Dear Editor: I just received the most recent issue of Classical Singer [March 2009] and was extremely curious about this “choral” issue and its number of articles concerning the age-old battle of choral vs. solo singing. I hoped to read some honest and insightful discussion about the pedagogy involved in both types of singing but, alas, I couldn’t find it.
In “Pedagogy 101: Choral Singing and Solo Technique,” we are told in the introduction paragraph that the article will tackle the “controversial issue of choral singing, its effects on solo singing, and what experts, from choral conductors to teachers and vocalists, recommend.” The article’s author, Megan Gloss, is a self-described soloist . . . , chorister, and member of the Madison Opera Chorus. She calls as her two expert interviewees, Kristen Eby (Mus. Ed./piano perf/master’s in choral conducting) and Timothy Layne Peter, whose bio describes him as a lifelong devotee to the art of choral singing from [high school] to university level.
Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not calling into question any of the qualifications of these three people. It’s simply that their expertise seems to be primarily in choral singing, so how can this article be anything but a biased pandering to one side of the issue? Why were there no interviewees included whose expertise is primarily as a solo singer or teacher? Why not ask some of the top vocal pedagogues in the country what their thoughts on this topic are? Perhaps then we might have a healthy dialogue concerning this topic that questions many of the vocal myths glibly put forth by this article as fact. I would welcome, and your readership would benefit from, a truly thorough and honest evaluation of the subject matter.
—Dr. Todd Graber, received via e-mail
