Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to the Choir Directors 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 to the choir director podcast. With me, Russell Scott. This is episode 32, and today's guest is Dr. Francis Katalina, Vietnamese American conductor and director of choral activities at the University of Memphis. Francis is known for bringing a story-first approach to choral music and for a rehearsal process built on meticulous preparation, so ensemble time can be spent shaping sound and meaning. And in this episode, we talk about narrative and performance, storytelling, choreography, and everything in between. It's an incredible interview, really about building healthy rehearsal culture and very, very high standards. Please welcome Francis Kathlena.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm thrilled to be here.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

Now I I'd love to start with just uh just hearing a little bit about your background and how music came to you and how it was it came into your life and how you've ended

From Viola To Choir Leadership

SPEAKER_00 1:18

up doing all the amazing things that you do that we'll no doubt be talking about during this uh lovely chat today.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

Yeah, happy to share. So uh my f first foray into music was actually on the viola. In fifth grade, I decided to pick up the viola and I started playing, and I played for 12 years. And that was at about 10th grade in high school, I had a friend who was in choir, and I was playing for the musical at time at the time, and they were like, You want to join choir? And uh I thought, you know, I really enjoyed seeing the singers on stage since I was in the pit orchestra. And so I joined choir in my 10th grade year and ended up loving it. And by the time I got to college or or university, then I had to pick between my major instrument being viola or voice. And I ended up picking voice because I loved, you know, the atmosphere of choir. It's a very different personality type than orchestral musicians, and I didn't want to practice as much. But I picked choir and I've been on that route ever since. I did my undergrad at Baylor University. I taught for many years in the public school. Uh I taught elementary for a little bit, and then I also taught high school for a while, and then I got my master's degree from Michigan State, and then I got my doctorate from the University of North Texas. And I've been here at the University of Memphis since then. So this is my sixth year here.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

Wow. It's interesting going from viola because you don't you don't hear of many viola players then going to voice instead. And it's it's often always about the the practicing. Nobody loves practicing instruments, they love singing. You love practicing singing, but no one loves practicing an orchestral instrument.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

And you know, that's just the way it is, isn't it? And you have to love it. I mean, with the amount of hours that you need to put in as a viola major, you have to love the process. And so, you know, there are there are a few people that do love it, and those are the ones that do

Vietnamese Identity And Tonal Language

SPEAKER_01 3:22

really well.

SPEAKER_00 3:23

Make a career, absolutely. Now you come you you come from a Vietnamese background. Um, tell us a little bit about that. Were you born in Vietnam or you were born in in the US?

SPEAKER_01 3:33

Oh, thank you so much for asking. So I'm actually a first-generation Vietnamese American. So my parents came over here from Vietnam by boat, and it's a fascinating story that I'll have to tell you over a drink sometime. But they came over here by boat and then landed in Houston, Texas. And so I grew up speaking Vietnamese as my first language because that was the language that my parents spoke. And then I learned English as a second language through my elementary school, through a program that we call ESL here in the States, and learned English. And after me and my siblings started learning English, I have four siblings. So the five of us started moving the language in the household from predominantly Vietnamese to English. And so I still speak Vietnamese, I'm still fluent in Viet Vietnamese, and um I still speak Vietnamese with my parents, but you know, obviously I use English a significant amount more.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

Did you did you find yourself learning a lot about Vietnamese culture, particularly in the music culture? Because it must differ so much from more westernized music.

SPEAKER_01 4:47

It does differ significantly, and I would say a lot of Vietnamese music is based in like folk traditions and in church settings, is was my foray into it. Because in Vietnam, the two predominant religions are gonna be Catholicism and Buddhism. And so in the Catholic tradition, they use uh a lot of the Vietnamese choirs for that. So that's what I kind of came to know. I would also say it is an interesting approach on choral music because Vietnamese is such a tonal language that singing in Vietnamese can be quite difficult because if you don't pronounce a word a certain way, for example, the word ba and ba mean very different things. One means dad and one means grandma.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

Now hang on, I wasn't listening carefully enough there because they sounded really similar to me.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

I know, I know. They're very similar. So the first one, dad is ba, and then grandma is ba.

SPEAKER_00 5:50

Whoa, that's really sucking.

