Welcome And Festival News

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Welcome to the Choir Director Podcast, the essential resource for choir directors, conductors, and vocal leaders who want to build stronger choirs, run better rehearsals, and create outstanding musical experiences. Welcome back and thank you so much for joining us once again, and thank you so much for all the wonderful messages we're receiving here in the studio. It's really wonderful to know how much this show is impacting people's lives and how much people are getting from our incredible guests that we have on the show. And I'm continually receiving messages from choir directors literally across the world, from as far as Australia all the way over to North America and the Far East. And I've been sent uh some incredible books uh to read that people are writing and some extraordinary content. Um, thank you so much for sharing this with us. We've got some amazing guests lined up for the show. Today is no exception. We have the fantastic Craig Lees. Now, Craig Lees, as some of you may know, is a UK-based principal lecturer based in Leeds in the north of England, but he's also ambassador for the World Voices Festival. My own festival, which I formed uh 10 years ago. I can hardly believe it's been 10 years. This year we have a very, very exciting and special event planned in the stunning, historic St Albans Cathedral, which is about 20 miles north of London. And as many of you are aware, we rebranded back in January the UK Choir Festival, as it was formerly known, was rebranded into the World Voices Festival as we start expanding our events internationally. We had an incredible experience at the Berlin Philharmonic last year, which was the first venue to host the UK Choir Festival outside of the UK. And uh we are now getting interest uh from all over the world, from the US, from the Far East, and of course we have our Vienna event planned at the stunning Vienna Concert House uh next June. Um there's more information about that on our website at worldvoicesfestival.com. But anyway, back to St. Albans, and we've got an incredible weekend planned with uh Craig Lees, as I mentioned earlier, the incredible Volney Morgan running a gospel session for us, Charles McDougall, who's working on vocal tech, he's just incredible at what he does. And I'll be running the performance side of the event as well. So we'll have a series of workshops throughout the day on Saturday, and then on the Sunday, we get to prepare ourselves and each of the choirs that are performing get one-to-one uh masterclasses with our wonderful workshop leaders, and then everybody gets to perform together at this world-class venue. St. Albans Cathedral is uh, as I said, absolutely stunning and uh incredible acoustic. Uh, we'll have uh a fantastic audience, I'm sure, uh, when tickets go on sale in June. But meanwhile, if you are a choir and you're interested in taking part, just head over to the website at worldvoicesfestival.com. Check out uh all the details of this incredible weekend, and uh we hope to see lots of you there. We've got over 200 singers taking part so far, and there are just under a hundred places left. So do check it out. Now, back to today's show, and as I said earlier, our guest today is the amazing Craig Lees, principal lecturer in popular voice at Leeds Conservatoire here in the UK, founder of the Leeds Conservatoire Contemporary Pop Choir, and the musical director who led Leeds Contemporary singers to victory on BBC Television's pitch battle. Craig's right at the forefront of contemporary pop choral work here in the UK. And in this episode, we're talking about arranging, rehearsal craft, and what it really takes to make pop choral music land with confidence. Welcome to the show, the amazing Craig Lees. Hello, hello, Russell. How are you? I'm good. I'm really well, thank you. It's lovely to have you here as talking with you as always. Uh, we've known each other for for several years now through the UK Choir Festival and what is now the World Voices Festival, and you've now uh become brand ambassador and you've done some incredible work over the years. But you specialize in pop and rock, and has has that always been the case? Did you did you get into pop and rock sort of from a young age and then it's just sort of you know transitioned?

SPEAKER_00 4:15

Well, certainly um my work with choirs, this was never the plan. It really, it really wasn't. As I've heard a number of your guests say, actually, um, is uh my intro to choirs, you know, if you'd have asked me at 19 years of age what I wanted to do with my life, I would have said that I wanted to be touring the world, that I wanted to play Wembley, that I wanted to sing an original song and hear the audience sing it back at me. Um that was my dream, really. Um and to cut a very long story short, um my intro to them working with choirs was I started when I was uh in university doing a number of volunteer roles um in a number of different circumstances and with a hugely diverse uh range of different people. And it's there that I discovered that I had uh a talent, perhaps a gift for connecting with people, not particularly that you know, it was that that really lit me up and that that really excited me. And of course, when it came to connecting with a group of people and using the skill that I had, which was music and was singing, and particularly because I I had this love for pop and rock music, that's the way that that was the conduit that I used to connect with people was pop and rock music. And the fact that we were in a room together in a group was like, well, we might as well sing some harmonies, ergo, choir, and as they say, the rest is history.

