Performance

Commemorating the 19th Amendment: Singing about Suffrage and Exploring Intersectionality

“Awake! Awake! Ye sisters all,” is the opening line to the “Suffrage Marching Song,” by Fanny Connable and Florence Livingston Lent, composed in 1914 to benefit the Equal Suffrage Cause. Like many political movements, the suffrage movement was inherently linked with music, making the 2020 centennial of the 19th Amendment’s ratification a natural programmatic theme. Choruses across the U.S. are honoring this anniversary with new events and commissions featuring women’s voices, including premieres happening this weekend.

The Virtual Premiere of “As Long As We Are Here”

SPONSORED CONTENT FROM A CHORUS AMERICA PARTNER

There can be serendipity in the most challenging change of plans. The Master Chorale of South Florida was scheduled for a prime performance at the 2020 Chorus America Conference in Miami -- an ideal setting to premiere a commission from composer Jake Runestad. With a global coronavirus pandemic putting a halt to choral events and most of everyday life as we know it, this performance obviously did not come to fruition.

Instead, the Master Chorale and artistic director Brett Karlin discovered they possesed a brand new work that spoke with uncanny eloquence to our new reality -- and the opportunity to premiere it with the involvement of a wider community of audience members, renowned conductors, and singers than they ever imagined. Karlin and Runestad shared their stories with Chorus America on the journey of this new commission, As Long As We Are Here, which enters a new chapter this fall.

A Few Early Ventures Into In-Person Singing

Slowly and cautiously - and with great hope - corners of the choral community are beginning to explore possibilities of in-person singing, adapting to take precautions as COVID-19 concerns remain. The summer appears to have allowed the field some room to plan and experiment, with a few projects airing this weekend. True to choral form, these ventures display an abundance of creativity and represent a broad range of ideas!

Music’s prominence in the sacred sphere has shaped some of the most enduring genres of choral music in Western culture, such as the requiem mass. For more than a century, composers have found resonance in the requiem outside its traditional religious framework — a resonance that has acquired new intensity in recent years. Here is a look at four American composers of today who have adapted the idea of the sacred requiem to secular expressions that commemorate loss and encourage healing. Their music responds to a wide spectrum of inspirations—and perhaps has even more relevance in a world coping with suffering and loss in a new way.

The World Symposium on Choral Music is an eight-day festival held every three years, organized by the International Federation for Choral Music. The next symposium is scheduled for July 2020, to be hosted in Auckland, New Zealand. In anticipation of WSCM2020, symposium artistic director John Rosser, who also founded and directs the Auckland-based chamber choir Viva Voce, spoke with Chorus America about next year’s event and its theme, tangata whenua.

Do choral directors and their ensembles have the right to perform music from cultures other than their own? If so, then what are the rules or standards by which choral music from other cultures can be explored? Based on scholarly research, this webinar will examine the definition of cultural appropriation, its intersection with choral music, and best practices for rehearsal and performance.

How Choruses Are Responding to the Concert Venue Crunch

Churches are the traditional performance venue of choice for many choral music organizations. But as rental costs rise and competition for event space becomes tighter, choruses are feeling the squeeze. Here are a few innovative, affordable solutions they’ve found.

Angel City Chorale Makes a Semifinal Run on "America’s Got Talent"

UPDATE: The Angel City Chorale was eliminated in the semifinal round of America's Got Talent. It sang Bruce Springsteen's 9/11 anthem "The Rising" in their final performance, which aired on Sept. 11.

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