SPEAKER_01 5:52

Yes. It's extremely subtle, it's a very tonal language, and we use diacritical markings. And um, I actually learned how to read and write Vietnamese by going to Vietnamese school on Saturdays. And so I would go through American public school Monday through Friday, and then Saturdays were my Vietnamese school days. So I always had six days of school a week, you know, this concept of a two-day weekend growing up. I was like, wow, there's so much time.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

And there must have been a there must have been a great deal of importance uh about learning Vietnamese, and there must have been a lot of a lot of importance from your from your family as well to to ensure that you continue the tradition and you and you continue the you know the generations of of of Vietnamese. Um how did that I mean how did that work for you? Because that must have been incredibly challenging, I suppose, especially young in learning two so vastly different languages.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

Very different languages. And you know, children are so capable of learning a vast array of languages so quickly. I think it benefited me because the Vietnamese culture and eastern culture in general is so different from Western culture. So when I think about Western culture, well, when I think about Eastern culture, it's all about the community, it's all about the family unit, it's all about the group setting. And then when I think about Western culture, which I then had to learn growing up by going through all my degrees, it's all about the individual. There's this rugged individualism that is so highlighted in Western culture. And so, you know, all through my teens and my twenties, I struggled with, well, do I do what's best for the group or do I do what's best for me? And so that concept, I think, is why I'm so drawn to choral music because it is about the group. It is about the it's not about me as an individual, it's about what's best for the group, you know, giving my sound to create, you know, a sound that is greater than the sum of all of our parts. So I think that's what draws me to choral music is that Eastern upbringing.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? Because I I have a great fascination with different cultures, particularly in music, and how we all come together to produce a very it's all very similar in many ways in what we're trying to achieve, but we do it in different ways and different cultures approach it in different ways. And I am really fascinated. One of my huge passions in life is travel, meeting people from different backgrounds, different cultures, different environments, and just under trying to understand a little bit more about people, because I think that's what affects our work and what we do in trying to communicate because music is so much about communication.

Programming Concerts With A Narrative

SPEAKER_00 8:46

Now, one of the one of the things that when I you know that I understand about the great work you do is the story-first approach. Now that that is that is really interesting, having a story-first approach to choral music. Talk to us about that.

SPEAKER_01 9:01

You know, it it comes from that innate feeling that we all want to be told a story. I mean, if you think about it, the the movies of our childhood are all of these fairy tales that begin once upon a time. And those, I think, are four magical words that will instantly engage anyone. If you tell somebody once upon a time, they're like, well, what happened? And so I take that approach when it comes to my programming artistic practices. And it I use a conceptual framework into which I plug pieces, diverse pieces, you know, canonic works from the Renaissance, the Baroque, all of those, balanced with modern contemporary works. And so I'll I'll give you an excellent example. University Singers just sang at Southern ACDA, our Southern ACDA conference in March of this year, 2026. And their program was titled The Five Love Languages. And within the Five Love Languages, I found pieces that spoke to these elements. So I programmed uh a Bach, part of a Bachmotet, you know, his Alleluia from his Lobed den Hirn as part of words of affirmation. I uh commissioned a Vietnamese-American composer, Patrick Vu, who's actually a former student of mine, to write a piece about quality time. I picked uh Imogen Heaps Hide and Seek to speak about acts of service. You know, so in these pieces, there are underlying themes that then speak to the five love languages. And so then our audience, we took them through this journey of the five love languages. And it was enhanced by other means as well. You know, um, something as small as in all of the programs, the students hand wrote affirmations that spoke to each love language. So we took some class time at one point, and you know, they I gave them several prompts. I'm like, if you want to write a note about acts of service, use one of these five prompts. And so they wrote it, hand-wrote it on a piece of paper that we then stuffed into the program. So as the audience members are looking at the programs, there's a note with some kind of affirmation for one of the love languages.

SPEAKER_00 11:20

Wow. I mean, that's I mean that's that's really intelligent programming. I mean, you've really thought about that. And I I think a lot of a lot of great choral directors do think about how they're programming and why they're programming. And there has to be a motivation for a certain piece of music within their program. And I think I think that's really important because it's very easy just to, you know, pull a piece of music and say, oh, we'll do that one, or that fits the genre, or that, you know, we're gonna just sing that because I like that one or I like that arrangement. But actually, if you're programming for a specific kind of concert, you you really do have to think in, you know, really intellectually about it, intelligently.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