Why Contemporary Choirs Took Off

SPEAKER_01 5:50

That's really interesting because of course the the the choral scene many years ago was was just classical. I mean, that's all people ever knew was let's you know, let's sing a verirequiem, uh, you know, let's just sing choral music, classical music, traditional music. But over the years, perhaps over the last, I don't know, maybe 15 to 20 years, it's become much more contemporary music. Do you think that's a good thing?

What “Authentic” Pop Singing Means

SPEAKER_00 6:15

I absolutely do. I mean, and you're right. I mean, when I first started, uh, which was probably about 16, 17 years ago, um it you're you're correct you're correct. You know, I I remember almost it was trying to find those those avenues through which it was acceptable to do pop and rock music, um, and particularly to do pop and rock music authentically. That was, you know, maybe that's something we'll get to discussing uh later in today's conversation. But uh, as you said, there was a lot of pop music being approached, but with that more sort of Western classical or traditional choral sensibility, um, which really doesn't do it justice. Um, and it's so such a pleasure to now see so many choirs engaging with popular music. Um, you know, I mean, you can't escape it. You cannot escape it. It is everywhere. You know, you've got the advent of obviously things like rock choir and all these other huge mass choirs that are singing and performing rock and pop music, and what a joy it is because choir is all about connecting people. I'm all about connecting people, and why not do that through the music that people listen to on the radio on a day-to-day basis?

SPEAKER_01 7:31

So, how let's pick up on what you said actually. Um, how do you perform pop music chorally but authentically? It's a great word you use there about authenticity.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

Well, I think it's it's about studying and researching the nuances of popular music singing, and within that all the different styles of music. So, for example, taking on board the syncopations in the rhythm, taking on board the way that we approach the articulation, the way that we approach the vowel shaping, the way that we approach the quality of the voice as well. You know, in rock and pop music, we are using often different types of sounds, often more primal and more raw sounds in our singing. Um, and sometimes if that's got to translate to the choir singing, it really does. Um, I think um sometimes we get in this avenue of thinking about our choir music needs to be beautiful, it needs to be pretty, it needs to be rounded, it needs to be all of these different types of things. Well, often pop music isn't that, often pop music is primal and raw emotion expressed through primal and raw sound, and so we have to be able to use these sounds, hone these sounds, shape these sounds in our uh choral music as well. Um, and it's it it is an entirely different art form. And to treat it any differently, uh again is doing it a disservice.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

And do you find that there is any confusion as a result? Because obviously people who have grown up singing chorally haven't necessarily grown up singing chorally in pop music, they've they've sung in other types in in schools and in colleges and universities, and and gradually, I suppose, with pop music, you're using more of your chess voice, more of your spoken sound. That's very different, and it's a very different technique, as you say.

SPEAKER_00 9:43

Well, I think you pick up on something really interesting there, and I think something that is is very much at the heart of that authentic sound is the more prevalent use of, let's say, a more chest voice uh or mode one, as some singing tutors may say, uh, sound. And, you know, my my theory um is that many people will start their first bit of singing that they will do will be in a primary school choir. Or if not in a primary school choir, then it will be in a primary school singing assembly. And when we engage with singing at this age, you know, kind of six, seven years old, actually our voices are lighter, they are softer. And there's a part of me that thinks, I wonder if that's at the point that we start to separate our speaking voice or our chest voice or mode one, we start to separate that and go, well, this is my speaking voice, and yet this other lighter quality that I'm using in my assembly, this is now my singing voice. And of course, as you know so well, Russell, and uh, many choir leaders and vocal coaches listening, we don't have two separate voices. We have one that can do lots of different wonderful things. And I think I see this a lot is singers that very much segment their voices and in such cut off a whole part of their range. And it's when we then start to approach any music, to be fair. You know, the healthiest voices are the ones that make all of the different sounds they can make every single day. So even if we are singing more traditional repertoire, we still want to be in our warmups and in those pieces, engaging with the different parts of our voice, including chest voice, head voice, whatever you want to call them. There are lots of different names for these things now. Um but in pop music particularly, I think it um it certainly encourages people to go there because that's the the prevalent quality that we hear most often.

