Well, we’ve done all 7 rehearsals and tonight is the performance of “Requiem” by John Rutter. (See the Facebook Event.)

It’s been a really fun project. I’m the conductor — project manager by day. Craig is the pianist — attorney by day. The cellist teaches cello to students, but it’s not her profession. The flautist hasn’t played in years but is enjoying the challenge (and doing great!). The oboist is a high school student (doing great, too!). The singers are from all walks of life, only a handful are quasi-professional singers.

And the choir sounds really nice. It’s a good example of how you can make really good music in a lay choir setting. It’s not reasonable to expect to do so well after only 7 rehearsals with a choir that was formed just for this performance and who’ve not sung together as a group before and who are not professional singers. At our last rehearsal, though, the sounds this group were making were inspired and inspiring. Beautiful things happening. It’s going to be lovely tonight.

Rehearsal Time

The challenge is always rehearsal time, I find. There is no good time for everyone. I lost some good singers because of the inconvenient time. Had I moved it, I would have lost other singers. There’s no universal win on rehearsal scheduling. Then you can’t get them all there all the time. So in the later rehearsals, some are still learning parts from the earlier pieces. It slows the group learning. Which leads me to my next tangent.

Choirs Are A Group Creative Process

Choirs are a group creative process. It’s not enough for each individual to know the piece, know their parts. Choirs are about taking that individual knowledge and melding it into a new creation as a group. The sound changes with each rehearsal, each new combination of singers. The group has to figure out the balance between parts in various passages. The group has to become aware of the other parts and how they fit together, and who has the leading line in each passage. The group has to create common emotional expressions throughout the piece.

Some accomplished singers figure they can simply show up at the last few rehearsals after everyone else has “caught up”and learned their parts. I’m guilty of doing the same. But as a conductor, I’ve learned the folly of that thinking. The group learns faster when it is complete. The creative process is stunted when it’s delayed, or when it’s interrupted later. In fact, when new singers join late in the game, you often end up having to redo a lot of the creative work that was done during part learning earlier on.

Singers also rob themselves when they focus solely on performance. When they do that, they tend to show up less for rehearsal, thinking “it’s all good” as long as we’re ready for performance. But the rehearsal process can be highly rewarding. In my experiences as a singer, some of the most moving moments I experienced were during rehearsals when we were really honing a piece and polishing it, working and focusing on the creative process. Performance has a whole different dynamic and energy. When you don’t participate in rehearsals, you rob yourself of those experiences and you cheat your fellow singers.

The point is perhaps most clearly established by looking at the attendance requirements for established and famous choirs. Groups like The Mormon Tabernacle Choir, The King Singers, and The Cambridge Singers all require attendance. These groups are made up of singers who could easily show up knowing their parts and ready to perform. But that’s not the point. The point is the group creation. These groups get that and require rehearsal attendance. Don’t show up and you’re out. If it’s true for them, it should be doubly true for lay choirs.

So show up. Be there. Enjoy the group creative process.

Audiences Are Part of the Creative Process

That’s also true for the audience in live performances. As a population, we are so accustomed to hearing polished recorded performances. Live performances are often not that way. There are variances, faults, and really wonderful spontaneous moments. Audiences who sit and listen to a live performance as though they are listening to a CD miss a lot! In performance, the audience becomes an important dynamic in that group creative process.

Successful community theater troupes have figured this out and find ways to “wake up” the audience at the start of the show. A local comical parody theater, Desert Star, is master at this. They design theater performance to be interactive, in the old vaudeville and cabaret style. Each performance begins with a series of pre-show “exercises” to get the audience awake and involved. They sing “Take Me Out To The Ballgame.” They coach the audience on the cheers and boos to make for the heroes and villains when the musical cue is given throughout the play. The result is a very active audience that participates in the play.

All live performances should have similar energy and involvement, even when they are not interactive performances. The audience shouldn’t approach the live performance as though they are listening to a CD. Like singers who don’t rehearse regularly, they rob themselves of a rich experience. Instead, the audience should attend “awake,” expectant, attentive, and responsive as appropriate. In a choir setting like tonight, the audience should be attentive and introspective, aware of the spontaneous things that will happen. In sacred music settings, the audience should be willing to be moved, to feel the Spirit moving through the music, and be open to personal inspiration and revelation as a result.

So come. Enjoy.