Ted Talk - Itay Talgam

I recently watched a Ted Talk by conductor Itay Talgam, called “Lead like the Great Conductors”. The video distilled elements of leadership for non-musicians by examining the actions of great conductors on the podium.

One of the main themes in the video is the balance of power between the conductor and the ensemble – does the conductor relinquish power to the ensemble when he or she doesn’t dictate every moment? My philosophy has slowly shifted from musical dictation toward being as simple as possible, but no simpler. When you allow the ensemble breathing room, they learn to make intelligent musical decisions as individuals and as a group.

In May, I toured England and Scotland with the Frost Chorale. At one of our concerts, our English and Scottish pieces (Loch Lomond, some Rutter pieces, etc) resonated very well with the audience, so we pulled out a Hawaiian piece to bring an American flavour to the concert. Our conductor brought her hands up to begin, and then reconsidered and sat down in the first row, made a “go ahead!” gesture and smiled. We’d never done the piece by ourselves before, but she wanted to throw us for a loop. We nervously began, but we watched and smiled and danced at each other as we sang, and the piece was a great success. She later commented that she should do that every time.

On a practical level, some of my ideas for ensemble empowerment include:

-          Encourage communication within sections during rehearsal. If the tenors can’t get a phrase, give them a second to figure it out for themselves. Orchestras do this all the time, and it’s amazing to see how much people feel they can contribute when they can intercommunicate.

-          You’ll be tempted after a first run-through to fix everything at once. Let them have another sing-through! They’ll fix so many things by themselves. Even better, after the first sing-through, say “flip the pages of your score for 20 seconds. Make a mental note of what was just difficult for you and what you’d like to get this second time around”.

-          Ask questions about the text – hidden meanings, unfamiliar words.

If you can teach your singers to sing intelligently, you’ll save tons of time, not having to point out every diphthong and crescendo and cutoff to them. Give them control.