ENSE2043: Choir 3

Continual assessment of professional demeanour and ensemble skills demonstrated during rehearsals and performances (90%), Warm-up assignment (10%).

You will complete a short pitch and range test before rehearsals for voice placement. I did Choirs 1 and 2 last year which meant I was already placed in my voice part.

This semester, we did Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Requiem as our core repertoire for choir. Prior to the semester, I was involved in another choir which did Joseph Haydn's Requiem and the resemblance between the two still amazes me. I was initially excited to sing the work and have another semester of ensemble skills development but COVID-19 really jeopardised my experience of this unit.

The assessment for this unit was more formal than last year's. Due to the pandemic, we had to submit recordings of the allocated movements for the week. I tried to approach it with as much enthusiasm as possible and to give the whole shift to online learning the benefit of the doubt but the routine became incredibly tedious, energy-draining and even, to an extent, a nuisance. Finding a quiet place to complete the recording was a challenge because no matter where I was, there was always noise coming from either in or out of the house. I also am a huge perfectionist so each recording took an insane number of takes (the most difficult movement took me 74 times to perfect) to get through the movements with everything pitch perfect. Factor in as well the time I spent uploading and re-uploading (if it failed the first time) each video and I ended up spending an entire day just on this one unit. I did like completing the warm-up assignment because I felt like it gave me the opportunity to exercise my creativity and it allowed me to make an educational resource that I could use as a choral conductor myself one day. I also liked how it was something that was graded with an actual criteria, rather than based off abstract judgements like the rest of the marks I received/did not receive for my participation in the ensemble.

In short, this is not how choir is supposed to be at the Con and while I did find fun in singing the Requiem through each week, it was the worst of my units to do in quarantine. The only reason why I did not it rate it lower was because of how kind, responsive and encouraging Liz and the rest of the creative team who were in charge of the unit were with me. Choir really is one of those subjects that loses its effectiveness when conducted remotely and I hope next semester's students who enrol in it have a far more enjoyable experience aligning with the true joy that choir can give someone.

1x 3 hour rehearsal; this was adjusted due to COVID-19 though and all rehearsals were independently conducted.

4/5

None

Elizabeth (Liz) Scott

None

2.5/5

None; you borrow the score for whatever work is being studied and performed for the semester from the Con library before the first rehearsal.

2020, Semester 1

82 DI