REBECCA HALE
Reverb Editor
Last weekend’s annual Intercollegiate Choral Festival ended with a resounding bang after a two-hour concert that featured performances by four choirs, including the Eastman Chorale; multiple pieces guest-conducted by Eastman’s Choral Director, Dr. William Weinert; and a new twist — a live Twitter feed in which students could connect and talk about the concert while it was unfolding.
Each year, Fredonia strives to bring the best choirs and directors to the Intercollegiate Festival. Weinert has visited Fredonia once before in 2011, in the festival’s first year. As experienced as Weinert is, and as renowned as his choirs are, Eastman was one of the best options for Fredonia to choose.
“We choose the best choirs and conductors we can possibly get,” Dr. Gerald Gray, director of the Fredonia College and Chamber Choirs, explained.
The weekend began with the arrival of Weinert and his Chorale on Friday afternoon, when Weinert oversaw a conducting master class involving some of Fredonia’s singers and student conductors. Three conductors — William Steadman, Patrick Rose and Colin Mann — worked with a mixed choir in sections of Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass.
“The idea is just to give these people and the participating singers some different ideas about rehearsal and how a conductor’s gestures can affect the sound of an ensemble,” Weinert explained.
Weinert stressed the importance of hand and wrist movements during conducting and encouraged students to be energetic, but loose. Conducting with too tight of a grip will tire the arm out too quickly. He also worked on entrances and cut-offs, and showed students how using larger or smaller movements can affect the dynamic of the choir.
Mann, who was third on the program, is a senior music education major who has been conducting for five years. Though he was the youngest to participate in the master class, Mann said that he felt comfortable working with Weinert and the choir, and that everyone was very supportive of each other.
“I learned [from the master class] that I don’t need to be over-jubilant, and that I need the choir more than they need me,” he said. Mann hopes to pursue conducting in graduate school.
As a part of the Choral Festival’s tradition, the guest clinician chooses one piece for each choir to perform and him to conduct. Weinert had one hour with each choir to rehearse his respective pieces, and a half hour with all the choirs combined to rehearse his final piece.
Since the choirs had been rehearsing these pieces since the beginning of the semester with a different conductor than Weinert, this could have proven a challenge to the conductor and singers alike. Gray explained how to combat this.
“You prepare them for musical flexibility,” he said. “In other words, you find out as best you can, what the conductor that is going to conduct the performance wants — try to find out what they want to do, and teach that.”
Being able to conduct flexibly is vital to any prospective conductor.
“As a choral conductor, almost everyone who conducts choirs, at any sort of level, is going to prepare for other conductors,” said Gray. “It’s an important skill.”
The live Twitter feed was an idea that has been in discussion for the last couple of years, though this year is the first time Gray decided to implement it.
“Our digital lives [are] finding [their] way into everything we do, so I think its better to organize that experience than [have] it be random and punished,” said Gray.
Nicole Peets, an alum and moderator of the feed, explained the feed.
“Throughout the concert, audience members can tweet their thoughts regarding the music while it is occurring,” she said. “I will then release those tweets to be projected above the stage of the concert.”
Of course, tweeting during the performances was discouraged, as tweets would only be displayed during intermission, as well as before and after the concert.
“Hopefully this will lead to more detailed discussions about the music than a simple reflection afterward would,” said Peets — and that is exactly the result that ensued. Dozens of tweets were sent in using the hashtag #FredChoralFest in discussion and support of the music.
The final concert commenced at 4 p.m. on Saturday in Rosch Recital Hall and featured a program of 19 pieces, divided up between the four choirs. Fredonia Choir took the stage first, performing four pieces under the direction of Gray, one under the direction of Weinert and a final piece alongside the College Choir, also directed by Gray.
College Choir performed three pieces, and then Weinert relieved Gray to conduct the choir in Brahms’ “O schone nacht” from his Vier Quartette, Op. 92, which featured pianist Lily Li.
The audience was blown away by College Choir’s explosive final piece, William Averitt’s “Fire.” After the piece ended, intermission began, and the live Twitter feed was broadcast on a screen at the front of the recital hall.
The tweets started rolling in after the stage had cleared, most of them marveling over “Fire.”
One student tweeted, “@Mademoibelle: OK College Choir! Fire so hot it could melt the snow off campus #FredChoralFest #heatwave.”
Another read, “@UkesOnFire: #FredChoralFest College Choir can Schone my nacht any time.”
Even some Eastman students were tweeting to the feed to congratulate Fredonia’s singers.
“@kgalagaza: Fredonia Choirs, you make some beautiful music. #FredChoralFest,” tweeted Katarina Galagaza from the Eastman Chorale.
After intermission, the Fredonia Women’s Choir sang three pieces under the direction of Dr. Vernon Huff, and then a piece with Weinert. Then, they performed their final piece, Stephen Hatfield’s “Las Amarillas.”
One later tweet from the feed read, “@eparkzz: WC, you ladies sounded so wonderful!! Also, those glimmering high notes in ‘I Am Not Yours’ were so beautiful. Wow. #FredChoralFest.”
Finally, the Eastman Chorale got in place to sing through its program, which included Ildebrando Pizzeti’s “Cade la sera,” Poulenc’s four-movement “Un soir de neige” and Brahms’ five-movement “Five Songs, Op. 104.”
After the final movement of “Five Songs,” the three Fredonia choirs squeezed to fit on the stage and risers above to sing one final piece, conducted by Weinert: “Unclouded Day,” a gospel piece arranged by Shawn Kirchner.
One hundred and seventy four voices filled the hall with beautiful chords and painted a picture of “[a] land far away, where the Tree of Life [is] in eternal bloom.” This left the audience with an earful to ponder and hopes that Fredonia’s snow will indeed melt away soon.