Choir as Community: Lessons from the Field


the most popular form of engagement in the arts, with 42.6 million singers participating in 270,000 choirs nationwide (Chorus America, 2009). Over the last 35 years, scholars have pursued research to better understand the choral singing phenomenon and why people choose collective singing as a leisure activity. These research efforts have generated a large pool of data suggesting a wide range of benefits attributed to choir participation for children and youth. While musical benefits have consistently emerged as a valued outcome of choir singing, researchers have also identified additional social, emotional, personal, and academic benefits for school age choristers (Adderly, Kennedy, & Berz, 2003; Bartolome, 2013; Chorus America, 2009; Hylton, 1981; Kennedy, 2002; Rohwer & Rohwer, 2009). The documented positive outcomes of choir singing are not limited to children and youth, but have also been found among adults (Judd & Pooley, 2014; Joseph, 2009; Kennedy, 2009;) and the elderly (Southcott, 2009; Southcott & Joseph, 2013; 2015). Choir has also been found to serve important emotional and psychological needs among individuals who are homeless (Bailey & Davidson, 2005), incarcerated (Cohen, 2012), or suffering from mental illness (Dingle, Brander, Ballantyne, & Baker, 2013), highlighting the therapeutic benefits of group singing for marginalized populations. In medicine, choir participation has been linked with gains in health and well-being (Clift et al, 2008) and has had positive outcomes for patients with Alzheimer’s disease (Harris & Caporella, 2014), dementia (Davidson & Fedele, 2011), and chronic pain (Hopper et al, 2016).


This brief overview of some of the


research related to the value of choral singing highlights the notion that choir singing remains a valued part of the human experience for many and provides multifaceted benefits for a wide variety of different kinds of people. From a music education perspective, it is a motivating reminder of the strong, positive impact our work potentially has on the lives of our choristers. It also requires us to reflect on the multiplicity of benefits associated with choral singing and the implications these findings have for our own practice in schools and


ala breve


Sarah J. Bartolome, Ph.D


Editor’s Note: This article appears as one of a series written especially for Ala Breve by experts in the field of music education. In the United States, choir singing is


communities. What are our roles as choral music educators? How can we have the greatest impact on our students as both musicians and citizens? As a researcher, I study the culture of choirs with the aim of answering these questions for myself and improving my own practice. In the past 10 years I have had the


unique opportunity to conduct ethnographic fieldwork with choirs in a variety of geographic contexts, including South Africa, Sierra Leone, and Lithuania. While many of the values associated with choral singing are consistent across these contexts, I have learned particular lessons through my extended participation in each of these choral communities. Here I offer what I consider to be some of the primary lessons from the field that have inspired changes in my own approach to choral music making here in the United States. Through a deeper understanding of the choral culture in other places, I continue to refine my thinking about how to best serve my choir singers and the communities in which we function.


A Lesson from Pretoria: Building Choirs and Building Audiences When I planned my first research trip to South Africa, I hoped to learn more about South African choral music in in general and more about the incredibly rich and thriving choral culture in Pretoria in particular. I spent a month observing local choirs, attending choir concerts, festivals, and competitions, and interviewing conductors in Pretoria East. The most striking feature of my first visit was the strong emotional response I had during the more than 20 hours of choral performance I attended. Sitting in the hall, I was astounded by the diversity and quality of repertoire performed and the commitment to conveying an emotional message through the performance. The programming featured South African music, including Western compositions in Afrikaans and English (many by local composers) and arrangements of songs drawn from Black South African cultures. I was also struck by a certain emphasis of modern and experimental genres, including quality arrangements of popular music and interesting experimental compositions by South African, Asian, and Scandinavian composers. For me, it was


incredibly refreshing to sit through a program of music that was entirely unknown and also feel emotionally connected to every choir throughout the performances.


In talking about this phenomenon


with conductors, they described a desire to do new music that no one else had done before and create new sonic experiences for the audiences. They also discussed an effort to appeal to their very diverse choristers and audiences while stretching and educating them musically. A sincere emphasis on high quality repertoire was evident and I witnessed some incredibly satisfying arrangements of popular music that both surprised and delighted me. In fact, many of the most impressive arrangements were done by the conductors themselves in response to a perceived lack of quality popular choral music. Every concert I attended was full to capacity and audiences clapped, danced, and ululated throughout the concerts. It was truly a joyful and participatory concert-going experience. In Pretoria East, the attention to providing relevant musical experiences for singers and the community through diverse, quality programming was an effective mechanism for recruiting both choir members and audiences. When I returned home, I spent a long time pondering the role of the audience in my work as a choral conductor and the importance of thoughtful programming in building a choir community. How could programming provide more meaningful and relevant musical experiences for both singers and audiences? How is it possible to balance the critical educational goals of the curriculum with creative, diverse programming including high-quality popular and multicultural music? By committing fully to honoring all genres of music through the programming of diverse and high-quality repertoire, we might successfully recruit and retain more and more diverse students to our programs, grow our audiences, and provide more meaningful musical experiences for all stakeholders.


A Lesson from the Drakensberg: Building Relationships


I had the unique opportunity to


spend a month living at the Drakensberg Boys’ Choir School (DBCS) in Winterton, South Africa, staying in a dorm apartment, eating alongside the boys in the dining hall,


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