SPEAKER_01 11:51

So what's your what's your approach then to sort of mix and belt coordination in a in a group setting so that the sort of stronger voices don't necessarily, you know, they don't dominate and everyone is staying healthy with their singing?

SPEAKER_00 12:04

Um well, I was always taught as a vocal coach from from day one really, I had some great mentors. Um, and one of the uh schools of thought was primal sound. So using everyday noises, cries, coups, whimpers, sighs, yells, which I think is is really interesting. Um these everyday noises that we that we have from birth that we can internalize into our singing. Um and these sounds, they're hardwired like neural motorways into our brain. And to go back to what we were talking about just a moment ago, I think when we discover that singing voice in our primary school choir, well, that's a little bit like building a dirt road at the side of that motorway. And so I'm a big believer in trying to get people to connect back into uh these primal sounds. And so in my teaching, I will use a lot of this in a choral setting because they are sounds that everybody can use. So even if I have to take things away from singing in inverted commas, I will instead encourage my choir to sigh, to call out, to to yell, to cry. And then I'll ask them, how does that feel? You know, and how does that sound to them? Now, sometimes the sound is the stumbling block, is the wall for some people because they'll say, particularly in those belting sounds, well, it feels as though I'm shouting. And I go, Well, I tell you what, trust my ears as your director, trust my ears, but trust the way it feels to you. And if it feels healthy and if it feels okay, then trust my ears to shape the sound, and together we'll get used to this. Of course, there will be some singers that for whom using those bigger sounds is a little bit of a a big jump too soon for them. And I will encourage them to go, you know, if this does feel if there is any pain, any discomfort, then we need to work together on a more individual basis just to find those sounds for you.

SPEAKER_01 14:49

A lot of a lot of um a lot of choirs use backing tracks, particularly for pop music. Um how do you how do you build kind of groove in a choir so that it feels more like a band rather than a classical choir singing a pop song?

SPEAKER_00 15:05

What a great question, Russell. Um, I mean, you'll know from our our um Time Together at the UK choir festivals um that I am a big proponent of movement. Yeah, singing is movement, every part of our anatomy has to move in order to allow us to sing. And so it is astounding to me how often choirs of all genres will stand so rigid and so still when we sing. In order to build groove, we have to take it to dance, you know? Um, and so I include choreography and movement into almost everything that I do, particularly into the warmups, um, because I think it's important that we get our body moving so that we can feel that music. Um and that helps us in a multitude of ways. That helps us in the rehearsal, in building, as you say, groove and rhythm and feel, and it also helps us then in performance, because to perform that music, whilst again appearing to be rigid or traditional, again, is doing the music a disservice. We have to move because in the setting that people would be listening to that music on the radio or you know, uh, they would be moving, they will be dancing, you know, that's what it's supposed to do. And so as a choir, our job is to make it look infectious and to get people up on their feet joining with us. And I try to do that in in every single concert that I do, whether it be, you know, uh a choir with my uh performance with my professional choir, where we try and get the whole auditorium up on their feet, or the community choir that I run, or even the workplace choirs. You know, there might only be a few people in the office that they are performing to, but I'm I'm like, look, we if we do our job correctly, they'll be clapping their hands, they'll be clicking their fingers, they'll be tapping their feet, they'll be up on their feet dancing with us.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

It's funny, it's funny you mentioned that because uh just a couple of weeks or so ago, I was taking a rehearsal and we were doing some pop music, and it just they we just the choir were just not feeling it. They were just singing. It was just I it was it was becoming to a point where it was it was all so rigid and the note the syncopation was going and it was all being s sung straight, and in the end, I told everyone to put their music down and I put on the original track of the original artist singing, and I told everybody to come out from their seats, and I had just said, right, it's time to dance. We're gonna have a bit of a disco now, and we're just gonna dance. And uh, we I and I've got to tell you, I'm not a dancer. I I don't move. This is not my butt, I you have to lead by example, don't you? So, oh my god, and I have to out my comfort zone, and I'm standing on the podium, and I'm people are everywhere dancing and swinging their arms about and and interacting with each other. Went but straight back to their seats, sang the song again. It was completely different. And the whole list of the rehearsal changed from that moment on. Whether you're gonna put choreography into the song or not, you've got to be able to feel the groove, haven't you?

