nd five auditors attended
Chorus Americas Choral-Orchestral
Conducting Masterclass, hosted by
The Curtis Institute of Music in
Philadelphia. They were a varied
group. Some had considerable experi-
ence as assistant conductors of large
orchestras; others conducted church
choirs or childrens choruses, or
were in what one called the wilder-
ness period between graduate
school and full employment. One
was a cellist exploring a career in
conducting after suffering a hand
injury, one had spent 20 years in arts
management before turning to conducting.
One traveled from Europe to attend the
class. In all, they werent so much a group
of people collectively making a stop along a
common path as people meeting at a point
where their many paths converged.
Conducting fellows and associates at
the Masterclass had private conducting
lessons and group classes. As the program
progressed, fellows conducted first the 24-
voice Philadelphia Singers, then the Mannes
College of Music Orchestra. On the last
day they conducted the combined chorus
and orchestra, under the tutelage of Otto-
Werner Mueller, head of the conducting
department of The Curtis Institute of
Music, and Christoph Eschenbach, music
director of The Philadelphia Orchestra.
Conducting fellow Octavio Más-Arocas,
who is assistant conductor of the National
Symphony of Spain, saw the Masterclass
as a really great opportunity to work with
a fine orchestra and chorus and work with
some of the very best teachers. And con-
ducting this repertoire is an opportunity
you dont usually get as a young conductor.
Its one of my greatest dreams.
It also was, as conducting associate Gary
Keating said, more intense than anything
Ive ever done.
Conducting programs offer podium time,
repertoire, relationships, real-world skills, and renewal
a recipe for continued professional growth
S T O R Y A N D P H O T O S
B Y K A R E N D E A N S
LEARNING
LIFE:
for
A C O N D U C T I N G M A S T E R C L A S S
From top: Conduct
ing fellows Brad S
mith,
Kirill Dyachkov, and me
mbers of The
Philadelphia Singers.
The Voice of Chorus America, Fall 2006
If you clean up your
conducting, everything is
better. It doesnt matter if
youre working with a
childrens choir or any other
choir. The basic conducting
skills are the same.
Joy Ondra Hirokawa,
conducting associate works. Conducting associate
Joy Ondra Hirokawa said,
Its hard to get that kind of
podium time. Its a chicken-
and-egg thing. You have to
try your wings in order to get the confi-
dence and experience. But whos going to
hire an inexperienced conductor who has
the risk of not doing well?
The Masterclass also presented an oppor-
tunity for conductors to renew themselves.
As conducting fellow Brad Smith said, After
you leave college, its hard to find the time
and opportunities to keep growing profes-
sionally and artistically. Dealing with the
day-to-day things like moving chairs grinds
you down. You get comfortable with your
own players. Even for performances I dont
get nervous. But here thats not the case.
Youre on display and you have to perform
under pressure.
It was also a place to gain the perspec-
tives of many other conductors. The par-
ticipants shared what Hirokawa called a
very supportive environment, and had
the opportunity to be instructed not by just
one or two accomplished conductors, but
several. Its useful to learn from another
conductors experience, said associate Gary
Keating. We all have points we stress.
Working with a variety of conductors
broadens our perspective and gives us other
ways to look at and interpret music.
The participants generally saw workshop
experiences as a good complement to their
academic experiences, rather than a place
to make up for failures on the part of their
universities. Several felt that, although their
college training had given them a solid
background, there simply wasnt enough
time for them to get all of the needed
orchestral and choral podium experiences
during their student years.
The one area several participants men-
tioned as lacking in their academic experi-
ence was the management side of being a
conductor. Czarkowski said, A problem with
college programs is that they dont tell you
enough about the world as it is things like
dealing with management, how to present a
program, how to talk with a donor. Or with
how to put on a pops concert or a concert
for fourth- to sixth-graders.
