Shows / Choir Fam Podcast
Choir Fam Podcast
The Choir Fam Podcast is a venue for conversations about the current state of choral music. Hosts Dean Luethi and Matthew Myers seek to bring the worldwide choral community closer together through their discussions with a variety of guests who work with choir in its various forms. The goal of the podcast is to provide listeners with interesting tidbits of knowledge they could use in day-to-day choral rehearsals and to bring light to the ways that issues in the choral field are being observed…
Episodes
- Choir Fam Podcast
Ep. 170 - Building Cohesion and Collegiality Across the Choral Program - Matt Taylor
“I had the best working relationship with my co-teachers. We tried to have a cohesive sense of community among all our choirs. One of the ways that we could…
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Ep. 169 - Utilizing Singing to Promote Community Healing - Michael Bussewitz-Quarm
"One way for me to work through things like gun violence and civil rights issues, things I really struggle with, is to set it to music and build a community…
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Ep. 168 - Scaffolding Learning for All Levels of Experience - Brandon Boyd
"Working with the MTC Women’s Prison Glee Club was life-changing, taking women who had never been in a choir, teaching them about head voice, consonants…
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Ep. 167 - Rehearsal Transitions as Opportunities for Singer Engagement - Morgan Luttig
“Transitions are key to all of the rehearsals that I run. We lose a lot of very valuable rehearsal time when we switch from one task to the next, whether…
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Ep. 166 - Achieving High-Level Artistry with Community Choirs - Matt Hill
“The work that we do as choral people matters. The art matters. The music is the engine that drives the experience for everybody. In community organizations…
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Ep. 165 - Building upon Traditions in a New Choral Position - Bella Garcia y Lauer
“My predecessor is very, very well-known, an amazing choral director, and he’s still in the area. I’m trying to establish myself as the new director following…
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Ep. 164 - Creating Accessible and Engaging Compositions - Ryan Main
"The most important advice I ever received is that you cannot call a piece 'done' until you have sung through every part, beginning to end, and 90% of the time…
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Ep. 163 - Engaging the Body in Singing and Conducting - Zanaida Robles
"What I do with the high school choirs is important. I always tell them, 'I'm really just trying to convince you to do what you already know you can do, to…
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Ep. 162 - Poetic Lyricism in Choral Music - Charles Anthony Silvestri
“I tell composers to collaborate with a poet who takes their craft as seriously as they take their craft. It’s a very rare creative who can do both well. What…
- Choir Fam Podcast
Ep. 161 - Secondary Trauma Stress in the Choral Profession - Lynn Ryan
"Secondary trauma is when you experience trauma second-hand. The trauma might not have happened to you specifically, but somebody shares with you their…
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Ep. 160 - Enlivening Conducting with Imagery & Kinesthetics - Gary Seighman
"For years, I felt that there was no connection with my hands and the sound. My perception of conducting at the time was that everything needs to be free and…
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Ep. 159 - Sparking Community Dialogue Through Music - Wendy Moy
“We really wanted our choirs to be more embedded in the community. When I moved to Syracuse, I thought, ‘what does that mean for me?’ There are a lot of…
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Ep. 158 - Stirring the Pot to Encourage Vocal & Choral Dialogue - Mandy Matthews
“I really care a lot about what the student wants to get out of our time together: finding a nice, healthy, balanced phonation that they identify with, that…
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Ep. 157 - Text Painting and Structure in Multimovement Works - Dylan Trần
“I shortlisted it to about 10 or 11 poems. I printed them all out on big pieces of paper, and I did visual sketches of what the piece might look like. I would…
- Choir Fam Podcast
Ep. 156 - Building Choral Programs by Putting Students First - J. Edmund Hughes
“There’s three things we have in music: the choir, the rehearsals, and the concerts. We put the people first, not the product. There’s a lot of coaches who…
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Ep. 155 - On the Changing Landscapes of Choral Music - Jocelyn Hagen & Timothy Takach
“There’s still so much we can say through choral music, and a good portion of the music that gets put on the concert stage revolves around similar themes that…
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Ep. 154 - Composing Idiomatic and Empathetic Music for Vocalists - Raphael Fusco
“Nobody really teaches you how to write for the voice because every voice is different. We’re given these standard ranges, which is fine for harmony exercises…
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Ep. 153 - Developing the Creative Potential of the Choral Director - Sherry Blevins
“If you give attention to the right behaviors, they will multiply. If they sing well and supported and you encourage that, that is going to multiply. If you…
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Ep. 152 - Developing Choral Skills in All Vocal Styles - Tiago Marques
"I have to say that the best experience was to conduct choirs on many levels, with amateurs who loved what they did, it was a pleasure working with them just…
