Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_00 0:04

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. Well, a warm welcome back to the show, the choir director podcast, with me, Russell Scott. This is episode 24. And on today's show, I'm joined by the amazing Dr. Michael Joseph Barrett, South African choral conductor, educator, and composer. Best known for his years leading the acclaimed Tux Camarata at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. And in this episode, we talk about authenticity and what it actually means when you start programming music from different cultures. The practical rehearsal tools that build rhythmic unity and stylistic confidence, and how choir directors can approach this music with both excellence and respect. If you want to create ideas, you can take straight into the rehearsal room. You're gonna love this conversation. Please welcome to the show, Michael Joseph Barrett.

Moving Countries And Finding Fit

SPEAKER_00 1:10

A very warm welcome, Michael. It's such a pleasure to have you on the show today. Thank you so much for joining me all the way from Australia, originally from South Africa. I can't wait to talk about All Things Choir because there's so many changes in culture here. So just tell us a little bit about you and where you are and what you're doing. And I know the listeners here are going to be thrilled to hear all about you today.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

Well, thanks, Russell. It's uh wonderful to be here on your podcast. And uh hello to all the listeners out there. Um yes, I I'm in Sydney at the moment for work, but I I moved to Melbourne a year ago. And as you kindly said, I'm originally a conductor and composer from South Africa, um from Pretoria at the University of Pretoria and uh conductor for 12 years of the the wonderful University of Pretoria, Tux Camarata. Um and yes, uh we've I I've we've moved here just a year ago and enjoying the good Aussie weather, and uh I've seen a couple of kangaroos, so it's been it's been good.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

Is there a big is it is it has it been a big culture shock to you? Is there a big cultural change? Is there a shift?

SPEAKER_01 2:14

No, I mean it's so many things are so similar here. Um I I know a lot of um people that have left South Africa um for work or for whatever the case might be. My family, for example, I have many brothers and they've moved to Europe and all of them complain about the the really different culture, especially with regards to the weather. Um and Australia is very similar in the States that our weather is the same, or the weather is the same here. Um the culture is the same, English is the main language. We eat pretty much the same food. We like to bry or barbecue as they call it. Um, we even do the same sports in that. So, I mean, both are countries that were colonized by the British, so there's many similarities from that point of view. Um, and uh uh but other than that, I mean, from a cultural point of uh perspective, it is definitely a different culture. I mean, but by no means, South Africans and Australians are not the same people. Um, but it was easier to acclimatize here because there are so many important uh similarities with regards to uh uh you know culture and you know the way things work.

SPEAKER_00 3:19

One of

What Makes South African Choir Sound

SPEAKER_00 3:20

the things that I'm intrigued about um is the sound because the South African choral sound is very unique. Um, you have some incredible choirs, incredible music in South Africa, as as you know, some some of which you've conducted and some of which which you've composed, but it's it's a very different sound to perhaps a more westernized sound, uh being US or European. And I suspect the same in Australia, especially with the change of of vowel sounds. How have you found that shift?

SPEAKER_01 3:51

Yeah, so uh that is the the biggest um change for me, uh biggest uh uh difference, really. Um, and one of the biggest challenges that we have, one of the beautiful things that we had in South Africa is that everybody sings in South Africa. It's very much a singing culture, not only because it's culturally ingrained in us, but it's kind of been the product of our context in South Africa, where it's not an affluent society, it's not an affluent country by any by any means. So there isn't money for orchestras and violins and instruments that cost money, but your voice is free and it's there. So people have to make music in some kind of way, and that's that has been the African way forever and still is. Whereas here in Australia, uh it's so wonderful to see you come here, Australia, and almost every school kid here is playing an orchestral instrument. Um, so there's huge every school has an orchestra, and there are violin players and oboe players all over the place, which is so unusual, especially at school level from a South African perspective. But that's had the opposite effect, yeah, because there aren't many choirs. So there's more people playing instruments because it's cooler to play instruments here, whereas cultural singing is not really a big thing here in Australia. Or it's not as as big as it would be in South Africa, but South Africa is unique in that kind of way. And from the sound perspective, you're right. Uh, South Africa has a unique sound because it's got so many different cultures. So having so many different people singing in so many different ways, speaking so many different languages, once it comes together and you've molded each, you know, kind of sound to create kind of some kind of compromise in the sound, you get this really incredibly beautiful South African sound, which is resonant and rich and complex, and it's like colors that you you didn't know that you had. Achieving that kind of really special sound is really difficult because you've got so many people that say the R vowel differently or speak different languages. Whereas here in Australia, everybody speaks the same language. They only speak English in that, and so it's easy to to fix from that point of view, but it does lack that that colour, that real distinct colour that that that that that that South African choirs are so well known for having.