Yeah, I would say programming is some of my deepest work that I engage in, and it is mentally and emotionally taxing for me. And so I I have to devote quite a bit of time to programming because for you for you know us to find these threads that we can then, you know, the right piece that fits all of the genres. And you know, in the in this program, I was like, I want to program a historic work, I want to program, I want to balance female composers and I want to balance um Asian composers into the program, you know, so you're balancing all of I want to have a you know black composer represented as well. So, you know, there's all of these things we're balancing, and at the same time trying to balance that with the five love languages. And does this piece even fit that? It takes quite a bit of time. So I appreciate uh your sentiments for sure.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

And that and that and that's also it that goes a lot further, doesn't it? Because we're we're storytelling in every part of what we're doing in music, so that really takes it back so much further because you know we storytell in our words, we storytell in our expression, we storytell in the contrast in the music, in each piece. Um, we storytell individually, yet we are storytelling from a voice part, we are storytelling as a choir, and we are trying to feel the music ourselves, and we're trying to communicate with the audience for them to feel it too. And you've taken it one step further by going back into the programming side as well to storytell through that element. I'm exhausted thinking about it.

SPEAKER_01 14:14

Oh, well, you know, you're exactly right in saying all of those elements and that that level of detail work, we translate me and university singers translate that into our performance too. So, you know, there are several schools of choral performance. And one that I believe in is the students will tell their own story when they're performing. You know, they'll use their bodies to tell the story organically, and they'll use their hands at times when it's appropriate in a way that is natural to them and the text that they're singing at that moment. So, you know, somebody gave a compliment after our Southern ACDA performance that I thought captured beautifully the spirit of what we were trying to uh achieve. And the compliment said, this person said, your singers sing in such a passionate way, to where we get an individual story from them that is part of a larger story that you're all telling. So each individual singer is kind of telling their own story in a way that is just their own perspective of our collective story.

SPEAKER_00 15:20

So that's interesting. So when when you watch a choir, and I I I look at this a lot because I think

Movement That Serves Text And Sound

SPEAKER_00 15:27

some choirs try to choreograph everything. Everything has got to move. Everything's, you know, sometimes, and well, they should always be motivated, but in my opinion, should only move if there's a reason to do it. It has to be a motivated mood, otherwise, it's just it's a bit fake, in my opinion. Um, and it's a bit affected, which I don't like either. I like things to be natural, I like to feel things because I feel it, not because I'm told to feel it. And so when you are getting individuals to express themselves with their hands and their body language, how do you stop that from being a distraction to the audience? Because often we are drawn to certain people we're, you know, we watch on stage because of a reason. It could be because they're moving or expressing themselves. Sometimes it could be because they've done something wrong, but mostly, mostly it's because we are drawn and compelled to watch them. How do you stop an audience from being distracted by movement?

SPEAKER_01 16:21

This is an excellent question, and this is the other side of this kind of choral performance practice. We have significant conversations when I'm building this kind of modality into the ensemble of what does it look like to do too much? To where just you know detracts where more artistry. That is the goal in finding that balance. You know, you don't want to have just a handful of people doing things and then everybody else standing straight still, but you don't want everybody over just gesturing, you know, then it becomes distracting, and then we're no longer listening to the sound. So we have a lot of conversations about this, and we will practice it, and I will video them and show them what they look like as well, so that, you know, these students, this Gen Z population, if you show them a video themselves, they're highly critical of themselves. So they could say, let's watch this together. And, you know, they have to critique us as an ensemble, you know, or they can give themselves critique. Um, but that's a really good way to practice that. And it's not to say that I don't use choreographed movements, I certainly do. And we have a lot of conversation about how to make it an honest expression of the music instead of an, like you said, an artificial or an affected movement. I am I really dislike that kind of dishonesty in performance. I think it actually achieves the opposite. I think it removes the audience from the piece, from the emotions of the piece even more. So there's a very fine line that one has to tread when they're walking this choral performance practice.

SPEAKER_00 18:02

What about if you if you see something that you you dislike, but it's a very personal thing to them? Because that's very difficult as well, isn't it? When you're watching and you want people to express, some people move in a way or they they they they uh carry themselves in a way that you are not comfortable with in terms of the overall look of the choir. It gets really personal and very awkward, I think. And a lot of choir directors say to me, you know, we've got people on stage that you know they're not they don't look great. Well, how do you how do you deal with that?

