Choir directors in every program spend time and energy searching for the perfect repertoire for each choir, for every concert. This can easily become a daunting task and, too often, is overlooked or put off until the last

minute. It’s important to recognize that the right repertoire can make all the difference in a successful experience for you, your choirs, and your audiences.

Before selecting repertoire, you must know where your students are musically and where you want them to be following the per-formance. When you begin the search, you must first determine whether you are looking for a piece that addresses the needs of your choir, or a piece that highlights the strengths of your choir. Once you have that criteria in mind, you can more thoughtfully consider the many repertoire options.

What Does Your Ensemble Need to Grow?

Maintaining a simple worksheet can help you answer this ques-tion about what your ensemble needs to study so that they can grow. Go to www.tmea.org/choirworksheet for an example. By completing a worksheet like this, you will be more intentional about identifying the makeup and strengths and weaknesses of each group. When this information is documented, it can be a helpful guide for evaluating repertoire that will support each group’s development.

Tone

If developing pure and uniform tone is of primary concern, choose pieces that are slow and lyrical. Also select repertoire that feature pure open vowels—perhaps something in Latin or Italian. This will also facilitate a better blend. To reinforce this concept, encourage pure vowel sounds with solfège in your sightreading.

How to Address Your Choirs’ Needs &Spotlight Their Strengths

By Janwin Overstreet-Goode and Cheryl Wilson

Music Literacy

If music literacy is your focus, select repertoire that lends itself to the use of solfège. Again, when singing with solfège, use pure vowels to reinforce tone and blend. Be mindful of key changes and altered pitches.

Rhythmic Precision and Alignment

For rhythmic precision and alignment, choose something at a faster tempo. Be sure you have a counting system or method in place, and be consistent with its use. Make sure each student is physically feeling the pulse when teaching the repertoire. You might have students tap the beat. You could also have them con-duct the appropriate meter while counting or singing.

Intonation

Select repertoire that is unaccompanied if intonation is your focus. Start with diatonic pieces with logical, traditional progres-sions. Add songs with chromaticism and lush harmonies as appro-priate. Even in accompanied literature, rehearsing a cappella will strengthen your choir’s listening skills and, hence, intonation.

Balance

For choirs with balance concerns, first examine all voice parts for substance and interest. Select a piece that features sections other than soprano, or Part 1, with the melody. Choose a piece that is homophonic throughout. Rehearse in a mixed-section format so that singers will learn to listen for voice parts other than their own. Experiment with varied standing arrangements and placement of the sections in your singing formation.

A Cappella Literature

If your choir struggles with singing a cappella literature, start

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with a round or partner song. Find reper-toire that uses traditional harmonies, and practice singing the chords found in the literature during warmups and drills to strengthen singers’ listening skills. Avoid cross-voicing, and rehearse away from the piano as much as possible. Don’t be afraid to change the key for tuning or tessitura concerns.

Musicality

Musicality is often the final component we address, but it is what makes the piece most interesting to the audience and sing-ers alike. Choose a piece with dynamic markings already in the music. Crescendo and decrescendo markings are especially useful for shaping phrases. Add the basic musical markings as you rehearse to rein-force those concepts. Also choose a piece that allows for ritardando, rubato, acce-lerando, and other tempo considerations. After basic musicality has been addressed, further nuance can be added as you prog-ress in the music (syllabic stress, word stress, text painting, tenuto, etc.).

Foreign Languages

and World Music

When initially introducing foreign lan-guages and world music, start with Latin (only five vowels to match and blend). Expand into other “traditional” lan-guages (Italian, French, German, Spanish, Russian) as you and your students become more comfortable with languages. Also consider exploring music of other cul-tures—so many options are available today. Be careful not to overwhelm your singers or your audience with too many languages on one program. Introduce the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)—it is a great resource for singing all languages and a shorthand to accurate pronunciation for your students.

Repertoire Considerations

Once you have evaluated each choir’s

needs for growth and you begin to con-sider repertoire, ask yourself whether there is something special in the selection that appeals to you and your singers. Does it have a beautiful melody? Lush harmonies? An interesting text? Is it artistic and last-ing? Is there an emotional connection?

Next consider the text and subject mat-ter—is it age appropriate? Also consider whether the level of difficulty can be mas-tered by the ensemble. Is it too easy? Too difficult? Is this the right time of year for this selection?