SPEAKER_00 6:04

Is that from is that from a physical production of the sound of creating those vowels and singing them in a certain way?

SPEAKER_01 6:12

Or is it something very different?

SPEAKER_00 6:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:14

No, it it would be a combination of many things. So, firstly, the pronunciation, of course, but there is definitely a different um a different technical way of singing, especially for the traditional African culture. It's a very, very unique kind of cultural sound, um, that is more uh uh it's kind of more guttural, it's really more raw, um, it's really more it's connected in many ways and far more forward in in the facial mask than than we would have for you know your typical Western singing, which is kind of more to the center and very tall. Um, so yeah, from that point of view, you definitely have that. You also have, I mean, it's we don't want to um uh uh um uh uh yeah, what's the word? Um generalize. We don't want to generalize in saying that it's all exactly X, Y, and Z, but there is definitely a very, very unique um uh uh uh sound from the African culture. I mean the Afrikaans culture in South Africa has a very specific way of speaking, so their sound is very much inner or in the mouth because the language is spoken in the mouth, it's very European in that way. Of course, we know um uh how the English speak in that, and um, and of course, the African sounds, the different languages are quite far forward in the mouth, very pure um vowel speaking, so very much like the Italians. But that's also then um uh supported by very different passages and ranges, you know, where the the belting sound or the the the much higher register is pushed in African culture, where it isn't so much in the Western culture, where the flip over to the head voice is uh is more natural and more normal, um, or is we do it more often.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

So tell us about your your choirs in South Africa and and the the the way that you were working chorally

Technique Behind Cultural Vocal Colours

SPEAKER_00 8:00

in South Africa and how it will change now that you've moved away. How will that effect uh take hold?

SPEAKER_01 8:40

Well, uh I mean in terms of the choirs that I had, um, I don't think much is going to change in the sense that we've got excellent people that are taking over from me, um, which is wonderful for the university, especially. Um, but I mean in terms of how it would uh how it would change that I've gone or how it did change. What and what's the one?

SPEAKER_00 9:00

Now that you're now that you're moving somewhere else, obviously you're gonna be taking away all the the methods and and practices and tips and and everything you you used in South Africa, you're now gonna apply it to a completely different culture. That's gonna be a fascinating exploration, I should imagine.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

So, yeah, so and uh I'm actually at the moment I'm on a camp in Sydney um uh uh four uh singers, and it's a it's a week-long camp and and working with them. And I have realized that um, I mean, like every country in the world, I'm privileged to have traveled and worked with many, many wonderful choirs um in Europe, in Asia, uh in the Americas. I I really have been very, very uh blessed in that way. And one of the most wonderful things is that every culture is different and they approach things differently. Some of my tricks, if I can call it, work more successfully in certain cultures than they do in other cultures. That's just how it is. And I have to, I have to find because I'm not I'm not uh a guest conductor in Australia, I'm a resident here. So this is now where I I, you know, it's sometimes very easy to go in for four days and leave, and then you go back home and people find you charming or whatever. But it to sustain that, you've really got to understand the culture. And the culture here is very, is very different to Australia from a from a balanced point of view. So again, there's there's no right or wrong here. Australians have really found a very clever medium to balance in life. So um in South Africa, South Africans work incredibly hard. I mean, we're talking morning till night kind of thing. So it's not unusual to have three, four, five choir rehearsals every week. And if you don't attend those choir rehearsals, you're kicked out. I mean, we're talking weekend camps that are high-end and you have to go to rehearsals every two and a half hours, twice a week at least, extra rehearsals. And if you're not there, you get kicked out, and it's really kind of very structured and it's almost harsh in a in a kind of way. But through that continuous practice and that dedication in that, you achieve excellence. You really achieve excellence pretty quickly. So it's a constant working model. Where here in Australia, they've they've really found a way to create balance in life that you don't, because sometimes we work too hard in many cultures. We're here, they've created kind of like a balance where there are rules and it's become cultural rules where you, for example, don't have school choirs rehearsing at nighttime. It's just you don't have that. Like school is you either have quiet during break time in in a quiet time, but there's no such thing as rehearsing really. Not not the it's not the norm to have rehearsal weekends or you know, rehearse at night time, uh, you know, have two rehearsals a week is also quite unheard of, it's quite unusual. Yeah, one rehearsal is more than enough. And that kind of is a is a very different way of doing things. So when working with you know singers and that, it's not just about sound and that, it's about how you approach and how you can demand excellence from them without you know becoming across as too demanding, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 12:05

That must be a real a real culture shock, though, because from from one perspective, I I love the idea of you're not allowed to miss a rehearsal. I mean, we must all, as choir conductors, like that because it means you've got consistency and continuity throughout, no one's allowed off the off the scene. Um, you know, you get things done. But as you say, on uh from another perspective, that work-life balance and that intensity can't necessarily be healthy for everyone.