SPEAKER_01 18:34

You know, I talk about, and this goes back to my Eastern upbringing that we talked about at the beginning. You know, we have to be super mindful that our role in this moment as a choral singer is yes, to express yourself, but to express yourself in a way that doesn't draw from the greater unit, right? So growing up, my parents used to always say, like, don't make the family look bad. Like that's a pretty common Vietnamese saying when we're out in public. They're like, don't make the family look bad. And so it doesn't matter what I want in that moment, I could really want that piece of cake, but my mom already told me no, so I better not ask again, you know? Something as simple as that. So, you know, I I have so much training um in that kind of idea, ideology. And so I bring that to the singers, and there's a way to approach that really kindly. Like, oh, I think that that um basis, let's just be aware right now that maybe we're using too much hands, so where I just keep looking over there. So maybe you're gesticulating at a seven out of ten. Let's pull it back to a four out of ten.

SPEAKER_00 19:41

Okay, subtle.

SPEAKER_01 19:44

Yeah, exactly. And you know, using that sliding scale of numbers usually usually works with the same errors. You know, everybody, I want you to express at a one out of ten right now. Okay, express at a ten out of ten now. Okay, now give me a five out of ten for you. You know, so you can use that scale to kind of say, okay, everybody stay out of five, altars go to a six out of ten, you know, and then you can individualize from there.

SPEAKER_00 20:10

I like that concept. I like that idea. I bet there'll be lots of qua leaders listening to this right now thinking I'm gonna try that. So how do we go the other way? Because we are dealing with personalities, we're dealing with all kinds of people: introvert, extrovert, some people over the top on stage. Some people get really shy on stage, but all sing amazingly well and create an incredible sound. But so how do you motivate and get those people who think they are already an eight, but actually to the audience they're a two?

SPEAKER_01 20:40

Ah, great question. We have conversations about okay, those of us that are introverts or those of us that are, you know, more type B, you know, type A personalities being the go-getters, the the typically the extroverts, typically the the you know, the ones that are the first to sign up for things, type B is being like, it'll happen when it happens, or you know, a little bit more passive in their approach. And so we have conversations about that. If you're type B, maybe give a little bit more. Or, like I said, that video really helps, you know, I say, watch yourself in this video. I ready to take assessment. How are you in relation to your neighbors? And I I don't always want everyone using their hands at all times. You know, I think that's the key to this kind of performance practice, too, is like we don't want everybody always using their hands. It it should feel very naturally like a musical theater company or ensemble on stage. Like there are moments whenever you will do something and maybe everyone else is not doing something. So whatever feels natural to them. And along the same line, what I will also say is when we as choral conductors engage in this kind of performance focus, the first thing to be taken aback is the sound of the ensemble. The moment we introduce movement or we introduce a new focal point for the ensemble, the sound immediately takes a back step. And so the singers and I always have a conversation, and we we are very clear that our number one priority is a convincing, clean, and absolutely compelling sound. And then the visuals are an after effect. never give up our sound to produce movement. And the moment that I hear the our sound taking a step back, we stop all movement, we re-scrub the music, and then we reintroduce movement. And so the I think holding that priority has to be number one.

SPEAKER_00 22:50

Do you think adding do you think adding the movement at the beginning when you're first learning the piece is important? Or do you think it's better to learn it first, get the story in the expression and then add the choreography later or the movement?

SPEAKER_01 23:04

Great question. I think it's really for me, I think it's really important for them to learn how to produce the sound really well first. And I'm so glad you said that.

SPEAKER_00 23:16

Yeah. Because I struggle I struggle with this because I I feel that you can't express and and choreograph something until you really feel it yourself and you really know what you're doing musically and you can be you know off book and you can then use your hands and your body and everything else to express it. I have so many people that say do you think if we're going to add movement we could do it right at the beginning so we could learn as we go along and I say well how are you going to do that exactly? You don't really know what it's going to sound like or you're going to feel about the music at that stage.

SPEAKER_01 23:46

Yeah I I think that is I think I'm so glad you and I are aligned on this because if you you know you you have sung a bachmotet or and many of your listeners have probably sung a bachmotet where there's a learning process and at a certain point that Bachmotet is in your body and you could you know in the middle of the day pick up your Bachmotet and sing it and it's you know exactly how it feels in your body. And that's exactly the point that we want to get to with our sound first. And then we can add if we so choose movement or freeing up the singers physically that then is like the frosting on top of the cookie or the frosting on top of the cake but the sound is first we spend most of our time on the sound.