Teaching Pop Phrasing Without Parody

SPEAKER_00 18:14

100%. I mean, one of my favorite things to do in a warm-up is literally that is to have a dance party, is to put my sections into groups, into little circles, put on a really groovy track of music and go, right, okay, I'm gonna do three, two, one, and I want you all to bust out your best move. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, the effect of that is also twofold because yes, it gets us the groove, um, but it also loosens people up and it gets them realizing that you know what, if I let down my inhibitions, if I let go of that and I just throw out kind of that dance move that maybe I only ever throw out, you know, in the shower, uh, then all of a sudden, you know, nothing bad happens. In fact, it makes other people smile, it makes other people laugh. So it has a positive outcome. So just like you know, we talk so much about uh our job as choir directors is to allow people to release that inhibition in their own singing voices, well, why not in their bodies as well?

SPEAKER_01 19:20

It's true, it's absolutely true. And something that's also I wanted to ask you because it it is it is about stylistic phrasing, singing pop music, there is a a style to it. How do you teach stylistic phrasing in pop and rock? Because you have scoops and falls, and sometimes you sing straight, sometimes you sing with vibrato, you've got articulation changes, the way that you sing pop music and approach pop music is different to singing pretty much any other form of music. How do you teach that and you teach the the phrasing in particular without it kind of turning into a sort of a caricature, if you like, so it doesn't look full of it.

Common Pop Choir Mistakes

SPEAKER_00 20:00

Absolutely, absolutely. So the teaching of the phrasing, I think as choir directors, we have to be good demonstrators, is the first thing. Um, we have to be good demonstrators, we have to do our own research as well, um, is we have to listen to those tracks um with such detail and we have to pick up those nuances in the way that we arrange our music and also the way we deliver it in the moment. So I will always do my best on my rehearsal tracks and also in my demonstrations in rehearsals to sing the tracks and to sing the lines with the um inflections that I want them to be delivered with. Um so I think that's the first thing. Um, second, when it comes particularly to rhythmic articulation, and I do think this is something that um is a huge uh when we go back to that authenticity, it is one of those things that makes a huge difference. We have to think about where we place the weight in the consonants in the word. Um, with more traditional choral music and with uh legit musical theater, you know, um I think the we can afford to place the weight in the consonants on both the first and the last consonant of the word. And that gets us quite a pleasant and very uh stylistically appropriate sound. But we do that in pop and it immediately becomes very, very stilted. And so instead, what I prefer to teach my choirs to do is okay, we are gonna place almost a hundred percent of the weight in our articulation and the emphasis and the electricity. We're gonna place that on the first consonant of each word, and the effect of that is magic. Number one, it gives us this authentic pop and rock sound, it gives us also more edge and more attack to our phrasing, which gives us stylistic benefit. And then the third and final thing, which I love, is well, the energy that we put into consonants in almost like a beatboxy way, it gives those consonants extra clarity and it gives us extra projection in the sound without working at vocal fold level. So it actually makes it easier for your singers to sound more intense. Because I've seen it before where I can see a choir director, you know, encouraging their choir to give more, to give more, to give more, and they do so, but they do. So at sort of vocal fold level, they do so by singing louder from their voice, let's say, and that can sometimes change the timbre of the sound. Um, and it can also, you know, be not as efficient for the singers. Whereas if we can get across some of those punchy effects with how we do the consonants, which is all you know in the tip of the tongue, the teeth and the lips, then we we produce a more efficient sound as well for our singers and a more healthy sound.

SPEAKER_01 23:04

So some would say that there is more chance of vocal strain with pop music. Would you agree with that?

SPEAKER_00 23:12

Um, I think if pop music is approached incorrectly, um, I think as we say, we are using more raw sounds, um, and we are using uh sounds with um more thicker vocal fold collisions as well. Um and so you know it's important that we support those sounds appropriately, um, and it's a port and it's important that as directors we we uh educate our singers to be able to approach those sounds correctly. Um but I think um that if that is done, then the the style is as safe as any other style.

SPEAKER_01 23:52

Do you think there are some uh common mistakes that choir directors make when it comes to teaching pop music?

