Recital Choir gives MC Fine Arts students an opportunity on the podium
April 18, 2023
It may be a few years before they’re on the director’s podium in front of opera companies and concert choirs wherever their post-graduate journeys make take them, but the students in the spring Advanced Conducting class at Maryville College will be well-prepared when they are.
On Wednesday afternoon, April 19, five MC students — Elaina Wilson ’24, Claire Pinkston ’25, Ryne Simmerly ’24, Elizabeth Brenneise ’23 and Gavin Lester ’24 — will lead the Maryville College Recital Choir as part of the course requirements for completing the class, taught by Stacey Wilner, director of choral activities at the College.
“The first course in the conducting sequence is a beginning class where the students learn the basic time-beating patterns, baton usage, expressive gestures, setting up-tempo, mixed meter, and other foundational aspects,” Wilner said. “In the spring Advanced Conducting course, the students refine all these concepts and apply them in a rehearsal setting. These young conductors study rehearsal techniques, performance practices of different time periods and strategies for solving musical issues.
“The Recital Choir provides a ‘hands-on’ opportunity to experiment and implement effective rehearsal skills, while also sharing in the responsibility of creating the concert program and poster, publicity, stage management and other practical aspects of performance. Being able to apply all their learning helps to solidify all these skills to create a solid musical and educational foundation for our young choral musicians.”
The concert’s seeds began with a piece of music assigned by Wilner, who oversaw the students shepherding each selection from the rehearsal process all the way to its performance. For Lester, a vocal music education with licensure major, conducting “Agnus Dei” by Gabriel Faure aligns nicely with his preferred era of music, the Romantic Period.
“Mrs. Wilner picked out pieces for us based on our capabilities and talents as musicians,” he said. “As our professor, she knows our strengths and weaknesses, so she can push us forward in the direction that broadens our experience as future educators, conductors and overall musicians.”
A junior, Lester wants to use his degree to serve as a choral director. Brenneise, a vocal music education with licensure major who graduates next month, has similar plans and hopes to teach in a school setting as well as at her own private voice studio, eventually moving on to graduate work in vocal pedagogy.
“Both Conducting and Advanced Conducting have enhanced my musicianship by showing a completely new side to music,” she said. “I have been in various choirs for more than a decade, but I was always on the ‘student singer’ side of the choir. Learning this new skill has increased my knowledge of choral music, teaching, and becoming an overall better musician.”
Brenneise will conduct “An die Musik,” originally written by Franz Schubert but arranged for choir by Paul Stetsenko. For his part of the concert, Simmerly will conduct “Gloria in excelsis Deo,” as composed by Antonio Vivaldi, and the opportunity to work with a piece of music so integral to sacred liturgy feels nothing short of magical, he said.
“It is triumphant and full of life,” he added. “This piece has helped me grow by exposing myself to a different type of work that requires a different type of conducting than what I am most used to. Working with this piece has also helped me get more comfortable when I am teaching a piece of music from scratch to other musicians. It is one thing to conduct a song in your room to a recording; it is a whole other beast when you are in charge of conducting actual people.”
Wilner, added Wilson, has been instrumental in teaching Advanced Conducting students the minutiae that go into the short amount of time a director actually spends on the podium. Preparation and problem-solving are key, as is finding the heartbeat of a piece of music — in her case, “Tanquam ad latronem existis” by Michael Haydn, which Wilner selected to help Wilson develop her musical phrasing.
“This class has opened my eyes to all the little details and intricacies that go into conducting even a single song,” said Pinkston, a music education major who will be conducting “Sound of the Trumpet” by Henry Purcell. “I love being able to lead this amazing choir and expand my knowledge of music through leadership.”
The Recital Choir concert will take place from 12:10-12:50 p.m. Wednesday, April 19, in the Harold and Jean Lambert Recital Hall of the Clayton Center for the Arts. The concert is free and open to the public.