[HANASHIR:11388] Re: volunteer choir rehearsal attendance

[Rob Menes <rmenes...>]

Although I haven't contributed to this list very
often, I am compelled to share my experience
conducting the Jewish Community Choir here in
Victoria, British Columbia. 

The choir here is a volunteer choir, and it is a
community choir. That is, although I am affiliated
with the Conservative congregation here (Congregation
Emanu-El), many of our members are not. Some of the
members are not Jewish. Ages range from 18 to 78. The
entire Jewish community in Victoria numbers about
2,000. Last year, we had 20 members in the choir.

I took over the choir 3 years ago. There are no
auditions, and no conditions regarding attendance. In
fact, the only requirement is a love of singing. Half
of the members cannot read music. We meet once a week,
for two hours. We have an accompanist, which we only
use for concerts, but most of our pieces are a
cappella. I try to minimize the use of the piano in
rehearsels. Most of our pieces are in 4 part harmony.

I have always had the belief that, like Shabbat, the
joy of music comes through effort and intensity (not
necessarily work). Choir here is intense; we
concentrate for the full two hours. For me, there is
little separation between our choir rehearsels, my
Torah study, and prayer. I have always maintained that
our rehearsels are not "rehearsels" at all - they are
the reasons for coming together.

Last year, we performed between 7 and 10 times. We
were always working towards a concert, and we sounded
great. It was very satisfying in some ways, but we
lost the sense that each time we sing is valuable.
Working towards concerts kept attendance up, because
the singers did not want to miss anything.

This year, I decided to take a step back. We have only
performed a couple of times. The focus is more on the
rehearsels than on the concerts. The result has been
that attendance is down. The people who come always
enjoy the rehearsels, and feel refreshed after, but
they are not as compelled to come. I have avoided
chastising the members, but it can be frustrating. 

We pay a price for having a lax policy on attendance -
I have to adjust what we work on each week depending
upon who is there. There are many ways to ensure
attendance, but I am not always successful in
implementing them. I think every director would like
to have people come because rehearsels are a great
experience. I have thought about making rehearsels
more "fun" and less "intense" (easier). Both the light
and the intense can be rewarding and valuable - as
long as they demand involvement from the members.

It is clear to me that three things are important for
keeping attendance up:

1. schedule events, such as concerts, to create a
sense of achievement 

2. give individual members responsibilities - musical
or organizational - to value their specific
contribution

3. make rehearsels valuable - from the first minute to
the last - by demanding involvment from each member.

Rob Menes
rmenes (at) yahoo(dot)com
http://www.geocities.com/rmenes/



--- H & R Shubert <notfranz (at) total(dot)net> wrote:
> I'm interested in the volunteer choir thread of
> discussion, which seems to reinforce that temple
> choirs have a great deal in common with each other. 
> I started out being pretty stern about attendance,
> but now that I have gotten to know these lovely
> people, I tend to be understanding when they have to
> miss a rehearsal.  In the spring I notice a tendency
> for people to miss rehearsals.  I put it down to
> fatigue from the year's work (we start our season
> with the HHD's), but still, it's discouraging.  I'd
> like to hear from other choir directors as to how
> they deal with this and also with members arriving
> late.
> 
> Thanks,
> Rachelle
> 
> 


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Games - play chess, backgammon, pool and more
http://games.yahoo.com/

------------------------ hanashir (at) shamash(dot)org -----------------------+