trained teacher model is obtained, the spatio-temporal convolutional submodel with fewer parameters is trained using the knowledge distillation method combined with data augmentation techniques. The final action recognition fusion model is obtained using the linear fusion method. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed model can recognize the movements in college choral conducting teaching with higher performance than other existing models, which provides effective guidance for college choral conducting teaching in the new media environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to investigate choral directors' experiences as they navigate Whiteness through their own personal philosophies and practices related to repertoire selection and how those lived experiences may or may not impact their students. Twelve practicing choral directors from middle school through university settings were interviewed. Three important themes arose during analysis including the presence of dysconscious racism with episodes of white fragility, the presence and absence of ethical caring, and the development of a critical consciousness along a spectrum based on experiences. Implications for music educators are offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to investigate undergraduate choral conducting students' conducting practice approaches, time allocation, and beliefs. A secondary purpose was to examine conducting instructors' pedagogy and beliefs about their students' practice approaches. Undergraduate students enrolled in an introductory choral conducting class (N = 126) and their instructors (N = 12) responded to separate questionnaires. Students and instructors agreed that technical skills came more naturally than expressive skills, and students reported practicing technical skills more often than expressive skills. Although instructors and students agreed to the frequent use of "singing or humming musical lines" as a practice strategy, they did not align regarding the importance of using video recordings within practice sessions. Based on our results, we recommend that instructors explicitly share their practice expectations with students and introduce an incremental approach to developing expressive conducting skills earlier in the curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on narratives on six choral conductors' unfolding careers, the article investigates significant moments in professional trajectories – turning points – and how these shaped ongoing practices. The empirical material comprises interviews with conductors that represent different pre-conducting platforms – musicologist, music therapist, music educator, instrumentalist, singer, and church musician. Narratives present both an ontological view of experience – lived life is told life – and a methodology where the narrative analysis is the researchers' integral retelling of fragments and episodes provided by the informants. The article draws on sensemaking theory to understand how the conductors attend to certain experiences, whether painful or pleasurable, and make their ongoing practice meaningful by modifying course of action as well as identity. A common theme is how they unexpectedly were thrown into the conductor position in their youth. Formal conductor education seems to take a highly ambiguous position in their developments, for some productive – and for some, even disruptive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current conditions of the COVID-19 global pandemic have led to a search for new ways to conduct educational activities in the field of culture and art. The specifics of teaching conducting and choral disciplines were no exception. The need for the transformation of educational activities into an online format has led to the search for pedagogical and digital techniques that would meet the standards for the provision of educational services at the high school level. It is much easier to broadcast lecture and lecture-practical group disciplines in an online format, but individual practical classes require a search for the most effective means, where modern technological equipment combined with the pedagogical skills of the teacher will create a learning space appropriate for higher education. The theoretical analysis and empirical research proved that the online format of music education is quite effective, provided that the modernization and transformation of the educational system is carried out in the context of the transformation of educational material into a convenient format, an accessible and comfortable space of messengers and social networks for students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports that the term "transcendence" appears in discourse regarding contemporary choral music. Topics include considered that it is often used with its related adjectival forms of "transcendent" and "transcendental" as an examination of these usages reveals that the term is seldom intended in its technical philosophical or theological definition in this discourse.