Arranging Choices That Shape Sound

Writing For Tenors In Modern Styles

SPEAKER_00 24:01

Hmm, good question. Good question. Um the rhythm is definitely one of those. So the rhythm and the pronunciation, as I was saying, the placing of the consonants in the wrong place is definitely something. Um and then it's it's it's also uh where the voice is sitting. So sometimes again, using more lighter qualities or more, let's say, for today's discussion for head voice qualities in the wrong place. I mean, there are lots of different names. Let's preface this. There are so many different names uh for the different registrations in our voice. The most common, as we know, is head voice and chess voice, although that is not sort of scientifically as accurate. Um, but there are lots of different maps that people use to navigate their voice, and that is certainly one that I would actually say still uh is the most prevalent way that most singers seem to navigate their voice, particularly those that don't have too much formal training. Um, so yes, the quality of the voice uh and the timbre of the voice is sometimes if it's too light for a particular place, that is something that I can see um directors will um sometimes um make mistakes here. Uh the rhythmic intensity I find is is is an error um sometimes, or or is is sometimes again just placed in in slightly the wrong places. Um and then I think a lot of of getting the sound right also comes from the arrangements as well. Um I'm fortunate I I arrange a lot of the music for my choirs because that's another thing that I love uh about choirs, is I love the arrangement process. Um and it can be it can be very, very tricky. Um and if the arrangement is voiced in such a way that, for example, it puts the sopranos right at the top of their range, well then they have no choice other than to sing it in a lighter quality. Um and similarly, if the lower lines are written very, very low, they will end up just by proxy coming out a little bit more classical sounding in the bass parts and the tenor parts. So I think making sure that we we hear we are taking a cue, a big cue in uh contemporary music, we're taking a big cue from gospel arranging styles um and particularly gospel arranging voicings. I think that is a big um uh a big way to get that authenticity. And it can be something that particularly if you're a director arranging for your choirs, just making sure that you know uh the voicings sit in a place where your singers can be successful in those slightly heavier vocal um vocal settings.

SPEAKER_01 26:53

Now something that's that's I find fascinating, and I was talking to someone else about it recently, is that of female tenors uh or females with low voices. Now, in the UK particularly, we have a lot of all female uh choirs, um still split SATB if you like, or into four-part female voices. Absolutely. Uh S SAA or however they decide to do it. How do you work with uh SATB choirs that are all genders but where you have uh female voices that sit very low in the voice? Because obviously if they're placing the voice low uh and they're singing in the in the in the tenor uh part, generally speaking, they're gonna be off the off the radar potentially and and they're gonna be singing very, very low in their speaking voice. They don't want to be singing in falsetto. Um how do you how do you deal with that? And do you where where do you where do you write for them and where do you move them to? How do you how do you cope with that? And where should where should choir directors position those those ladies with with very low uh voices in particular to avoid them singing in falsetto?

SPEAKER_00 28:03

This is a great question. I love this question. Um so having a mixed gender uh tenor section uh is something that I love, something that I absolutely love for actually reasons that I was just explaining. So to get that contemporary rock and pop sound, we're often wanting to take that cue from gospel music where the tenor parts in particular are gonna sit often a little bit higher than in more traditional settings. So very often we're asking our tenors to be, you know, E's, Fs, and G's are common in these styles of music. And sometimes even getting, you know, up to your A flats and your A's above middle C, if not even higher, because when you hear that thicker voice singing there, oh my god, does it create a sound? And it pushes every other part then to sing a little bit thicker and to sing a little bit stronger because they've got that foundation.

SPEAKER_01 29:03

Yeah.

Twang Explained And Vocal Colour

SPEAKER_00 29:03

Now, the real benefit in that situation to having a mixed voice uh section is that they can really trade off the benefits that they both have in their voices. So, yes, there are going to be some moments in the arrangements where it goes very, very low for the female tenors, but that's great because the male tenors in that moment, okay, we're gonna pick up that slack, we're gonna come through with that richness of tone that our anatomy gives us. And then when it gets super, super, super, super high, you know, and there are times when the more, let's say the more baritone members of that tenor section, the more male baritone uh members of that section uh have to maybe just just pull back a little bit. Well, that's great because you've got those female voices where their anatomy there is going to give them give them an edge. And I think that that mix really gives you an ironclad um and strong tenor section. So it's something that I I really encourage, and I don't believe I have a choir that doesn't have a mixed uh section.

