Choral Day 2024 is on Sunday, December 8, 2024: Choral conducting or composition?

Sunday, December 8, 2024 is Choral Day 2024. wcd_china.jpg Promote World Choral Day 2013

Get along with your buddies and sing! Choral Day encourages choirs and choral singing in most forms, and aims to advertise oneness, global causes and community through choral singing.

Well, you've given a thorough resume of just about everything EXCEPT your experiences in choral conducting and composition, and, to be brutally honest, you're not going to get into a master's program in either field without some pretty significant experience. These are advanced degrees for people who are specialists in those fields -- they are not degrees for people who, for whatever reason, want to go to grad school and are looking for a new area to explore. While your range of musical activities is exciting, no one's going to let you into a master's program in conducting because you played clarinet and oboe in middle school. I'm sorry to say, if it doesn't have a direct influence on your skill as a choir director (which, keep in mind, is in no small part about your ability to effectively REHEARSE an ensemble), no one cares. Likewise, an "intensive" (I'm not sure what that is) on throatsinging is very cool, but it doesn't mean you can write a decent piece of music.

If you apply to a choral conducting program, you're almost certainly going to have to submit a videotape of you conducting (in rehearsal and in performance) a choir, as well as a list of repertoire you have conducted. For composition, you will be required to submit a portfolio of scores you have written and recordings of performances of those pieces. If this material is impressive enough, you might be invited to the campus for an audition/interview. And then if you're impressive enough at the interview, you might be offered admission to the school.

I'm sorry to be the giant storm cloud on your parade, but a master's program is not for a self-proclaimed "dilettante" -- it is a place to receive specialized training in your area of expertise. You have a degree in music history -- have you considered studying musicology??

Choral recordings on CD?

I imagine it's quite difficult to record Choral music without having some kind of problems. It's not like you can just pile the choir into a sound booth and get them to sing. they have to be in some sort of cathedral in order to get the acoustics right. I find similar problems when listening to Piano concertos. I was listening to Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 14 in C♯ minor one time and heard a few people cough. It was very annoying because it was actually a really good performance.

choral poems?

(Clearing throat sound....)

Oh, blue choral in the sea

why are so blue to me?

Is it the fish who swim all day

or the sharks who won't out to play?

Choral, choral, blue as sea,

won't you be happy just for me?