SPEAKER_00 24:36

And just going I'm I'd like to go back to to this more this culture uh again because I I I I really love what the what you were saying about this and how you know to the point that family is really important in all of this it's what we've learnt as a as a child that that really characterizes what we're bringing as a as an adult and you've you've you know you you you do work that connects choral teaching with the cultural exchange what what's changed in your own musicianship or leadership uh after working in different countries and working you know and understanding the choral traditions oh man you know I had a fabulous time in the Philippines last year and I got uh got a sense of their culture and their choral scene as well which was really edifying for me because going to another Asian country and seeing the way that they approach choral music I think is very it kind of reaffirmed the way that I approach choral music in terms of these singers are incredible individual voices and they also know how to invest in the larger group you know so in terms of what has changed in my in my own musicianship or teaching I would say the way that I build culture in a classroom the way that I build culture in a rehearsal space is one of my biggest strengths because I believe that that culture is what allows for our sound to be convincingly homogeneous while giving everyone the space to fully use their voice.

SPEAKER_01 26:23

You know I think that one can go on either side of the spectrum one can have very individual voices that never give in to the greater whole and it just sounds like um a wall of sound that you're you can hear every individual voice or you could go to the opposite end of the spectrum where you have a very homogeneous sound that is everybody singing Sotovoce. And it's well blended and it's it's fine. But I think finding that middle ground is really key and I also think that when one establishes that culture a really strong culture of it is we instead of I then the artistry that we can make is also more compelling because we have complete trust in each other.

SPEAKER_00 27:07

We have complete vulnerability in the room to where people then can free up their bodies

Rehearsal Priorities Clean Tone Artistry

SPEAKER_00 27:15

yeah and it's it's it's interesting isn't it because we we put so much emphasis into feeling and emotion and then we have the the start of it all when we're taking on a brand new piece of music and it's more about the about the technicalities and it the the vocal pedagogy and and it's all about that it's the technical aspect of learning and producing the sound then it starts becoming about interpretation and musicianship and performance you must have you you must as as we all do you you must have a process a sequence of these things and you must have a sequence of how you fix the problems as you go along before you move on to the next uh stage talk us through that yes yeah that's wow that's a really astute question of you and I think that that is as every every teacher evolves I think they develop their priorities through their pedagogic process for me number one is the music has to be really really clean like no misplaced consonants it has to be no wrong notes you know and the everyone's perception of pitch accuracy is different and I'm really really uh keen on a very solid pitch center and so clean rhythms as well clean cutoffs so first the music has to be clean from an accuracy standpoint and then my next priority is the tone each individual singer's vocal production is it healthy is it free because we can't achieve a compelling sound if we're constantly struggling with entanglements in the voice.

SPEAKER_01 29:00

You know if we're singing and there's tension in the instrument to me it doesn't matter if you're singing emotionally if you're like your larynx is really really high while you're singing like you could look as emotional and as invested as you want but I will never be able to understand because I'm my ear can't get past how high the larynx is or how out of tune that is so we talk about tone and and develop that alongside cleaning the music and then the artistry the musicianship comes next and all of this I I should also say that this is not a checklist. This is not a okay all of our music is clean check number two let's now sing through the piece and think tone. No it's very organic how we approach the piece and you know I I think we all want a checklist that is easy to do and you know as public school teachers it's very easy to go all right checklist number one notes and rhythms checklist number two tone. No it needs to feel more organic you know we have to build the music in a much more organic way for for the artistry to unfold naturally and honestly so while I'm cleaning the music if they're getting it really well and I want to increase rigor and they're singing it with really poor tone production I'm immediately also going to address tone. If the bass is already have good tone I'm gonna say bass is think about the word stress sopranos let's think about a low larynx on that note still. So I'm going to you know like stratify my teaching and sequence it for different sections even in the same moment. And this is where we as conductors have to be incredible improvisers on the podium.

SPEAKER_00 30:44

Do you ever get to the point where you think I don't know what to do next because you've kind of worked on something for so long and I I don't mean don't know what to do next because you don't have the ability or knowledge or expertise. I don't mean it from that. What I mean is you get to the point where you're thinking right we've worked on this for so long now and we've got to this point but how we need to get to the next point and I just don't know what I need to do to get people motivated to keep doing the same piece over and over and over again to get it to as perfect as it can be pieces are never perfect but to get it as perfect as they can get that they are giving a hundred percent and you've got a hundred percent out of the group you can but you've got to the point where you're you're you've spent so much time on all the different elements of working on this piece that you are worried about you know the the the choir actually getting to a point where it's not making progress because they're getting a bit tired of the piece. How do you keep it energized and keep going that is such a good question.

