This post was originally written for www.onlinerehearsals.blogspot.com - I thought it might be of wider interest
The time has come; some might say the time is long past, for us to decide what we are as a choir and how we move forward. In many ways this has been not so much a decision as an inexorable progression towards where we are today and where I hope we will be in the future.
Firstly, some background – I have been conducting male voice choirs for twenty years, I am steeped in the lore of the genre, know the repertoire intimately and genuinely believe that the opportunity for men to sing together in TTBB choirs is a valuable artistic outlet (can you sense a silent but…?) OK then you spotted it.. I genuinely believe that the genre needs to find its way into the twenty first century so that it remains relevant and something that twenty-first century men want to be part of. Bournemouth Male Voice Choir's PRO John Coates undertook a major SWOT survey among our choir and supporters in 2010 that in lots of different ways told us that the image of male choirs could be off putting for many people who, unlike me, we not steeped in the history and tradition of the genre.
There is something uniquely moving about the passion combined with sensitivity that a group of men singing together can achieve, so why are so few men in England getting involved. Importantly why are so few younger men (30-50) getting involved? I hear all sorts of stories from choirs across the UK about how they are getting more young members and they have 70 members and all is rosy in their gardens but when you go on the websites and look at the pictures the story is different. For me, some (just some) of our problems lie in the repertoire.
Male choirs tried to re-invent themselves in the 1980’s and 1990’s with floods of new arrangements of what were described as popular songs but their original artists made most of those songs famous before I was born and even when they were current they were older in style and hardly contemporary in nature. This isn’t in any sense decrying our beautiful arrangement of “Softly as I leave you” for example but I sometimes look down concert programmes and think that its really all terribly similar and wonder how long male choirs can exist without an injection of new music to bring a new energy to our musical lives. This is not a new idea, when you look back at male choir programmes from the early 1900’s they were regularly singing new music by Edward Elgar, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Herbert Howells, Daniel Protheroe and the like. So for us, I am treading my own path on this one, its not necessarily better but I do think it suits us better.
I think if I was sitting in South Wales writing this piece I would probably think differently, there is a rich cultural tradition of folk song, hymn tunes and the like which have an intrinsic part of the male choir tradition and if I directed one of those great male choirs from Wales I would want to preserve the tradition, and indeed I know that some choirs in Wales are looking at new music from Welsh composers. Here in Bournemouth, and I sense in England as a whole, things are different, so Deus Sautis remains due to its incredible quality but I can’t see much space for many more of these hymn tunes in our programmes due to them perhaps not having as much relevance to an English choir or audience. More importantly, this gives us space for musical items and texts that aren't so much “male voice choir” as music for a choir that happens to be of men’s voices.
The new world seems to be leading the way for new innovative music for men’s voices; Eric Whitacre, Morten Lauridsen, Randall Stroope, Timothy Takach and many others are writing interesting, quality music and here in Britain Alan Simmons, Goff Richards, Christopher Wiltshire and others have produced some excellent new music for TTBB; the problem is that we (the English choirs for men) aren’t crying out for new compositions, we’re broadly not commissioning new works and therefore market forces intervene – no demand - no supply? The big American men’s choruses (particularly the gay men’s choirs) are regularly supporting the composition of new music. But, doing our best here in Bournemouth we are at the moment however working on Lux Aurumque and The Seal Lullaby by Eric Whitacre, a brand new piece by Timothy Takach as well as original music by Poulenc, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Alan Simmons and Goff Richards and are just about the start two new pieces by contemporary British composers who are less well known.
But modern choirs cannot live by the more serious music alone, lollipops are very popular with our audiences but to attract modern audiences and new members to secure the future of the genre we need to make sure those lollipops are acceptable to modern palates. So rather than Matt Monroe and the like our popular selections in Bournemouth are Take That, Ronan Keating, Seal and Toto with the occasional nod to great doo-wop groups like The Marcels – hopefully this is the combination of old and new that will help us secure our future – a choir of men rather than a male voice choir?
By introducing new music, arrangements of contemporary popular songs and the like we can attract an audience and members to be part of our choir – and when they are part of our great tradition we can show them the beauty of Llef, The Old Woman and that wonderful traditional range of male choir music – not in isolation but as part of a balanced musical diet. A mission statement of “Proud of our past, looking to the future”
I leave these two thoughts with you – next time the advertisements come on don’t go and make a cup of tea - have a watch! I am surprised by just how many advertisements show scenes of people of all ages together in groups who end up singing (like the one set in the airport) – it makes me think that there might still be a future for singing in choirs – these advertising companies carefully research before they make these shorts, a huge amount of money is spent – they won’t present an unappealing scenario for their client.
And finally, can you name one star, one film, one series or one red carpet show when the male protagonist (of any age) is wearing a blazer with shiny buttons, a club tie and slacks? This isn’t about age – look at the clothes every panel show, awards ceremony etc puts their leading men in, they are timeless, clean and crisp looking – what sixty year old man (or younger even) wouldn’t want to look as good as George Clooney does in that coffee advertisement?
A lot to think of, I am a very, very imperfect vessel for the challenges ahead for the genre, do you want to get involved in moving singing for men forward?
