This report is for the beginning choral music educator or music education student who seeks guidance when selecting repertoire for their advanced elementary or beginning middle school choir. I attended the 2011 Kansas Choral Directors Association conference. Conferences such as these are great resources for the novice choral educator and even the veteran teacher. Choral reading sessions are excellent ways to find new and quality repertoire, because the directors that select the music spend a good amount of time researching and selecting songs. In determining what factors directors use to choose repertoire for their choirs, a survey was developed and administered to forty Kansas music educators at one of the reading sessions which asked the following three questions: 1) What is the likelihood that you would use this song in a concert or program? The next two are questions in which I asked (these two were based on a 'disagree or agree' scale): 'This song has good educational value for the students' and 'I can teach many elements of music within this song.' Evidence is shown from other master educators of various levels that choosing appropriate, worthy, and challenging repertoire is crucial to the success of the choral program.

Described as an unusual experience of communication between a composer and a singer, the choral experience is thoroughly explored in this detailed and readable text. Designed specifically for the practicing choral conductor and the student training for a career in choral music, fundamentals of the choral experience such as vocal production, choral diction, and basic musicianship are included to help the singer extend his or her musical experience beyond the immediate rehearsals and performances of the choral ensemble to other realms of music. Special features include: provides numerous illustrations, tables, and examples intended to enrich the learning experience; includes end-of-chapter summaries; examines important components such as the vocal mechanism, posture, diction, and breathing and breath control; offers recommended reading lists for further in-depth study. --From publisher's description.

Choral Music: A Research and Information Guide, Third Edition, offers a comprehensive guide to the literature on choral music in the Western tradition. Clearly annotated bibliographic entries guide readers to resources on key topics within choral music, individual choral composers, regional and sacred choral traditions, choral techniques, choral music education, genre studies, and more, providing an essential reference for researchers and practitioners. Covering monographs, bibliographies, selected dissertations, reference works, journals, electronic databases, and websites, this research guide makes it easy to locate relevant sources. Comprehensive indices of authors, titles, and subjects keep the volume user-friendly. The new edition has been brought up to date with entries encompassing the latest scholarship, and updated references and annotations throughout, capturing the continued growth of literature on choral music since the publication of the second edition.

Practical strategies & expert guidance on leading a first-rate choral ensemble, with tips & techniques for successful auditions, schedules, rehearsals, concerts, budgets, fund-raising, publicity, & more.

As the landscape of choral education changes - disrupted by Glee, YouTube, and increasingly cheap audio production software - teachers of choral conducting need current research in the field that charts scholarly paths through contemporary debates and sets an agenda for new critical thought and practice. Where, in the digitizing world, is the field of choral pedagogy moving? Editor Frank Abrahams and Paul D. Head, both experienced choral conductors and teachers, offer here a comprehensive handbook of newly-commissioned chapters that provide key scholarly-critical perspectives on teaching and learning in the field of choral music, written by academic scholars and researchers in tandem with active choral conductors. As chapters in this book demonstrate, choral pedagogy encompasses everything from conductors' gestures to the administrative management of the choir. The contributors to The Oxford Handbook of Choral Pedagogy address the full range of issues in contemporary choral pedagogy, from repertoire to voice science to the social and political aspects of choral singing. They also cover the construction of a choral singer's personal identity, the gendering of choral ensembles, social justice in choral education, and the role of the choral art in society more generally. Included scholarship focuses on both the United States and international perspectives in five sections that address traditional paradigms of the field and challenges to them; critical case studies on teaching and conducting specific populations (such as international, school, or barbershop choirs); the pedagogical functions of repertoire; teaching as a way to construct identity; and new scholarly methodologies in pedagogy and the voice.

The purpose of this project was to examine the selection and performance of high quality standard choral literature for children. A survey was sent to seven choral conductors from around the country. The survey asked what qualities these conductors looked for in choral literature, and which five pieces are their top choices. In addition to this survey, a number of children's choral programs were consulted in order to create a comprehensive list of often-performed works. Upon review of the list, two pieces were chosen for performance: I Bough Me a Cat, arranged by Sally Albrecht and Will You Teach Me? by Victor Johnson. The subjects were 60 4th and 5th grade students who had auditioned for an after-school choral/recorder ensemble. The pieces were rehearsed once a week from January through April. The rehearsal was designed to closely resemble a high-level choral rehearsal, in order to prepare students for middle and high school choral work. Lesson plans were created for each week, and the rehearsals coincided with the actual rehearsal times of an elementary choir.