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Ep. 151 - The Collaborative Spirit of Choristers and Conductor - Craig Hella Johnson
“I didn’t want conducting to be only about telling people what to do and they respond. I’ve been in situations like that, and it’s sometimes very effective…
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Season 6 Wrap-Up
Thank you for listening to our show this season!! Here are the favorite choral pieces from our guests in the sixth season: Christ lag in Todesbanden by Johann…
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Ep. 150 - Encouraging Singer Ownership in the Rehearsal Process - Grant Gershon
“It’s not until you’re leading an ensemble that you really figure out how to make the music happen and how to motivate the people around you. It’s humbling in…
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Ep. 149 - Enhancing Choral Pedagogy with Voice Science - Brian Winnie
“This is a way to understand how the voice operates in all its parts – perceptually, physiologically, and acoustically -- so that we can learn to stop doing…
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Ep. 148 - Building Artistry with Elementary Singers - Molly Toups
“One of my favorite parts of teaching younger students is getting to see them experience things for the first time. I was their introduction to choir a lot of…
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Ep. 147 - Challenging the Choir with a Playful Spirit - Jonas Rasmussen
“What most people want to get out of choir is to feel a progression, that they slowly master the craft of choral music. For every warm-up, I boil it down to…
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Ep. 146 - Making Junior High Music Accessible and Appealing - Dan Davison
“In many choirs, the tenors and basses were a minority. The tenors and basses at the middle level are disparate; they’re not like each other in any way…
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Ep. 145 - From Partbook to Print: Bringing Historic Music to Life - Meredith Bowen
“There were a whole bunch of these women who were publishing music during their liftetime in 17th-century Italy. I find it's important that young women know…
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Ep. 144 - Curating Unforgettable Performances in Renowned Concert Halls - James Redcay & Eric Spiegel
“I remember when I performed at Carnegie Hall for the first time. It was transformative. I remember taking the stage and just being in complete awe. I looked…
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Ep. 143 - Motivating Singers of All Backgrounds by Pursuing Excellence - Caius Lee
"Every single workshop I give is all about excellence, singing well, singing properly, and achieving the very best we can achieve. Why do we it? We don't do it…
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Ep. 142 - Imagination and Self-Exploration in Music Making - James Jordan
“Burnout is when you reach a point where there is no mystery in the music making anymore and you’re just redoing what you’ve always done. You’re reheating it…
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Ep. 141 - Developing Efficiency in Choral Rehearsals - Richard Zielinski
"Singing in a choir, you're trying to about five things at the same time, and sometimes you're not even doing it in the language you have spoken your entire…
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Ep. 140 - Providing Mountaintop Experiences Through Choral Festivals - Jenny Bent
“If you have opportunities to have them take over the work, you can engage them in a way with chaos circles. I love doing chaos circles when they’re teaching…
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Ep. 139 - Musical Magic in Middle School - Gretchen Harrison
“Middle school kids really are very concrete learners. Abstract thought isn’t there yet. Give them the ability to see ‘I’m not the only one having problems on…
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Ep. 138 - Composing a Living - Dale Trumbore & Brandon Elliott
“Going into high school, I did everything possible to avoid the performing arts. My vice principal called me into the office and said, ‘you can’t have an open…
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Ep. 137 - Connecting with Audiences Through Choral Storytelling - Joshua Habermann
“My job is to make people love choral music as much as I do, and that’s a lot. I really love choral music. My job is to say ‘you should care about this.’ You…
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Ep. 136 - Sharing Musical Value in Community Partnerships - Alex Gartner
“You’re not going to ask a bunch of choir directors to donate to your organization — you’re going to have to go find other people who probably don’t have the…
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Ep. 135 - Leading All Students to a Positive Choral Experience - Philip Brown
“It's hard to focus on anything educationally if certain basic needs aren't being met, so you're trying to navigate and be proactive as much as possible. I…
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Ep. 134 - Unlocking Creativity by Arranging Popular Music - Garrett Breeze
“I was one of those people that had some biases against pop music. Being in show choirs and seeing the ways that the songs were transformed and arranged really…
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Ep. 133 - Exploring and Celebrating Latin American Choral Music - Ryan Fellman
“The Spanish language is not treated with the attention and nuance that we often do for many of the languages used for singing auditions. There’s this myth…
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Ep. 132 - Expanding Singers' Tone Color Palette - Francis Cathlina