SPEAKER_01 12:33

Yeah, and finding the middle path is is really the trick. Uh and I mean

Rehearsal Demands And Life Balance

SPEAKER_01 12:38

that's I don't think there really is a middle path because by nature, people don't tell the truth. Let's be honest. I mean, we deal with all kinds of people, and whether they use white lies or you know, excuses to miss rehearsals and stuff like that, not to hurt your feelings. People are people, you know, they do what they want. And um, you know, people have different priorities at different times. I mean, I always find that my singers, I want them to be as dedicated as me to every single thing, but it's just not like that. I mean, they I mean, of course, many of them are, but to convince them to to give as much energy as we do to the rehearsal is really the trick that we want to do. And finding that balance is so incredibly important for many reasons. The problem is if you go over too much to the one side, you become a dictator. You know, you become really kind of a harsh kind of conductor, and you could you could kind of be mean. And if you go too much to the other side, then you lack discipline and then you never get to a stage where the choir can really be the best version of themselves. And for me, the danger leading over to that side is something that I've steer my entire life away from, and that is mediocrity. I really think that mediocrity is the is is really, for want of a better word, the cancer of the world that we live in. Just to just to exist for the sake of it, you know, and not to find the beauty in absolutely everything you do, whether it's talking on a podcast or having a cup of coffee or singing a good note. I I that to me is so incredibly important. Um, and I think it's an important life lesson, especially for young singers.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

Do you know that's given me goosebumps? I mean, I uh that because it's like listening to myself now, because I I'm exactly like that. I'm hugely passionate and I put everything into everything I do. So there's never there is never any any room for mediocracy whatsoever. We either do something to the to the best of our ability or we don't do it. And if I can't put a hundred percent into something, I don't. And everybody that's I think ever worked with me will know that I am so unbelievably committed in the moment.

SPEAKER_01 14:42

Um and I find it it's the sorry, it's the uh it's the whole age of Carpidian. Seize the moment, seize the day, like everything that you do. And I I try to explain it to so many people, it's not just about a rehearsal, it's everything that you do. If you're gonna have a cup of coffee, man, you've got to enjoy that cup of coffee. I mean, just see it for what it is. That coffee is your lifeblood in the morning, it's that. If you're gonna see a sunrise, enjoy that moment, you know. All too often we're worrying so much about the past and the present that we forget to live in the moment and to live it to its absolute fullest. I mean, life is just so much, so much easier if we just enjoy every moment.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

And I think I think what what's interesting about that is that when you are so passionate, not everyone understands it. Not everyone gets you. Not not everyone understands why you're so intense and why you're giving it 100%, because they perhaps can't relate to that or or don't do it themselves. And I find it, I'm sure many, many choir directors do, as I'm sure you probably do as well, is that we we get frustrated when people are not as on board as we are with something. And I think it's it's very difficult at that point. Well, why don't people just do this? You know, I'm giving everything here. Why are you not giving everything here? I think I think it's really tricky to have that balance, but I also think it's very tricky. It's interesting something else you just said, which which is to be present, to be in the moment. It's something I'm continually telling myself because life is so busy. Life is busy at home with family, with friends, with social, with travel, and all the other passions that we have outside of our work. My work, I always feel is part of my life. This is what I am, this is who I am, this is what I do. We are creatives, and I love to be present because I and I look ex- I look forward and excited to all the different projects I'm doing. But it's very different, difficult, I think, to always be present because you're always looking onto the next thing and the next thing and the next thing, getting excited about so many different aspects that time just flies, and you look back and you think, Oh, do you remember that? Wow, that was two years ago. Can you believe it? It's it's very difficult, isn't it? You you seem to have mastered this by the sounds of it. Please shed some light on this for me.

