Guidance notes on Repertoire Selection/Programme Planning
One of my projects as I settle in with Rainbow Voices is setting up processes to involve choir members in choosing our repertoire. The plan is to harvest ideas from choir members and our audiences, and then have small working groups to compile programmes from these ideas for our main performances each year. As part of that process I was writing some guidance notes for the working groups, and realised that they may be useful to other folk too, so am publishing them here. Indeed, a lot of what follows is drawn from materials I have written for conductor training and/or conversations I have had with conductors I have been mentoring, so some of you may have seen parts of this in other contexts already!
1. Sourcing material
- Assume you’ll be considering at least 3 times as many pieces as you’ll actually sing, better up to 5 times as many
- Crowd-source ideas from within the ensemble
- Keep an ‘ideas bucket’ on the go all the time
- Look both for song ideas (and then investigate choral arrangements), and for original choral music and existing arrangements (what choirs are already singing)
- Youtube is your friend
2. Sorting material
Suitability factors:
- Range (vocal)
- Persona (who the music represents)
- Complexity (harmonic, rhythmic, textural, poetic)
- ‘Hostage to Fortune’ pieces
- Cost
Factors to balance overall:
Short | --- | Long |
Simple | --- | Complex |
Quick to Learn | --- | Challenging for skills-development |
Emotionally easy | --- | Demands more from the audience |
Major key | --- | Minor key |
Fast | --- | Slow |
Useful categories with which to think of pieces:
Bread-and-Butter: songs that feel like familiar grounds for the group stylistically and/or that lie comfortably within the current skill set.
Statement Pieces: more ambitious pieces, more substantial in length and expressive impact than bread-and-butter pieces; may include technical challenges for the ensemble. Will take more rehearsal than bread-and-butter pieces, but will also be the agent for growth.
Wildcard songs: pieces that are in some way surprising, that lie outside what feels ‘typical’ for the group. These may be either Bread-and-Butter songs or Statement Pieces in size/scope/expressive range, but add variety to both rehearsals and performances, and stretch the imagination of both singers and audience.
Lighthouse songs: this is a particular category for LGBT+ choirs, whose role is not just to provide a safe haven for their members, but also offer emotional connection and affirmation to their audiences. These are the songs that reach out to LGBT+ people in the audience and let them know they are not alone, that there are people who are there for them and who have their backs. Arguably the role of any performance is, to quote Mo Field, ‘to make someone in the audience feel less lonely,’ but the life experiences of LGBT+ folk bring this imperative particularly into focus.
3. Compiling Set-Lists
The balancing factors above provide the general principles for putting together a performance set. Additionally:
- Every set of 3 or more will ideally include a Statement Piece to provide an emotional focal point.
- Bread-and-butter songs should out-number Statement Pieces by at least 3 to 1, though once you get to a set of more than 6 items you will probably want to increase to 2 Statement Pieces.
- Wildcards should come in the middle of a set, to provide contrast, not open or close.
- Lighthouse songs are good openers and closers, and every set should include at least one.
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