Reaching for Artistic Excellence

The cover of Chorus America's "The Voice", vol 33, no 4, June 2010.

Chorus America—a national association of more than 1,600 choruses, individuals, and businesses dedicated to “a dynamic and inclusive choral community”—publishes a monthly journal called The Voice. The June issue is released today and features BCE in a big way! (And check out the cover picture of BCE’s own Lindsay White and a picture of BCE alum Hyun-Gu Kang on the article’s first page!)

The cover article, called “Reaching for Artistic Excellence”, by Kelsey Menehan, begins: “No matter where you are on the road toward choral excellence, you can take steps to get better—a diverse sample of choruses tell their inspiring stories…” And  continues with profiles of eight organizations across the country:

• Lancaster (Pennsylvania) Chorale
• The Civic Chorale (Tennessee)
• The Boston Choral Ensemble
• Seattle Pro Musica
• Mystic River Chorale (Conn.)
• Providence Singers
• Young Voices of Colorado
• Berkshire Choral Festival (Mass.)

The BCE profile is below. For the complete article, visit Chorus America’s site.

The Boston Choral Ensemble: Harnessing the Power of a Mission

Among the venerable and moneyed organizations in choral-rich Boston, The Boston Choral Ensemble knew that it had to do more than just perform well to set itself apart. Since its founding nine years ago, it had become a landing spot for young grad students and those just out of undergrad who were seeking a highly challenging choral setting not affiliated with a church or university.

“The repertoire was challenging, but the polish wasn’t there,” says Miguel Felipe, in his sixth year as music director. “It became clear that the group could always reach a B+

performance, and we had difficulty hacking through that threshold.” What turned things around was a new mission, which the board and the artistic staff thrashed out over a couple of years: The Boston Choral Ensemble is an innovative chamber choir that encourages the creative expansion of the choral art by exploring the essential qualities that unite diverse traditions.

A Boston Choral Ensemble concert explores the full breadth of the choral tradition from the ancient to the contemporary, drawing connections and highlighting the contrasts. “We don’t ‘fetishize’ or put undo focus on new music,” Felipe says. “It is just part of what we do in every concert, part of the tradition.”

Having a mission that focuses on innovative performance concepts has clarified the audition process. Whereas the group once accepted practically anyone who came, it now accepts 20 percent of auditioning singers.

The first page of "Reaching for Artistic Excellence—One Chorus at a Time" in which BCE is a featured organization.

“The reason why auditions have become so competitive is that we worked hard to create a consistent artistic image,” Felipe says. “Singers know that they are not signing up for a choir that occasionally does an interesting piece. Having that clear sense of programming and drive makes membership valuable. It allows me to be more demanding in terms of artistic requirements.”

One hotly contested change was to require group members to re-audition every other year—“not to clean house, but to put action behind the idea that individual improvement and maintenance was expected,” Felipe says.

Rehearsals now emphasize the music far more than the social aspects of singing in a choir. “We do highly detailed warmups based on the repertoire,” Felipe says. “The whole ethos has become focused on performing really, really well. There’s a growing feeling in the ensemble that we are really doing important singing. We’ll party after rehearsal.”

The Ensemble also schedules regular retreats—not to be confused with extra rehearsals—where musical experts, of which there are plenty in the Boston area, talk with singers about various aspects of musicianship.

The new emphasis has meant letting go of some things. The group does less educational outreach than it once did, and recently spent thousands of dollars to buy scores of Thomas Jennefelt’s Villarosa Sequences, a seven-movement symphony for voices, with which the group opened its 2009–10 season in November.

“We had to decide what we were rallying around,” Felipe says. “What could we put our voices behind? This is our mission, so we decided we would spend money on the scores. Our group has an artistic mission as well as a programmatic mission that has attracted audience and singers. And in the end, the better singers you have, the better you will sound.”

Key Lessons

• A clear mission drives artistic improvement
• Emphasize the music more than the social aspects
• Support artistic improvement with well-structured rehearsals and retreats