SPEAKER_01 30:12

Yeah, it's become certainly more common, I think, and and I I have several female tenors in my choirs, and I I think they make such a difference to the colour, the the the quality of the tone. Yes. Do you think uh talking of talking of colour, do you think colour is approached differently in pop music to that of classical music?

SPEAKER_00 30:34

At one point in my career, I would have said yes. Um uh I would have said that pop music tended to air more towards the the brighter uh end of the sort of sonic spectrum. Um, and I had a a good while where I pushed twang on everything.

SPEAKER_01 30:54

Um, before you carry on, let just explain twang because a lot of people uh talk about twang and some don't really understand what it is, and some people want more of it and don't know how to get it. Can you talk about Twang just a little bit for our listeners?

SPEAKER_00 31:12

Absolut uh absolutely. So uh the research on Twang has actually changed a little bit uh in the last uh actually the last, I believe, the last six months. We're seeing new research uh which is saying that twang is produced by uh lots of different muscles within the vocal tract. Um, but up until that six months, we always believed that twang was produced uh by a particular um place called the aereoepiglottic sphincter, um, which is in the vocal tract. And basically what that produced was a slight narrowing of the pharynx um in order to deliver a uh a more projected sound, basically. Um so to narrow the the vocal tract um and to project sound more effectively. Um we see twang used in lots of different places, of course, in singing, but also in accents. So in the American accent, um we see a lot of twang in the Australian accent, we see lots of twang, but of course, even so I'm I hail from Leeds uh in Yorkshire, and we see a lot of twang in that accent as well. But the common thread is that twang helps us to achieve an acoustic boost of up to 20 decibels without any perceived vocal more vocal effort because again, it's happening above vocal fold level. As I say, there is some fan of some fascinating research coming out right now that is showing us that what we believed about exactly how it is produced, um, that has changed. Um, but the effect is still the same. So, in terms of teaching that, I will often go to, you know, oh my god, hey, hi. I will often go to those places um and demonstrate that and then try to put that on the musical phrases again, imitation, big gats being able to actually act to access something. So so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:10

So it sounds it sounds like a more sort of fake sound. Is that basically what twang is? It's a bit more, it's that kind of pop sound that we hear artists uh when they do those sort of vocal gymnastics. Is that what twang is? Talk to me about what twang actually is.

SPEAKER_00 33:28

Well, I don't think it's a fake sound because it's produced by our bodies. So uh ergo. It is a very natural, unauthentic sound.

SPEAKER_01 33:37

But is it trying to sound like something else rather than your sort of natural voice? I what I'm trying to do is try and get a sort of a sort of definition for our listeners. Um and I I don't want to give the answer. I want I want to I want to hear them hear it from an expert.

SPEAKER_00 33:53

I understand that. It is so it is not trying to sound like something else. What it is is modifying the the steering wheel, let's say, the way that we shape our sound. You know, we we have let's let's think about it. So our larynx, our vocal folds, they're vibrating together. Well, that is the engine, isn't it? That is what is taking the air, or in the singer's case, the fuel, and turning it into something. Um so if our larynx is the engine, then our vocal tract, which is everything from the top of our larynx to the edge of our lips, well, that is the steering wheel of the voice. That is how we shape our sound. And it can be bright and let's say um uh twangy, or it can also be dark and rich. And depending on on how we modify the shaping of our vocal tract, uh, that's the different sounds that we get. And to go back to your initial question, there was a time so early on that when I heard music uh popular music um and was translating it into choirs, because we get uh a lot of American artists, so we tend to have this transatlantic sort of accent in a lot of popular music, I was leaning towards Twang quite heavily in the sense of my choirs. Whereas more recently, as I think I've become more educated myself and just gained more experience, I've realized that you know, pop music, as traditional choral music does and as musical theater does, you know, successful singing, successful music actually makes use of all of those different sounds, all of the different twists and turns that we can do with that steering wheel of the voice. So I love, love, love with my choirs, empowering them to go, look, you can make a rich sound by changing the shape of your mouth, by changing the position of your tongue, um, by changing the position of your lips. You can also make a much darker and richer sound, you can add more of these frequencies, you know, and then the real kind of vocal alchemy, let's call it, as a director, is then if you can get everybody in a section or everybody in your choir singing the same vowel in the same way, then that's when that's when magic starts to happen. But in order to do that, you've got to empower your singers to go, look at this control you have, you know. Yes, you have your engine making, you know, making the making the sound happen, but then the way that you shape your sound, we are so in control of that resonating chamber, you know, and the a Strativarius violin is a beautiful instrument, but it is crafted once and then it is that shape. We can change our vocal tract in a million different ways, second by second. And how amazing is that?