SPEAKER_01 16:57

So so it's it's actually an in an African cultural thing uh in many ways. And I've learned so much from from you know being African and and and being a South African, where where there's a real belief in that you you live in the moment. Um we a lot of people call it African time. Uh it's a perfect example where if you come to Africa and people say they're gonna do something at this time and they rock up two hours late. Three. I mean, it's not unusual to have a concert in South Africa and people pitch up before the last song, you know, if they pitch up at all, kind of thing. But the belief here is, and and people that don't understand would think, well, that's so rude. You know, why do you come so late in that? But it isn't, because if you if you understand where where the belief comes from is whatever these people or anybody was doing prior to that, they were living the moment. So they weren't they weren't bound by time, which creates stress in many kinds of ways, because we have to rush from pillar to post in that. Where here, the the concept is enjoy the moment. And if you're enjoying that moment at that point of time, you will move on from that moment when it is time. And that will be that will be deemed by how the conversation goes and things like that. Now, I'm not saying that my choir rehearsals are ever late or that. I mean, we obviously start in time and and whatever the case might be. But what I try to instill in my students or in any singers that I have is that that you have to look at everything with with just open, fresh ideas and and just really live in the moment. And I spoke to the singers that I had today, and I said, you know, you could come into a choir rehearsal and you can uh feel you're all in different spaces. Some of you might have broken up with a significant other or failed

Presence, Passion And Avoiding Mediocrity

SPEAKER_01 18:38

a maths test, or mom and dad were shouting at you, or whatever the case might be. So everybody's in different spaces. And this is why the warm-up or the focus session before every rehearsal is imperative, is because you've got to get everybody into the same kind of space. And ultimately what we're trying to do is we're trying to make people realize that yes, you have your own issues, you have your own successes, your own joys, or whatever the case might be is, but that cannot be solved in this moment in time. So if you failed the test before you worked into this rehearsal, it's still gonna be failed when you leave after the rehearsal. There's nothing you can do about it now. And this is not something new. This is actually the life lessons that I learned from a very, very well-known author and uh uh philosopher, and that's Ecartoly, the power of now. And I remember reading a particular passage where he he, when you go through difficult times, he he tells you to go outside. He gives you those instructions while you're reading the book. I'm not sure if you've read it before, but you go outside and he says, look at the trees. Go outside and look at the tree and look at the leaves. And you read it, and then when you go back to the book, he says, You didn't look at the leaves. And he makes you look at again. He says, Look at the leaves. And then you look and you become like if you really do the exercise, then you start seeing obviously the leaves move slightly. There might, you know, be a bit of wind or a breeze and stuff. And he comes back and he says, You don't see the wind, but there's this incredible power and majesty. And for a moment, focusing on that wind and just seeing the beauty, the beautiful color of the leaves, or whatever you might find, for just a moment, you forgot about your pain, which is past, or your worries, which is future present. I've just broken up with someone and it hurts. I'm gonna be alone for the rest of my life. So that's where the the the construct is is that we bound ourselves or chained ourselves by past and future rather than living in the moment. And that's what I ultimately want them to understand is enjoy the conversation, the person that you have right across you. Enjoy the chord that you're singing right now, enjoy this cup of coffee, because that ultimately is the way to live life. Because life is short, it's ultimately very short, and before you know it, it's gone.

SPEAKER_00 20:47

Yeah. Wow, that's that's heavy. Sorry. But but but just so fascinating to listen to because there is this, you know, this feeling from from people when they think about choir and they think about singing that for those, you know, that that those two hours perhaps that they're in the room singing with other people and sharing the music and sharing what they're doing, they forget everything that's going on outside. You know, you have a tough day in the office, you go, you know, you come home from a a busy life at home and things are a bit crazy, or there's you know, friends and family with illness and and other things that are taking your attention, and you get into that rehearsal room and it disappears for a couple of hours. It's the most wonderful thing.

SPEAKER_01 21:32

You know, I on a personal note, I uh my mother was diagnosed with cancer many years ago. Um, she passed away from cancer um uh after five years. But the day I remember taking her to the doctor and she had back pain, and I was in the doctor's office when the doctor said it's cancer. Um, and that night I had rehearsal, and I went to rehearsal. I mean, it's nothing I could do. I mean, she went home with with my dad and whatever the case might be. And I went to rehearsal, I was I just didn't know what to think about it. And I had a rehearsal, and it was a fantastic rehearsal, and I had such a good time. And when I got back in the car afterwards, I felt incredibly guilty because I was like, should I not be sad for this difficult news and stuff like that? But it made me realize that it's not what life is about. I mean, you you don't have to, you know, you know, take depression with you wherever the case might be. It's the cards my my mother was dealt, and we dealt with it. And, you know, we did the best that we possibly can. But, you know, music does that. It heals us and it and it finds that place for us to be able to really just you know just escape from everything. And that's what makes it so incredibly powerful. It's something that we need more in the world than ever before. Our students are struggling all over the world, you know, with depression and uh to connect and understanding the way that the world works. I mean, students are so withdrawn um from every culture in the world, you know. They they they seem to be quite lost. And of course, what's going on with pandemics and wars and all of that just makes the world seem like an incredibly scary place. And ironically, this is when we cut funding for the arts, when we should be investing in it threefold. Um, that's just the truth.

