March 4, 2008
To the Members of the Juilliard Choral Union:
When I advised you last June that the activities of the Juilliard Choral Union would be suspended during the 2007--2008 academic year, I also indicated that my colleagues and I would evaluate the future course of action regarding choral activities at the School.
We have now concluded our review of this issue, and it has been our decision to discontinue permanently the activities of the Choral Union. I am sure that this decision is a disappointment to some of you. However, logistical, financial, and artistic considerations pointed strongly in favor of this decision.
The discontinuance of the Juilliard Choral Union does not, of course, diminish the extraordinary artistic accomplishments that you have achieved in the past under the direction of Judith Clurman.
Please accept my gratitude for your dedicated artistry. I wish you the very best in your future musical endeavors.
Sincerely,
Joseph W. Polisi
President
Friday, March 21, 2008
Juilliard Eliminates Choral Music Activities
I find this information incredibly disturbing.
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13 comments:
Wow ... I'm speechless.
Choral music is about individuals who work together to create something of far greater value than what their own individual egos might create. Juilliard has always been about the "great artiste" soloist, hero worship, and all its other obnoxious trappings. Hard to believe they would even want to bother with a choral department all this time-- it's far more important to lock children in practice rooms for 16 hours a day until they can nail every note, even if they have no soul or life experience to bring to the pile of notes. Now ask me how I really feel about conservatories of this type.
In my opinion, most choral conductors know too little about the voice. If the Juilliard Choral Union had a number of serious voice/opera students in its ranks, a deft handling of the singers would be necessary for success.
Knowledge of choral literature and "techniques" is not enough when dealing with developing(-ed) voices.
Some short term, concentrated sessions might fill the need for continued enrichment of the beautiful voices coming up!
This is a poor decision on Julliard's behalf; I hope the school's successfull choral alumni raise hell to get this decisio reversed.
In response to the opinion that most choral conductors knowing too little about the voice: that may be true. It is important that conductors are excellent musicians and teachers. But it is not the vocal pedagogy textbook alone that makes a conductor: it is our ability to take all of our technical knowledge and learn that in the end, it isn't the most important aspect of working with choirs. What is most important is creating a community for your singers in which you can enhance their capacity for sensitivy through the music.
I direct a 32 voice chamber choir of almost all undergraduate students at a university, with about a 50/50 music major-non music major ratio. I also have performance and education majors in my ensemble. The day that I start running rehearsals like voice lessons is the day that I lose focus on the point of what choir is all about: reaching through to our human spirit , and not pumping up egos.
Asserting that a conductor at Julliard should tiptoe around "special" members is absurd, and goes to damage the one all-encompasing goal of teaching a choir that they are a team, and not individuals.
I hope that Julliard will reflect on their decision, and perhaps they could use a new point of view on what makes a choir.
I am shocked and dismayed at the decision to eliminate choral music at the Juilliard.
I am well aware of the long tradition of choral music, back to the 40's when William Schuman was President. He hired Elaine Brown to follow Robert Shaw and along came Margaret Hillis and the like.
Is there not more to the musical world than the instrumental scene? Choral Music is alive and well all over the world, but apparently not at the "presigious" school in New York City known as the Juilliard.
This is shameful!
It's sad enough that this has happened. What's even sadder, is that there will be arts administrators across the US that follow Juilliard's example.
Jeff, my point is made. Reliance on "community," "teamwork" and other Mus.Ed. cliches do not get the job done. To work with professionally ambitious singers one must rely on his/her own experienced knowledge of how to apply the voice to a musical phrase
and not a "how-to" book. A good singer recognizes the titoe technique and does not respect it.
JUILLIARD! Are we not thinking professional here?
For Heather- good administrators sense whether a program is genuine or not. Perhaps the J leadership was not delivering. Perhaps some other choral programs should be dropped. It might not be a bad thing in some instances where they do everything but sing.
How about just get to work!!!
I am both a choral and an opera conductor, so perhaps I can speak on both sides of this subject. While I agree with Ed that too few choral conductors really understand vocal pedagogy, I also believe that too few singers/voice teachers truly understand correct performance practice, especially pertaining to choral music. They, of course, want to protect the singers' vocal health, but the key is to teach singers to sing CORRECTLY in differently styles so that their voices are protected.
Example: the a cappella music of Estonian composer Arvo Pärt is replete with major and minor second dissonances resulting from stepwise melodic voices set against voices which constantly outline a triad. These dissonances can never be completely tuned if sung with vibrato. It takes incredible control to sing his music well, but many singers/voice teachers would balk at the idea of singing so much straight tone. Artistic choral singing and artistic solo singing are two completely different animals; it is true that sometimes the two do not (and should not) mix.
For the record, I think it is very sad that Juilliard does not consider choral singing to be an art in and of itself. I hope the string players at Juilliard do not decide that they are destined to become Paganinis. They may have to eliminate the orchestra, too!
"Tragic," "short-sighted," "non-visionary," "lacking a historic perspective," "solo-centric," "absence of administrative leadership." These are some of the things that come to mind in the wake of this most unfortunate decision on the part of The Juilliard School.
Choral music has been eliminated from so many public schools, and it would be wonderful to think that Juilliard might be the place to establish trends, not follow them.
I wish all instrumental students were required to sing in an ensemble at Juilliard. Orchestral and solo playing would improve dramatically.
Dr. William Bradley Roberts, horn player, pianist, organist, singer and choral director.
That's whack... So does this mean Juilliard is no longer going to perform works which require a chorus?
Good point. Guess Bach's St. Matthew Passion, Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, and Brahms' Requiem aren't considered worthy enough for performance there. You know, such works that are considered some of the monumental pieces of music history.
I learned some of my greatest expressive musical skills by singing in choirs under good conductors. This has made me a better singer and conductor myself. I'm sure their singers have good voices, but can they sing musically and with appropriate style? Does Julliard not realize that choral singing is the MOST common way in which people participate in The Arts in the US? There is a higher percentage of people singing in some sort of choir than for participation in any other art form, musical or non-musical. Amazing that they could ignore this.
I hope this is not a result of the dumbing down of the culture. It's possible economics may have to play a factor in decisions like these. The demand for great art in general may be slipping, or people aren't being exposed to the fine arts enough to create the demand. I have recently produced a music cd called Beyond the Ceiling. I hired some of finest musicians in Central Florida to perform on it and they did a fantastic job. I just put it on the market last month. However the public's desire or exposure to the music will dictate what happens. I think the bar needs to be raised in music in general. Corporate stranglehold in the business (playing cheaply produced and poorly written music)doesn't help to expose the public to music of a higher caliber. So in the end there may not be much choice. In the final analysis we vote with our money. Which can be good or bad.
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