You also must consider vocal ranges. Don’t select music that has a higher or lower tessitura than your students can sing well. Sing through each part to deter-mine if the voice leading makes sense and is well-written.

Consider the rhythms—are they inter-esting and accessible? Are the tonal pro-gressions logical? What about the form of the piece? Do the harmony parts change when words or sections are repeated? (This could affect memorization.) Is the structure of the piece sensible? If there are repeats or D.C. or D.S. sections, are they consistent and reasonable?

Finally, when selecting repertoire, con-sider the length of the piece, bearing in mind audience attention span and your students’ physical, mental, and vocal stamina. You do want to stretch the group, yet the full program must not be mentally, physically, or vocally too taxing.

Programming Considerations

After you have made some initial rep-ertoire selections, programming consider-ations come to the forefront. As you review your programming ideas, ask yourself these questions:

• Is the program balanced, in terms of musical content?

• Are varied time periods of historical significance represented?

• Is there variety and contrast in style?

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• Are tempos of the pieces sufficiently varied?

Along with considering your answers to these questions, be sure to have a mix-ture of meters and keys. Contrast rhyth-mic selections with lyrical selections. Use English and foreign languages on the pro-gram. There needs to be a give and take of style, tempo, and language for a well-rounded program.

Take into consideration your ensemble: is the repertoire appropriate in terms of age, ability, and balance between parts? Is the music well-crafted? Does it have educa-tional value for singers and audience alike? Do you have enough time to adequately prepare the literature for your concert, fes-tival, or contest?

Where Can You Find

Appropriate Repertoire?

Many resources are available for dis-covering appropriate repertoire. Attending reading sessions at clinics and conven-tions is very valuable. Visit music stores if you are fortunate enough to have one in your city. Listen to publishers’ recordings and visit their websites. Peruse the Mark Custom Recordings catalog. Also listen to recordings of choirs from TMEA, ACDA, or other conventions or concerts from around the country. Keep in mind though that listening to repertoire does not replace examining the repertoire.

Check out the repertoire in your school library. Ask other teachers for recom-mendations or suggestions. Create a file of repertoire lists you acquire at conventions, professional development, or workshops—this file will become a wonderful resource that can be revisited yearly. Keep copies of concert programs and mark the pieces you want to investigate. Look at regional and national ACDA convention programs for suggestions, as well as festival and all-state repertoire lists from other states. Search college and professional choral group web-sites; many have their repertoire listed.

As we mentioned in the opening, before selecting repertoire, know where your stu-dents are musically and where you would like them to be after the performance. Then keep in mind the following quick checks as you evaluate the wide availabil-ity of selections:

• Explore repertoire written by compos-ers beyond your short list of favorites and look beyond the first page.

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• While perusing new literature write notes on the front cover, documenting the important concepts (key, rhythmic patterns, altered syllables, etc.). These will serve as quick references in your future searches for repertoire.

• Find repertoire that will address the needs of your program and push those elements, especially for programs in the fall semester.

• Select repertoire that fits the choir in terms of age, ability, and balance between parts.

• Select repertoire that facilitates stu-dent learning and work toward choir performance goals.

• Select songs that broaden the choir’s musical skills and are interesting to the singers, the audience, and you.

• Introduce a cappella singing before UIL evaluation season.

• Feature at least one piece on every program that highlights the strengths of your choir.

• Include a variety of styles, historical periods, languages, and cultures in your concert programs.

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• For contests and festivals, highlight the strengths of your choir with the majority of repertoire. If you want to also challenge them, select one ele-ment to address in one selection, espe-cially with younger choirs (you can tackle more elements with advanced/varsity level choirs).

• Choose repertoire that will challenge your students but won’t defeat them.

• Keep your students (and you) inter-ested, involved, and committed!

Successful repertoire selection depends on the time you spend researching and studying scores. When you approach the process purposefully and carefully, the positive results will be obvious to you, your singers, and the audience.

Janwin Overstreet-Goode and Cheryl Wilson are Secondary Choral Music Consultants, following successful careers as high school choir direc-tors. Overstreet-Goode is also a TMEA Past-President.

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• www.choralnet.org (sponsored by ACDA)• www.acda.org• www.ifcm.net (International Federation for Choral Music)• www.chorusamerica.org• www.nafme.org (formerly MENC)• www.imslp.org

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39Southwestern Musician | September 2019