SPEAKER_00 23:12

Well, there's another conversation that could be had with for hours. Probably it's uh it's an unbelievable thing because you know, in this country actually, in the UK, we've our our choral uh environment has grown enormously over the last 10 to 15 years. You know, choirs are everywhere, and it's a wonderful thing because it's getting more people singing and it's getting and it's making singing really cool. It's a good thing to do. It's not something that people associate with, oh, it's just for old people or people that just sing in church, or you know, there's it's opening people's eyes to um communities all around the world that are singing. We're not just this island that is detached from everything else, it's making the world smaller in many ways because we're appreciating and watching, and social media has been a great help to that for the good things that it does. It's it's amazing to be able to watch other choirs and from all over the world and really understand one of the things I love is to work with international choral directors and conductors and other choirs. And I tour a lot with my choirs because we love working with other choirs and other choir directors because we learn so much and we we grow as people by experiencing these things together. So, whether it's through you know a festival or a competition or a tour uh or even just some social travel where you end up singing somewhere, it's all a wonderful, wonderful thing that we're being part of now. And I just I I would love just to see that continued growth uh across all societies, not just not just here uh and in the UK and and and uh US and everywhere. You know, it it needs to be from the whole world because there's such a big culture in Asia as well. But I think in the Western world we don't appreciate that because we don't know enough about it, and we need to open our eyes a little bit more and see what's out there and work with with more choirs from far across the world.

SPEAKER_01 25:04

Absolutely. And you know, it's not just I mean, you're talking about growth the whole time, but for your listeners to understand, it's not just about musical growth, it's about people growth. It's really about understanding and celebrating. Because what happens is you go to these festivals and you know, you meet someone from a culture that you know very little bit about, or you might have heard on the news that this country's not great and stuff like that, because social media is, of

Why Singing Heals In Hard Times

SPEAKER_01 25:28

course, never lies, or you know, the news is always so trustworthy. But but the point is that you then meet people from a country um and from a culture, and you fall in love with the human side of them, and then you make your own educated assumption because you've experienced it. And what it teaches us is not just empathy in that, but it teaches us to celebrate our differences. That's ultimately what we need to in the world is celebrate being different and being ourselves and unique. And and through that, I mean, you go to these festivals and these choir competitions or whatever the case might be. I've never ever spoken to a student that said, What was the highlight of the two? And they said, hoisting the trophy when we won this competition. Nobody's ever said that. They will talk about when they met in that choir or they traveled on the bus with those people, or that friendship concert with this one, or that food that they ate that was culturally. It's that kind of experience that we need more of. And I think that's where, you know, these policymakers that have pulled all the strings in our governments and that, that's where they miss the boat because, you know, they think it's all just classical music and it's all kind of for a select kind of it's not about that. It is really about building bridges for conversation between people that are vastly so different. And Asia's a perfect example. I mean, what incredible music is going on here in Asia and Southeast Asia. I mean, music that you've never heard of before, like uh incredible rhythmical. I mean, um, Hu Wong uh Wu uh jumps to mind from South Korea, where she's taken South Korean um rhythms and and harmonies and that and mashed it up with Western, kind of Western styles and that, creating this new incredibly beautiful fusion music between Western and and Korean music. And it's it's so accessible and it's it's fantastic. And we should do more things like that because the world is an incredibly small place at the end of the day, and we should just really get to know more about each other.

SPEAKER_00 27:25

And yeah, and as I said, for from a personal standpoint, working with my own choirs, traveling has and to our tours have been one of the most successful uh and most bonding experiences for the choir, regardless of whether of competition, everything. You know, it's not about that, is it? As you say, it's it's about coming together. And I think there's a little bit of um blindness, and I think there's a little bit of ignorance, and I don't I don't mean that from uh as a really derogatory um word. What I mean by that is that there are a lot of people that don't know what goes on outside of their own town, outside of their own cities, outside of their own counties, outside of their own countries, because they're very focused on the moment with their group in their area. And I think there is so much that can be gained from looking further afield. Now it doesn't need to be the other side of the world. It can be very it could be in the same country, but you know, I would always say don't be scared of travel and don't be scared of of trying to form a a tour or an overnight stay somewhere or something. A lot of choirs just have never done it. Um, and as I said, it's for for us it's one of the most exciting, exciting things. You know, we've done stuff all over the UK, but we've been to, you know, we've been to the US, we've been to Germany, we've sung at the Berlin Philharmonic, we've we've done some amazing things, and I've just been invited to conduct in Hong Kong next year. And the first thing I wanted to do was take the choir with me because this is an incredible opportunity to take to take the major to Asia. So we are heading over to Hong Kong next year for a tour, and it the choir are super, super, super excited about it because they're going to meet other cultures and work with different people, and they'll learn so much. It's it's people need to do more to just try and open their eyes and broaden their horizons.

