Cincinnati Business Courier: Choral directors get creative during the pandemic

The choral community across the country has worked to develop creative solutions to figure out how 54 million people who sing in American choruses can do so safely. Janelle Gelfand of the Cincinnati Business Courier spoke to local choral directors, including UC College-Conservatory of Music alumni and CCM Director of Choral Studies Joe Miller, about how Cincinnati choirs are adapting in the pandemic.

Most choirs are rehearsing online or offering hybrid programs with limited in-person singing, Gelfand reports. At CCM, students participate in a mix of online, in-person and hybrid classes. Singers in CCM choral projects will rehearse in very small groups and will engage in multi-media projects to ensure maximum spacing of between 2-8 people at a time. All indoor and outdoor rehearsals must follow social distancing requirements and the university is using HEPA filter units in performance spaces in an effort to control aerosol emissions.

“The stadium offers us lots of wonderful places to rehearse outside and be protected under all the concrete,” Miller told Gelfand of rehearsing in UC’s Nippert Stadium. “It offers a resonating chamber, and for singers to be able to hear themselves and hear others is the challenge of being outside.”

Miller is planning a program about isolation, with music by David Lang, Meredith Monk and J.S. Bach. The program will also include Waylon Jennings’ arrangement of One Voice. “It is this journey from dark to light, or from total isolation to us figuring out how to be together, how to survive,” Miller told Gelfand.

Large, in-person gatherings are prohibited on campus and CCM’s performance activities will continue to be closed to the general public until further notice. Instead, CCM will share a new series of CCMONSTAGE performance videos that showcase student and faculty artists. The video series will be presented free of charge, with the first installments appearing later this fall.

Read more about how Cincinnati choirs are handling the pandemic in the Cincinnati Business Courier. The story includes interviews with CCM alumnus Matthew Swanson, Cincinnati May Festival associate director of choruses and director of the Youth Chorus; CCM Choral Conducting DMA student Jillian Harrison-Jones, music director of MUSE, Cincinnati’s Women’s Choir; CCM alumna Danielle Cozart Steele, artistic director of the Young Professionals Choral Collective; Robyn Lana, founder and managing artistic director of the Cincinnati Youth Choir, CCM ensemble-in-residence; and Jason Alexander Holmes, artistic director of Cincinnati Boychoir.

Featured image at the top: CCM Choral ensembles perform during the college's Moveable Feast benefit in January 2020. Photo by Quinn Villarreal.