SPEAKER_01 31:44

I mean these are

When Progress Stalls Reignite The Room

SPEAKER_01 31:45

such great questions Russell I that point I got to for the Southern ACDA performance. And I very I almost never get to that point because my ear always has something else that I yearn for in in in helping the ensemble reach the most actualized version of their sound. So I very rarely get to that point. But for the Southern ACDA performance before March I did get to that point. And I have several things that I do when I do get to that point. Number one is I will bring in someone else I will say I brought in Andy Crane from BYU who I respect him so much and I will bring in colleagues and friends and I'll say can you listen? Can you work with them for 30 minutes? And getting to sit away from the choir and watch someone else teach reveals all of the minor cracks and crevices in the sound. So that's one really good way. If I don't have access to another colleague or I we don't have the planning time to do it, I will record them and play it back to them and then we'll have a conversation. And that always does wonders because the 50 ears that you have in front of you all pick up on different things and they will my students will tear themselves apart. I'll be like that recording was a solid you know eight out of 10 and they'll be like wow that was so bad. You know they'll they'll just be like wow that was so bad we were out of tune on this chord. I don't know why that consonant was misplaced there I don't why did we not sing a unified vowel on that beat you know they will tear themselves apart. So that's another way to re-energize and re-motivate the group if they ever do get to that point. But I think it's also hard to get to that point for most people because we as choral conductors we as conductors always could use more rehearsal time right and very rarely do we feel like wow I have so much rehearsal time and we've arrived and what do I do for my last three rehearsals we rarely get there.

SPEAKER_00 33:42

The only thing I ever come up come up against sometimes is if I've rehearsed a piece and I've got it to the to the stage that I think okay we're at performance ready stage but the performance is not for another two months you just think I'm gonna have to just park that because if I keep working on it it's going to start getting worse so I'm gonna park it and we'll bring it back at you know at a later stage. It's really interesting what you were saying about bringing somebody else into the room I think I think that's a that's it's really interesting because I've taken my choir on tours many times and we've collaborated with other choirs and often when we do a collaboration we will send a couple of pieces to the other choir they will send a couple of pieces to us that we're all going to perform together and I normally conduct a couple that the ones I send and then they conduct the ones that they send. So it's a real collaborative experience which is wonderful. But the the minute it gets interesting for me is when I hand over the bat on to the other conductor and say conduct my choir work with my choir because I then stand back and I listen to them. I'm not conducting them I'm actually listening from a completely different place and I as you say you spot the cracks or you're able to hear things that you don't normally hear or perhaps the other conductor has got something out of them that you wish you had got out of them or perhaps the opposite and because we're all learning from each other and we're you know that's the great thing about musicians and conductors we learn from each other it's one of the things I love about this show is talking to amazing professionals like like yourself because we're we're all learning from each other. But it's I think it really is fascinating what you said about that about bring someone else into the room to have a listen and maybe work with the group for 30 minutes because you as a conductor I think will learn so much from that process.

SPEAKER_01 35:28

I also think that is so and I've done this all through my public school teaching years even from my my first year of teaching I every year even in high school I would bring somebody in to work with the choirs before every concert actually and the reason why is because I have a set of priorities and leanings like my ear leans to certain sounds and in order to create the most balanced sound sometimes we forget about certain priorities right and so bringing in a new set of ears that have new priorities or have new specialties I'm like oh I didn't think about that. You know I didn't realize I needed to focus a little bit more on X. You know I was focusing so much on Y and Z that I forgot about X. And so bringing that new set of ears kind of reintroduces you to oh I yeah I should refocus a little bit more on X. And so it helps grow me as a conductor and it helps grow the ensemble and like you said just helps them reach a new level.

SPEAKER_00 36:32

I think we all had a have a responsibility us as a as as choral leaders have a responsibility and I I believe that every single person in a choir plays a part they all have the responsibility to deliver a hundred percent of their ability and I often go on with my own choirs about this that it it goes down to the individual the individual every single person has to take responsibility and then as the part the voice parts grow and all the sopranos have to work together and they have to take responsibility and then all the you know the the surprise and autos as a combined sound need to take a responsibility and the the responsibility grows into something huge but it starts with the individual how do you work with that mechanism that individual accountability wow again another great question Russell I mean I recently submitted my tenure dossier here at the University of Memphis and I had to write a teaching narrative and part of one of the paragraphs in my teaching narrative was about how I cultivate my focus on individual accountability within an ensemble setting which can often be really difficult for ensemble directors because we're so concerned with the cohesive whole but we forget exactly what you said that each person must bring 100% for us as an ensemble to succeed.