SPEAKER_01 29:10

Is that the Calvin Lao Festival?

SPEAKER_00 29:13

It's not.

SPEAKER_01 29:14

Oh, which are you allowed to say which festival it is?

SPEAKER_00 29:17

It's not a festival. We're working with a with an orchestra, which I've been invited to conduct. So it's a concert.

SPEAKER_01 29:21

That's incredible. They're gonna love it. Hong Kong's I mean, you've been, I'm sure, to Hong Kong. It's a beautiful, beautiful place.

SPEAKER_00 29:26

So I've never seen I can't wait.

SPEAKER_01 29:28

A lot of people. Great, great, great, great place. No, you'll really love it. Uh, there's so many wonderful festivals in Hong Kong and uh all over the place. So, I mean, it's really also a bustling place for choral music, and everybody sings in Hong Kong as well. They've got incredible choirs there, it's wonderful, really wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 29:47

Yeah, really excited about that. So let's talk about talk about the rehearsal room now, because obviously we've we've spoken about travel a lot and and uh and communities and societies and and our culture. But what about your compositions and your composing and your style? And of course, when you're in the rehearsal room, uh you are, you know, you're very um well, you're very known, you're very renowned for getting great things out of choirs. Tell us tell us a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_01 30:15

Thank you. So, I mean, from a composition point of view, I from a very young age, um I went to the Drakensburg Boys Choir. And when we were there um at school, we we uh had to study Zulu, which is the biggest spoken language in in South Africa by by a large uh large margin. More than half of South Africans can understand Zulu. Um, so it is really, I think if my memory serves me correctly, about 35% speak it as a home language, but more than 50% can understand it because you know it's uh it's understandable between several of the African cultures. Now, South Africa has 12 official languages, of which nine are traditional black languages. You have English and Afrikaans, which are of European descent, and sign language is an official language in South Africa. So in many ways, we are quite far ahead um uh with things like that. So I studied Zulu at school, and that's where my passion, and of course, being in the Drakensburg Boys Choir, I always joke we did Palestrina by day and we did Shoshaloza by night, kind of thing. So we had this rich upbringing of you know Western and African music. And as I developed my style, now obviously I I learned to compose and I don't know, more Western kind of way, because there wasn't really a way to compose in an

Travel As Musical And Human Growth

SPEAKER_01 31:28

African kind of way because it's more kind of orally passed down, or it was for a long time. But now it's obviously being written down and people are making it more accessible for the rest of the world. And what I love to do was I love to write traditional music, South African music, that is no, not neither African or traditional or Western, but kind of a combination in between, which I like to call South African music. So it leans to both worlds. It's the best of, you know, kind of Western um ideologies and traditional African ideologies and putting it together to create this fusion type music, if you want, for a better word. And it's been, it wasn't done by me first. A lot of composers before me did it, where they would write in a European style, adding, you know, kind of African sounds to the music. You know, really well-known composers did that from Peter Louis van Dijk to Peter Klatzo to Hendrik Hoffmayer to a lot of them did that. Um, but when I came in, I took it, I didn't take it from the you know, the European Western side and add African flavor. I took the African music and I made it Western. So I did it the other way around. So um, and that was really a big passion of mine and a passion project, something that I've dedicated a large part of my life to. And a lot of composers are doing it now. And what's really wonderful is through the camerata and um teaching at the university, there are so many wonderful traditional conductors that are now writing beautiful Western music that has that is is really taking over by storm, and that's wonderful because we want more and more people to write wonderful music. So we have have such wonderful um new music coming through. And with regards to the rehearsals and that, I'm incredibly passionate about knowing everything about what I want to teach them in a day. In saying that I don't always know everything, but I pride myself in going to a rehearsal being incredibly well prepared, never being behind a piano in South Africa. We don't have the luxury of having a companist with us, that's just unheard of. Here in Australia, it's a whole other it's wonderful. You have many to choose from and tutors, and so it's it's really great. So you see, there's there's benefits to both sides. Um, but going to the rehearsals in that I I really want them to understand the essence of the music, the integrity behind what the composer um wants to do. So here in Sydney at the moment, with the choir I'm doing, Jake Renostadt's um very well-known Please Stay, which was based on uh messages during a campaign of depression. Um, you know, young people that have terrible, terrible depression, and he wrote it in at a very important time. And that's a theme here that's so important. I mean, it's important amongst all young people, but just getting them to understand that we all have challenges in life and we all go through difficult times. And for those of us that haven't experienced depression at a young age, that's absolutely fantastic. But you need to understand that there are people that really deal with it, and you might have experienced this. So going to find in the music the part, I mean, I when we listen to music, I'm sure it's the same for you when it's new composers and new compositions. I listen to music, and there's that part in the music that makes me realize I have to do this piece. That is the part that I teach first. I want them to feel that same kind of wow. And you don't necessarily get that by doing the whole piece from beginning to end, especially if you're quite an sight reader. That so I go to that part, it could be as beautiful as just a chord, and I make them sing that chord and I make them sing it incredibly beautiful. I could spend 10 minutes on just one chord, making sure the vowel is absolutely perfect, until it fills everybody in the room with that kind of oh wow, like what just happened. And once they feel that, I put the music away and do something else.

