August 2007

In This Issue | Carroll Gonzo

Patrick Freer offers Choral Journal readers the first in a three-part series of articles organized around quotations excerpted from 141 interviews of well-known choral conductors. Freer explains that David DeVenney, in a “Research Report” column for the August 2005 issue of the Choral Journal, listed a large number of interviews with American choral conductors. These interviews were coded and analyzed using HyperRESEARCH qualitative analysis software. The results of this analysis were widely disseminated in a number of professional journals. Freer’s first article outlines how these conductors spoke of components of the choral experience that result in enjoyment, intrinsic motivation, and artistic satisfaction for themselves and their choral singers. More to the point, this article includes the conductors’ discussions about an overview of flow theory, sense of control and autonomy, deep concentration, goal clarity, receiving immediate feedback, matched challenge and skill, loss of sense of time, the merging of action and awareness, and disappearance and self-consciousness.

Susan Medley’s article is an interview with Vance George, former conductor of the San Francisco Symphony Chorus (SFSC), who won four Grammy Awards and an Emmy under his baton. The first part of the interview reveals George’s early years as a conductor and public school teacher. His teaching career then takes him to India, Canada, and to a junior high school in Indiana.  George identifies some of the key musicians in the incipient musical stages of his life who were to have a lifelong influence on the trajectory of his extraordinary career.  The remainder of the interview centers around George’s tenure with the SFSC, their repertoire and concert preparation and performances, all of which is punctuated with George’s insights, observations, and revelations about the chorus and his musical journey with the choir over twenty-four seasons.

Experienced conductors intuitively have observed and know a great deal about the intrapersonal and interpersonal growth of their choirs. This social phenomenon is a key ingredient to the musical success of a choral program and the individual singers in it.  Elizabeth Parker, in her article, notes that choral students constantly gather information about themselves and their social relationships. Knowing of this ongoing process, Parker focuses on two areas of this social reality: the student’s own process of maturation or intrapersonal growth, and the progress of the student’s social relationships, i.e., interpersonal growth.  Her narrative is guided by the writing and wisdom of a number of psychologists: Daniel Goleman, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Reed Larson, Carl Rogers, Howard Gardner, and Abraham Maslow. Parker avers that the teacher/conductor can incorporate aspects of these psychologists’ views into the day-to-day intrapersonal and interpersonal evolution of their students.

Carroll Gonzo

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