SPEAKER_01 36:46

Yeah, yeah, it really is. We have we have we have completely complete control over our instrument. Um, it's a great, it's a great thing. You you work with a lot of choirs, and you are a choir director yourself, of course, of your own choirs, which have had uh tremendous success. So we've we've seen them on TV, we've seen you on Britain's Got Talent, um, you you do competitions, you do some amazing performances. Do you have a kind of favorite type of performance you enjoy most and why?

Chasing The 100% Performance

SPEAKER_00 37:16

Well, I live my life at 100%. That's the way that I approach life. Is if I'm going to go and do something, then I am gonna do my best to give a hundred percent. And those are the choir performances that I enjoy the most, is where everybody is locked in and where everyone is giving a hundred percent. To be honest, that's what makes choirs so wonderful. If as a director you can encourage your singers to give their a hundred percent, now that might be different for everybody, that might be a hundred percent of focus to the music, a hundred percent focus to their technique, or it might be a hundred percent focus to the message and to the storytelling, but whatever it is, it's a hundred percent. And um, those are the those are the performances that that excite me. You know, the performances where we go to to the edge of what is possible for every singer in that in that space. Um, I remember one particular performance uh when my choir from uh Leeds Conservatoire was privileged enough to be invited to sing at the Royal Albert Hall as part of an amazing gospel event called How Sweet the Sound. And I think because we were so engrossed in the preparation for it, I didn't really think about what that would mean until we stepped on stage. Um we were so engrossed in making the music as perfect as it could be, and making the arrangement as excited as it as exciting as it could be, shaping the the sound and and and uh making uh our singing as be as as perfect as it could be, then I didn't really think about what it would mean to perform at the Royal Albert Hall, and I certainly didn't think about what it would mean for those young people until we stepped on stage, and the moment we stepped on stage, I was like, oh hang on a minute, we're about to have a bucket list moment, aren't we? And we were fortunate enough to have a beautiful piece of music, an incredibly intense piece of music, um, by Richard Smallwood called Total Praise, a song very much, at least for me, about giving thanks. And myself and those 60 young people stood on stage and we gave thanks for the opportunity for that moment in life and for just having just just being there together. And when we sang the final Amen, anyone that knows that song will know it finishes with an incredible uh build, crescendo of Amen. And as we sang the last Amen, both myself and 60 singers, I I saw a good percentage of them shed a tear. And I was like, and and I saw all of them throw their bodies, throw their spirits, throw their voices into that last moment, and I was like, okay, this was a moment. This was a performance, and it's those, it's those types of things that I try, I try to get out of every performance is those 100% occasions.

Closing Thanks And Listener Requests

SPEAKER_01 40:37

I can believe that. That you know, those bucketless moments don't come along too often, but when they do, they're so, so special. We've had we've had a few of those ourselves working together when we worked in Berlin. And you know, uh it's uh it's it's always a pleasure talking with you, Kate, uh with Craig. And I I I never get never get tired. You've you've always got something invaluable and fantastically interesting to talk about. Thank you so much for spending the time with me today. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you, Rustal. The amazing Craig Leeds. What a great guy, and uh we're so proud to have him as our brand ambassador for the World Voices Festival. Thank you so much for listening to the Choir Director Podcast. It's been wonderful having you here today. And if you found today's conversation valuable, please take a moment to leave us a rating and review. It genuinely helps us to reach more choir directors and grow this community together. And don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. And if you know a fellow director who'd benefit from today's conversation or any of the amazing guests we've had on the show, please share it with them. It means the world to us and it could make a huge difference to them. To stay connected between episodes so you never miss a thing and receive exclusive content. Do join our mailing list. The link is in the show notes. And if you have a question about today's topic or any of the topics that we're covering, perhaps a question to our guest or something you'd love us to explore in a future episode, you can email the studio or leave us a voicemail. Both links are waiting for you in the show notes. Well, thanks again for being part of the Claude Directors podcast. I'm Russell Scott, and until next time, goodbye.