SPEAKER_00 35:09

And that's all so that's so engagement is is the most important thing for you. It's it's feet it's getting that in immediate buy. You have to get it immediately.

Writing South African Fusion Choral Music

SPEAKER_01 35:18

Absolutely. They have to buy into it. If they don't buy to and from the beginning, you you're not gonna get it later. That's my uh first step is for them to believe and understand that this is gonna be life-changing for them. As silly as it might sound, but it is. Every piece of music is life-changing in so many ways. Um, and that's what I want them to do. And I want them to connect on a personal level to it. Whatever the song is, we can connect to it in any kind of way. We all know someone that has gone through something, or whatever the case might be, whether it's about joy or love or sadness or heartbreak or death or whatever the case might be. We want people to connect and we want them to be able to bring their own experience to the music because then it is meaningful to them, and that meaning translates to everybody that wants to hear it.

SPEAKER_00 36:04

And do you think we can do that with all music, with all styles of music and all music?

SPEAKER_01 36:08

Absolutely everything. Absolutely everything. There is a way to find it, even if it's music without words or nonsense music, or there's ways to do it. I mean, it's just it's just gotta find it. That's exactly what it's pictures.

SPEAKER_00 36:22

Was was do we do we do this, you know, with with the words first? Do we take the words, do we take the meaning? Or do we go back, do we look at it? Is it the musical director's job to go back and look at how it was written, why it was written, what it means, and then to relay that to our choirs? Is that the first priority?

SPEAKER_01 36:40

So I think it it all depends. I mean, there's I don't want to be the one to say that there's one way to do it all, but I think every piece of music is is different. So, for example, if you're going to look at a kirier, which is a standard text, you're gonna approach it very differently to something that's based on a poem. So that's I think that's important. So there's different strokes for every piece and different ideas, and finding those different nuances is really, really important. So let's give me a perfect example. When I teach African music, the first thing that I do is I teach them to sing because they love to sing, not because somebody taught them how to sing well. That's difference. You know, that's a Western kind of approach. We write music so it can perform beautifully on a stage for people to pay money to see. That's kind of the Western world in a very short kind of you know, snooty kind of way of saying it. In the traditional African world, it's music that's supposed to be shared. It's supposed to be community, it's supposed to be everybody should want to do it. So when I teach African music, the first, whether it's acquired from America, the UK, here in Australia, that I teach them to sing because they love to sing, not because some so we want that kind of shower singing, for want of a better word. That honest kind of singing. It doesn't matter what you sound like. Of course, we mold it around that. But we want you to understand that music's context comes from community. We sing because we love to sing, not because someone taught to sing. And that approach is very different, and that changes the way that you sing the music and the sound. Then I'll put those two pieces together in a concert program where you have this Western approach and this African approach, and immediately your audience and your singers have a completely different color and experience of the music, which changes. And then people are like, How do you get the sound to change from one piece? Every piece sounds different. And I bring it all down to everything that I bring down to from my experience is the amount of effort that we as conductors do before the time. Historically, the research, how we go down the rabbit hole, how much do we want to pull a piece apart to really understand what the composer's intentions were, and we're never gonna know if they're dead. We can do all the research that we want, but to create our own kind of avenues with what is available and making it suit the context of the singers at the moment is to me so critically, critically important.