No Drive-By Repertoire
Co-organizers Duain Wolfe and David
Hayes wanted the four days to be more than
a series of disconnected lessons or an
onslaught of repertoire. They focused study
on excerpts from four choral-orchestral
works by Ludwig van Beethoven Missa
Solemnis, Mass in C, Elegische Gesang, and
Christus am Ölberge. As Hayes said, Ive
been to workshops that offer a drive-by
repertoire of dozens of pieces in just a few
days. The narrow focus on Beethoven gave
participants the opportunity to explore the
pieces in depth while developing conducting
skills that would extend to other works.
Conducting fellow Franck Chastrusse
traveled to the Masterclass from France in
part because of its precise purpose the
relationship between orchestra and chorus.
And the progression from individual lessons
and group classes to conducting the chorus
and orchestra turned the four days into
what Hayes called an educational process.
But at the same time, in order to meet
the needs of the participants, organizers
maintained the flexibility to create the
Masterclass as we go, said Wolfe. Instructors
addressed concerns as they arose and helped
the participants, with their varied skills and
backgrounds, focus on areas of interest.
Why Conductors Need
Ongoing Professional
Development
Workshop-type experiences might be more
important for conductors than for any other
musicians. Regardless of the quality of their
academic training, Masterclass participants
felt they needed to continue learning to
improve orchestral skills if their focus was
choruses, and choral skills if their focus was
orchestras, and particularly to gain podium
time conducting major choral-orchestral
www.chorusamerica.org
Duain Wolfe, Christoph
Eschenbach, and David Hayes,
Conducting Masterclass coaches.
Christoph Eschenbach coaches
Cara Suzanne Tasher. The motto of this Masterclass could be
How you look is how theyll sound, said
Czarkowski. What breath? What gesture?
Thats how you create the music.
Perhaps what was most important about
the Masterclass was the passing of a great
conducting legacy from one generation to
another. One participant said he was thrilled
when private coach Amy Kaiser shared with
participants a copy of the score to the Gloria
from the Missa Solemnis that had Robert
Shaws handwritten notes on it. But the point
of the Masterclass was not just to hand down
a legacy, but to give conductors skills that
will allow them to create their own legacy. As
Chastrusse said, We have to be ourselves.
When you get a drivers license, you still have
to learn your own way to drive. On the podi-
um you have to find your own way. Karen Deans lives in Alexandria, Virginia.
Conducting fellow Robert Boardman also
noted a lack in academic training of prepara-
tion for the economic realities of maintaining
a music group. At the university, if nobody
comes to a concert, we still have a concert,
said Boardman.
Lessons Learned
On one level, what participants took from
the Masterclass varied as much as their back-
grounds. A sampling of some of the specific
tips they picked up:
You cant treat the chorus like an orchestra.
You cant have them go over and over a
difficult passage. I didnt know about how
useful it is to have them speak the text or
just sing it softly.
Separate movement of the two hands so
you can use them to convey two pieces of
information to two different instruments,
or to the chorus and orchestra, for instance.
You have to breathe. Breathing for a chorus
is essential.
We have to have the courage to be small
[in conducting movements]. A small gesture
can be more powerful than a big gesture,
even if youre conducting a group of 200.
Its easy to understand, but difficult to do.
The relationship with a chorus is different
than with an orchestra. Its closer, friendlier.
At the moment of the beat, you have no
power. You influence what the musicians
will do in the preparation, the trajectory
of the beat.
Other important lessons were universal. The
Masterclass stressed the need for careful score
study. Conducting fellow Cara Tasher noted
how teachers reinforced the need to have the
score completely under your belt. That deter-
mines how fast your mind can put the music
into the gesture. Fellow Arlette Cardenes
added, As a player, you dont think about
whats going on around you. But as a conductor
you have to have a complete understanding of
what you want and how to interpret that.
Teachers underscored the need for partici-
pants simply to clean up their conducting.
Hirokawa, whose duties include conducting a
childrens choir, said, If you clean up your
conducting, make it better, everything is bet-
ter. It doesnt matter if youre working with a
childrens choir or any other choir. The basic
conducting skills are the same.
The Voice of Chorus America, Fall 2006
For more information
on Chorus Americas upcoming
Conducting Masterclasses in 2007,
see pages 15 and 31 in this issue, or
visit www.chorusamerica.org.
Learning for Life: A Conducting Masterclass
continued