it wasn’t until I went to
junior
high school that I found my passion for choral music.
Singing excerpts of Carmina Burana with the
Saskatchewan
Honour Choir under the direction of Doreen Rao was one of my first
great choral
experiences. Around that time, during
my final year of high school, I decided I wanted to be a choral singer,
conductor and educator.
What choirs have
you sung with?
I went on to study for a
Bachelor of Music at the
University of Victoria where I was a member of the Chamber Singers and
Prima
Youth Choir. I later lived in Thailand
and found time to commute to Bangkok to sing Messiah with the
Thai
National Symphony and a choir of Thais and expatriates from around the
world—an
incredible experience! After Thailand I
went to New York where I sang with a number of choirs including a
performance
with Manhattan Concert Productions at Carnegie Hall
Are you currently
singing with a choir, or planning
to?
I have been a member of
the Canadian Chamber Choir
since 2001. Upon coming to Toronto I joined the Nathaniel Dett
Chorale
and accepted section lead positions with All The King’s Voices
and Humbercrest United
Church. I am in my third season with the NDC and
Humbercrest. I sang with All The
King’s Voices for
one
and a half seasons before being offered the conducting position with
the Harbourfront
Chorus, an adult community choir, also on Tuesday evenings. I am
also the
founding director of Univox, a community choir for young
adults.
Where does your
choral singing fit into other aspects
of your life?
It is the other aspects
of my life that have to fit
into my life as a choral singer and director! Incredibly challenging - but my organizational skills are ever
improving. I owe tremendous thanks to
my conductors and employers for accommodating my erratic schedule of
tours,
concerts and rehearsals.
Honestly, I couldn’t do
enough choral singing to
satisfy my hunger—and I don’t mean feeding myself! Each
experience
deepens my connection to music and gives me more that I can give back
to my own
ensembles. A choir is such an enigmatic instrument; there are so many
ways to
communicate with your singers. There are conductors who possess a
gorgeous
gestural palate so they needn’t speak during rehearsal. Others use
anecdotes or imagery to get singers to lift the music from the page.
Some model
incredible artistry with their efficient rehearsal management and
organization.
Their mastery in these different areas is a constant source of
inspiration and
one of the things I enjoy most about working with different
conductors.
What kind of
concerts do you like to attend? How
often?
Shamefully, I don’t
attend as many concerts as I would
like to. My musical commitments consume
every weeknight while other work and my personal relationships occupy
most of
my other time. When I am able to take
in a concert it is just as likely to be an outdoor rock show as an
orchestral
or choral performance. I love all types
of music. Hearing one of Toronto’s
professional choirs is always inspiring. Best
concerts I’ve ever been to? Phish at the
Gorge in George, WA, The Estonian
Philharmonic Chamber
Choir at the Chan Centre at UBC and James Brown in Montreux,
Switzerland.
Do personal
dynamics among singers affect the sound of
a choir?
Absolutely!
I
hope that it is not only our love for music but our love for one
another that
compels us to sing together. The voice
is a unique instrument: there is no material object involved in the
channeling
of our expressed emotions. To sing
freely with artistry and expressiveness we need to first cast aside our
inhibitions, our pride, our insecurities. Before
we can create sweet harmony musically, we are
required to be in
harmony with one another emotionally. At
the centre of this is friendship.
Does being in a
choir offer social opportunities you
would not otherwise have?
Definitely. The
opportunity to travel and the rapidity
with which relationships develop on tour are part of what makes singing
in a
choir such an amazing experience. I was still in high school when I was
first
fortunate enough to travel internationally as a member of a musical
ensemble.
Every tour with the Dett Chorale yields incredible experiences of
cultural bridge-building,
social healing and personal growth, and memories that will last a
lifetime.
Singers,
conductors, accompanists, and all other folks with the choral habit are
invited
to share their experiences. Professional or amateur: if you’d like to
be part
of A
Choral Life Q&A,
please contact musicschildren@thewholenote.com
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