International Choir Festival InCanto Mediterraneo
  • Chris Rowbury

    Why can’t I sing?

    Added April 23, 2014 by Chris Rowbury - 3497 views - 0 comments

    [this is a version of a post which first appeared on my blog From the Front of the Choir]   “Why can’t I sing?” The short answer is: “You can. Everybody can.”   Choir of the Munich University of Applied Sciences by Mark Kamin   The whole of my singing work is based ... read more

  • Jevgenijs Ustinskovs

    XI International Sacred Music Festival "Silver Bells" 9 to 11 January 2015, Daugavpils (Latvia)

    Added April 20, 2014 by Jevgenijs Ustinskovs - 1677 views - 0 comments

    XI International Sacred Music Festival "Silver Bells"9 to 11 January 2015, Daugavpils (Latvia) 1. Organizer is Daugavpils City Council, Department of culture in co-operation with the Centre of Latvian Culture. Festival takes place once in every two years.2. .Participants of the Festival - Childre... read more

  • Karen Boyce

    Choral Arranging...the more I do , the more I learn

    Added April 20, 2014 by Karen Boyce - 1659 views - 0 comments

    I think I’ve started a new project that is going to keep me learning new musical skills for a long time….. I love working on choral arrangements, however the more I do and the more I think about them, the more I actually learn. I am extremely lucky to have a choir to try these arrangements out on. The Hut... read more

  • Frank Pesci

    Using reductive metaphors won't solve your choirs problems

    Added April 15, 2014 by Frank Pesci - 1945 views - 0 comments

    One of my favorite choir tricks was to telling my singers to ‘aim for the top side of the pitch.’  This was, of course, because they were singing flat, and I thought the imagery would give my singers a way of thinking about an abstract concept (singing in tune) in a simplified, easily understood, silve... read more

  • Frank Pesci

    The Singing Choral Director

    Added April 11, 2014 by Frank Pesci - 918 views - 0 comments

    Having been a director, I acknowledge that through the years I have fallen prey to using cheap techniques – “tricks” that skirted around the issues of posture, tone production, breathing, vowel formation, physical awareness, and aural skills. These were temporary patches over a myriad of pro... read more

  • Chris Rowbury

    Your singing self vs. your everyday self – which is the real you?

    Added April 9, 2014 by Chris Rowbury - 1363 views - 0 comments

    [this is a version of a post which first appeared on my blog From the Front of the Choir]   We bandy terms around like ‘authentic voice’ and ‘natural voice’ when we talk about singing.   photo by Jean Spector   But how do we know when singers are truly being themselves? ... read more

  • Frank Pesci

    Talking to your choir about vowels

    Added April 9, 2014 by Frank Pesci - 1299 views - 0 comments

    One Sunday, I was subbing in a choir in Mississippi.  On that particular Sunday, the church in question was auditioning a candidate to be their next Music Director. He worked us a little bit, then said the following, in the laziest South Mississippi Drawl you can imagine, “Now, when you look at me, you see c... read more

  • Frank Pesci

    Everything we hear about matching pitch in choir rehearsal is a lie

    Added April 7, 2014 by Frank Pesci - 1315 views - 0 comments

    I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that “music is math.” Whether in relation to something simple (counting), or something more esoteric (highly-developed, academic analyses of harmony and structure), or whether it is a misguided argument to try to convince school boards that studyin... read more

  • Frank Pesci

    Why is it so hard to sing in tune?

    Added April 6, 2014 by Frank Pesci - 5593 views - 0 comments

    I brought this question up before as one of the fundamental problems of working with, and being a part of, a choral ensemble. After all, no one really wants to listen to an out-of-tune choir.   It’s a complicated issue that involves both technical and conceptual components.  Everyone’s... read more

  • Frank Pesci

    Hearing and Singing - a modest musical manifesto

    Added April 4, 2014 by Frank Pesci - 887 views - 0 comments

    I am an auditory learner. Rather than reading instructions, doing something manually, or watching someone do something, I need to incorporate information through my ears and process it with my listening in order for it to be fully engrained.  You can imagine, then, what frustration I felt as a young player, relyin... read more