I think it is important always to keep in mind that major choral works like the Beethoven "Missa soleminis,", the Verdi "Requiem," the Britten "War Requiem", Haydn's "Creation," Bach's "B Minor Mass,", etc. should not be expected to be memorized. Furthermore, one should not assume that performances with scores in hand will necessarily be less accomplished or less artistic than those hypothetically sung without scores.

 

Richard Bloesch

richard-bloesch(a)uiowa.edu

Diana et al.

 

(Nice to see that this thread, started over 3 months ago, is still of interest!)

 

Your description sounds so familiar I have to ask, is yours a Sweet Adelines chorus? It was your mention of choreography that suggsted it to me. Of course with my chorus it was more a matter of their thinking they could not read music (although most could), and they WANTED to memorize and internalize the music.

 

However, from some of the posts here, I suspect that very few (with the obvious exception of Tom Carter, of course) have been involved in theater, musical theater, or opera, let alone in entertainment. In those cases you do NOT, EVER, stand on stage reading your script, or holding your music. It is a given that in order to create the theatrical illusions you need to create--in order to become your character, to act as your character would act, and to RE-act as your character would react--both your speech and your singing MUST appear to be spontaneous. And an entertainer is an actor, too, and the performance must be as if spontaneous as well. Tom was kind enough to couch his suggestions in choir-director-speak, but the bottom line is that your actors or your singers MUST be "off-book," and you have to plan rehearsals and deadlines to help them do so. Not memorizing a "Missa Solemnis" or a "Brahms Requiem" is strictly a matter of rehearsal time; singers memorize entire operas--often in more than one language!

 

Just a couple of additional observations, out of very long experience. Yes, learning the music has to come first, learning it accurately, learning it well, and internalizing the Director's musical and dramatic concepts. (You don't have a conductor on stage for musical theater or opera, either!!)

 

BUT, you then have to teach the blocking, movement, or choreography (or all of the above), and during this part of the process they will FORGET the music, because their minds will be focused on movement. Fair enough, perfectly normal, and perfectly predictable. And this is when you must work very hard, and push your singers to work very hard, to get the unison movement truly unison, since anyone without dance training will give you "their" version of the movment!

 

And THEN, but only then, you must re-teach the music, only now in concert with the movements, so they become an integrated whole. (This is especially important for what I will call "show choir" work, although I hate that term because it has become degraded in many ways.) Then, and ONLY then, will you actually be ready to take that routine on stage in front of an audience. During our 10-day pre-school workshops, we had a grid on the board and my Choral Assistant checked off the progress of learning FOR EACH PIECE OF MUSIC as we prepared our show (which we presented for incoming students the day BEFORE classes began!).

 

I directed a women's show ensemble for several years at Indiana, and a mixed show ensemble for 14 years here in Virginia, and that is ALWAYS the routine that was necessary. Memorizing the music--getting "off-book" was only the first stage of the process, not the last. And I realized that our training program here was paying off big-time in the late '90s, when I suddenly realized that we no longer had to go through that 3-part process because my cast was able to go directly from learning the music to integrating the movement, which of course is simply expected of professional entertainers. But my casts included a LOT of singers without previous dance training, and yes, they CAN learn to move well, if not like a trained dancer.

 

All the best,

 

John