SPEAKER_00 38:52

Yeah, I don't, and that's that's all down to interpretation, and that's that's the exciting part, I think, for for us as conductors. I think um it's the the tricky thing, and this is I'm I'm interested to ask you about this. The tricky thing is, you know, uh choir singers don't really always appreciate how much work goes into to putting it together, to preparing for that rehearsal, or preparing for that piece, or preparing for a project or an event, etc. Okay, there's huge amounts of work. Um choir directors generally are experts in what they do. That's what they do, that's what they're paid to do, or that's what they do because they love doing. But that's what we do, and we can't always get everybody on board, and we've we spoke

Building Instant Buy In In Rehearsal

SPEAKER_00 39:28

about this earlier. How do you you know get a piece of music which you you've bought into, you've chosen it because you love it, you've chosen it because you're passionate about it, or you've been given it and you've found elements of it that you love and that you've you've connected with and engaged with, but there's always gonna be choir members, there are gonna be always gonna be singers out there that just don't like something, they don't like a style of music, a genre of music, a piece. Ooh, I don't like this piece, oh I don't like that piece. And over time, perhaps they've learned to love it and it's grown on them. And I've had this experience uh with music from Stephen Sondheim. I remember uh giving giving a choir some Sondheim and them going, Oh goodness, what on earth is this? This is horrible. But actually, the more they sang it, they loved it and ended up being one of the fat you know the most loved pieces they've ever done. But there are still always people that don't like some pieces, and those pieces those people are gonna say, Well, I'll give it my best, I'll try as hard as I can to do it, but you know deep down they're not feeling it. How do we get over that barrier when we're trying to hold a group together and to perform as a choir and communicate this amazing music when they're not actually feeling it, not a hundred percent of them.

SPEAKER_01 40:35

So I think you've said a lot of it, and I mean it's the same for all of us. I I've done music before that has been so incredibly difficult and challenging for the kamerata, where in the beginning they must have thought I was absolutely crazy. But again, it's like it's like anything. I wouldn't have done that in the first month of being the conductor of camerata. They had to learn to trust me. It's like children. You know, you have to give them what they like before you can they can trust you to dry broccoli or something else. It's exactly the same way. And it's gonna be hit and miss, even with a child. I mean, they'll end up eating most vegetables one day, but might not have a taste for olives or whatever. There's always gonna be that kind of one piece and stuff like that. Um, the trick is to make sure that you win over the vast majority of the singers, because even then the experience for those that aren't there in the moment will be fine. I mean, you can't you can't solve everybody's problems in in in that kind of way. But I've I've really I've really built this kind of like trust with my singers, which I think is so incredibly important, where they will go out on a ledge for you and they will trust you. And more often than not, they come back and they say, that piece was incredibly hard, but it was incredibly rewarding. Um, I found that more often than not, I mean, in the beginning, if I have to kind of put like a very quick time-lapse photography, like in the beginning, you teach them like a pop song, etc., etc., you know, because then they come to the party and then you do a little bit of like if we love me, Thomas Dallas, which is kind of classical but very accessible, and then you get more and more complicated as you go down the road. And I remember doing a pop song down the road and stuff again. They looked at me weird, like they become so snobbish. Like, why do we want to sing one, four, five, one music? So, you know, you learn with these kind of things and and how it's how it's hit and miss in that. I think at the end of the day, you also you just have to ensure that, you know, you're winning them over as best as you possibly can. And I think if you take the time to really know your singers on a personal level, that's also really important to me, especially when you have a choir. It's not easy, it's not possible really when you do these very short workshops um all over the place. But when you have a choir and stuff like that and genuinely caring about them makes the world of difference. They will do anything for you if you genuinely care about them. How's mom and dad? You know, you know, how did the tests go today? Uh, you know, happy birthday or whatever the case might be. That genuine interest in your students and getting to know them on a personal level, that social capital and that human kind of level of connecting with each other, they will love anything that you tell them to love. They will. And even if they don't, they will fake it until they make it because they care and respect so much for you. Because when we do our jobs really well, we become important figures for our singers, you know, and of all ages, of absolutely all ages. They look up to us as leaders, of spiritual leaders, of musical leaders, of pastoral care people that really have a positive effect on their lives. And I think that's an incredibly powerful responsibility that that we have.

SPEAKER_00 43:32

Yeah, Michael, it's it's been such a pleasure talking with you today. I mean, I could talk with you for hours. I mean, it's it's the I love the authenticity about everything you're doing and the care and the passion you have. I think it's it's wonderful. And I can't wait to, I know you're incredibly busy and

Trust, Taste And Winning The Room

SPEAKER_00 43:48

sought after, but I can't wait to see what's next, especially with all the work, great work you're doing in Australia. Thank you so much for uh spending the time with me today.

SPEAKER_01 43:57

Thank you, Russell. I appreciate you very much.

SPEAKER_00 44:02

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 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

Ratings, Subscribing And Staying Connected

SPEAKER_00 44:40

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 on 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 Choir Director Podcast. I'm Russell Scott, and until next time, goodbye.