A Podium Credo

Date: July 3, 2009

Inspired by Laurel Masse, the subject of a blog post the other day, ChoralNet member Robert Howard created this poem and then gave me permission to share it with you:

A Podium Credo

I’d never mark my stamp on you
even if I thought I could
and with lessons drawn
from father’s “tool and die, ”
I know I’ll never try.

That stamping press he used
left only negative impressions, crushed in carbide steel, to mark the owner’s brand.

No, I’ll have none of that
I need your free undented souls
To sing both “I” and “we”
in mystic synchronicity: breathing life into the speckled pages.

But like my father at his lathe, I’ll ply my studied craft
and bid you do the same with yours
so that you and I
can find our truth among the spots and, with mysterious synchronicity, breathe radiant, illimitable life into the freckled, speckled pages.

June, 2009

Robert Charles Howard

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Marie Grass Amenta on July 3, 2009 7:01

This is lovely. I was speaking about this very thing to a friend--another woman conductor--just the other day. It is just as easy to be kind as to be cruel when working with our singers. In the end, we come out with beautiful music and beautiful feelings when we do as Robert does. Thanks for the poem!

Marie

Doris Olah on July 3, 2009 7:48

So true, Robert... the patient conductor has the tools to shape the talents of the chorus and mold them into a unit capable of bringing life into the pages of notes before them. What magic!

I was thinking of the imagery of the craftsman working with metal to forge a piece of art. Some metals are tough and resistant and require much banging and shaping, while others are delicate and even a sharp rap will leave a huge mar on the surface and dents in the piece. A good condutor can assess his metals and apply the right amount of pressure to each.

Doris O

Tom Carter on July 3, 2009 15:28

Thanks so much, Robert and Philip!

In addition to what Marie and Doris have said, I also read into Robert's lines the following:

When directors empower singers as expressive human beings in their own right, rather than just imprinting them with their directorial vision, well ... that's when the magic happens.

But treating a group of singers as a pianist treats the keys, with the director being responsible for every single shred of artistry and expression? Uhm... Not so much. No matter how patient and kind such directors are, they are still operating from an ultimately disrespectful place (even when no disrespect is consciously intended). For regardless of intent and awareness, the message is the same: I am the important artist in the room, the singers are [merely] my paints. My keys. My strings. My medium.

For me, it's a two-pronged approach:

The director treats the singers with great respect and dignity (and creates an environment in which they do the same for each other and the director).
The director nurtures the singers' own personal confidence, power, and expressive imagination, guiding them so that they, too, can tap into the well of humanity from which composer and lyricist drew inspiration. When the director gives the singers the expressive tools they need, then they, too, can become artists ... and the rehearsal and performance process is infinitely richer for it.

To my soul's experience, that's the choir which collaborates with the director, finding the truth and breathing "radiant, illimitable life" into the music. And the audience.

PS 22's choir is a great example of such a choir. Compare it to a stiff, still, and staid choir doing their dutiful job to "be the paint" for their beloved director. No matter how many technical elements they "perfect," if that's all that their director guides them to do, the singers' power as individual expressive human artists will be squandered. Choral singers are so much more than paint or keys.

And the fact that "chorus" rhymes with "bore us" should be an acoustic phenomenon and nothing else!

Here's to honoring Robert's vision, however we interpret it.

All my best,

Tom

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