“I ask them to sing with maximum efficiency, accessing their singer’s formant, and from there, we’ll ask for specific sounds. Sometimes conductors get stuck…
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Ep. 131 - Building Community Through Music in Worship - Jennaya Robison
"In my third year of teaching, I started to have vocal problems. I was taking voice lessons. I was singing professionally. It was feeling great. Suddenly my…
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Ep. 130 - Expanding the Choral Sound with Contemporary Music - Rob Dietz
“I love the way that contemporary a cappella engages singers who might not necessarily see themselves as ‘choral singers’ to be able to sing together and maybe…
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Ep. 129 - Making a Difference Through Choral Music - Joy Hirokawa
“We were all asking ourselves, ‘what can we do to counter this, what’s happening in the world? How can I help my singers understand and navigate what is…
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Ep. 128 - Building Emotional Intelligence Through Choral Singing - Jeremy Brown
“My mantra for my teaching is: I want to create good humans while also creating good musicians. I tell every ensemble that on the first day of school. What…
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Ep. 127 - Reconsidering Pedagogy to Support Neurodivergent Singers - Peter Allen Haley
“Start with the way that you structure your rehearsal, your classroom, your feedback. In terms of feedback, we talk about not giving people more than three…
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Ep. 126 - Balancing the Needs of Our Singers and Our Institutions - Kristina Ploeger-Hekmatpanah
“We’re often put in positions that make us uncomfortable with the inner struggle of how to keep our job and have our program recognized enough to get support…
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Season 5 Wrap-Up
Thank you for listening to our show this season!! Here are the favorite choral pieces from our guests in the fifth season: Christmas Oratorio, Johann Sebastian…
- Choir Fam Podcast
Ep. 125 - Inspiring Choral Skills Through International Competition - Mark Anthony Carpio
“More competitions are being organized, and it has become a way for these conductors and choirs to work on their skills. By joining these competitions, the…
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Ep. 124 - Exploring the Fusion of Choral and Commercial Music - MaryAnne Muglia
“We had 10 sopranos, 4 altos, 2 tenors, and 1 bass, and they were all volunteers. We were spending hours trying to learn this music that we didn’t have the…
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Ep. 123 - Improving Ensemble Intonation and Listening Skills - Albert Pinsonneault
“We ended up forming a new string orchestra at the high school, and I led every rehearsal and conducted every concert. I remember the very first day. I looked…
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Ep. 122 - Music and Mission in LGBTQ+ and Senescent Choruses - Tim Seelig
“Everything changed for the gay choral movement because they had twins: music and mission. They weren’t just there for the music, and they weren’t just there…
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Ep. 121 - Choral Collaboration with the Choir Guys: Daniel Gutierrez and Blake Richter
"I start every morning at the junior high, and we co-teach together. It's great for alignment in the program, for familiarity with the students and getting to…
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Ep. 120 - Unlocking Humanity and Vulnerability Through Choral Singing - Chris Maunu
“I think during my formative years, shying away from my true self – my authentic self – that's definitely shaped how I approach being in front of choirs, using…
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Ep. 119 - Mentoring the Next Generation of Choral Educators - Jennifer Sengin
“You never know what anybody's potential is. I think about that now as a teacher, that we are expecting 17-, 18-year-olds to know what they want to do for the…
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Ep. 118 - Preserving the Art of Community Music Making - Michael Murphy
“Sometimes my students ask me if I worry about the future of choral music with advanced technology, AI, but I really am not concerned at all. The way that I…
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Ep. 117 - Tips for Writing Accessible and Eloquent Choral Music - Dan Forrest
“I think the hardest thing in the world is to write easy music that still is eloquent. A piece relies on strength of idea and not strength of technique or…
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Ep. 116 - Modeling Vocal Versatility for Singers - Cindy Ellis
“I want students to function in a studio recording session and a live performance, which are very, very different worlds. I want them to be able to do not just…
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Ep. 115 - Mental Health Strategies for Choral Ensembles - Sarah Graham
“Students will often refer to voice lessons, to choir rehearsal, as therapy. I felt that there was something to that. I wanted to make the connection between…
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Ep. 114 - Creative Problem Solving in the Choral Rehearsal - Sharon Paul
“One of the things we know about the brain is that information that is acquired through problem solving is more likely to be retained. I might start rehearsal…
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Ep. 113 - Advancing Composition with Improvisation and Mixed Media - Katerina Gimon
“You never know someone else’s story. You never know what the experience of a concert or hearing a piece is to somebody. You don’t know how that affects them…