Rehearsal and concert observations
REHEARSAL
I observed Northwestern College’s Christmas concert rehearsal on December 4. The rehearsal was basically a run-through of everything and included Orchestra, Symphonic Band, Women’s Chorale, Varsity Men’s Chorus, and College Choir. Because there were so many groups involved I got to see three different conductors. The artistic director had grown up in South America so the entire program was Spanish-themed.
There were some tricky rhythms, in the instrumental pieces especially, which forced the conductor to use a sharp tempo-keeping beat pattern. He did very little else but keep the beat and cue entrances. However, I did notice that he made use of the size of his pattern to convey dynamics.
The choir directors were rather different from the instrumental conductors. One woman in particular used the very effective body gesture of going up on her toes. When she did this the sound intensified and the choir’s tone was more focused. I thought the gesture might create tension in the choir, but the sound did not reflect that so I think it was a legitimate approach. Again, she only used this gesture at critical moments when the dynamic was “soft but urgent”.
This same conductor was especially good at reacting in the moment. At one point she shouted out above the music, “sing out tenors!” and they did! I think this was appropriate because her beat pattern was fairly large and the passage was probably marked forte. Therefore, the section just needed to be encouraged a little more.
Another simple but clear signal she gave was a palm facing the choir being pulled back toward her chest. This meant “decrescendo” and it worked incredibly well! Her pattern size didn’t change the choir responded immediately to the hand being pulled away from them.
At one point an instrumental conductor was leading all the groups in a piece and wanted a full, rich, sustained sound. I remember this because the gesture was so simple and yet probably the most effective one I’ve seen in a long time. He simply drew a long, horizontal line in the air above his head coupled with an upturned palm in front of his stomach. The horizontal gesture caused the choir to automatically sing with the line (legato) and, even though the line was above his head, the hand near his stomach lent weight and breath support to the whole thing. The result was an ultra-legato line and warm tone.
CONCERT
I observed Northwestern College’s Christmas Concert on December 7. It was fun to experience both the rehearsal and the final concert because I was able to pick up on little mistakes or notes missed that no one else in the audience noticed. For example, the solo trumpets were audibly behind the rest of the orchestra and band throughout the entire first piece. This was not a problem during the rehearsal so I was very interested to see how the conductor would react. He calmly turned so that his whole body was facing the trumpets and willed them to make eye contact with him. He simplified his beat pattern so that it was straight tempo-keeping and nothing else. His beats became much pointier which, to me, screamed “watch me!”.
One of the major differences I noticed between the instrumental conductors and choir conductors was the use of baton. Even when the choir directors used the baton (for combined-group pieces) they always softened their beat pattern when addressing the choir. During instrumental interludes the baton action was much more purposeful whereas the choirs observed more fluid motion and a more flexible wrist.
Overall, the concert was wonderful! The “poppier”-style music was a nice change from the straight-laced style I’ve heard all semester. =) I highly recommend the concert if you’re ever looking for something fun to attend around the holidays.