SPEAKER_01 37:58

And so gosh here are a couple of tangible ways that I cultivate that I have section leaders that lead sectionals

Individual Accountability Inside The Ensemble

SPEAKER_01 38:05

and so these sectionals again are individual accountability because you it is you and the other eight people in your section in a sectional and the section leader can hear all of you and you know develop it that way. I also do sight reading assignments with my ensemble and at the beginning of every class they have to practice they arrive five minutes before class and they practice the site reading when class starts after we finish warmups I have a randomizer app on my iPad and I randomize four names that will then site read by themselves their own part. Well that's an SAT oh yeah but it is like you said it's an individual accountability thing and you know now it's built into the culture where they all know like they all work with each other in the five minutes before class. So like hey can you help me with measure three I can't figure out that interval but when they sight read it is like do you individually know it we also do tests before we have a performance where they record themselves they hold their phone and they record themselves singing the piece all together but they submit that test to me so that I can hear their individual voice on the piece. Wow wow that's those are just like a couple of things that I do to cultivate individual accountability but you know that is really important the larger the ensemble the easier it is to hide right absolutely I mean that that's one of the things I always half on about is you can't I that there should be in my opinion there no back benches.

SPEAKER_00 39:34

There should be nobody hiding in the background everybody plays a part doesn't matter and I always say that you know when I put somebody in the back of a choir in the back row of a choir and they you know they some people will groan because oh they've been sent to the back and it said but the sound comes from the back it pushes forward and often in professional choirs um I've sung many of them and often strong singers will be checkerboard uh format formation at the back to strengthen the sound coming forward you get a different sound depending on where you're standing so it's not a case of the weaker singers go to the back never is it like that.

SPEAKER_01 40:10

Well I mean you might want somebody to hide but I mostly we don't but it's it's very much about driving the sound forward isn't it it is and you know this is a whole nother conversation for another day but the way that I do voicing and voice placement is really intentional with my ensemble as well to create the ensemble sound that I wish to hear. Like you said it really matters and so the if I showed you my seating chart every student has an ensemble number and an ensemble code that I then plug into a seating chart to create exactly the sound that I want it's really detailed and everybody has a four digit code.

SPEAKER_00 40:51

You know it's like 1.2 point two point four is their code and I plug that in based on the the DVCs that I have them singing their voice type all of those things but the students just know I have a code and that's my code and today I'm standing over there you know wow I love that that's a great idea I've had I've got some great ideas today from you as well I love this idea about sectional leaders as well because certainly here in the UK I mean we have literally thousands of choirs around now and it's an amazing amazing cultural um scene here and that is such a great idea is to have not just people that sort of administratively lead the sections but musically could you know contribute uh to their section and and you know I think that's that's a that's given me food for thought some of my own choir uh members who might listen to this show might be cringing right now but I think it's a great idea. Francis it's been fantastic talking with you today. Honestly I I could chat with you for ages. I'm sure we will again and certainly when we meet

Album Plug Listener Invitation And Close

SPEAKER_00 41:56

each other in person I'm sure we'll have a lot to talk about.

SPEAKER_01 41:58

Thank you so so much for joining me and um I can't wait to hear what's uh what's going on next for you you you seem to be incredibly busy and uh there's no wonder considering uh the amount of talent you bring uh to the choral scene thank you thank you Russell and you know I I just want to plug one thing the university singers are releasing their album their debut album on October 9th so if you want to hear them their album is titled Between Love and Law and it releases in about two weeks on October 9th so if anyone is interested then you can certainly check it out on Apple Music Spotify YouTube all the streaming platforms.

SPEAKER_00 42:33

That is fantastic we'll try and put a link to that in the show notes as well thank you so much for our wonderful Francis Katalina what an absolute joy it was talking with him all the way from Memphis Tennessee in the United States we've had some incredible guests on the show and I've got some fantastic interviews lined up for you in the next coming few weeks ahead but if you've got a story to tell or you'd like to share lots of different tips that you've been working on over the years with your own choirs, I'd really love to hear from you. Please do get in touch share your stories share your tips share your techniques and allow our listeners to benefit from the incredible guests we have on our show. 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. 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 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