By Gerrit Scheepers
This past week, my colleague and friend Dr. Elisabeth Cherland invited me to serve as an Artist-in-Residence at Minnesota State University, in Mankato, MN. During my time on campus, I had the opportunity to give a guest lecture in a music education course and to work with two of the university’s choirs – the Concert Choir and their Chamber Singers.
It was a wonderful few days filled with music, conversation, and some particularly insightful discussions about how we communicate as conductors and educators. What made the experience especially meaningful was the chance to move back and forth between the classroom and the rehearsal room. In one space, I taught future music educators about conducting and communication. In the other, I put those same ideas into practice with the choirs.
This experience got me thinking about something I have witnessed countless times throughout my career: the remarkable moment when a room full of individual people suddenly become one.
When the Room Becomes One
There is a moment in every choir rehearsal when a room of individuals suddenly become one. I stand in front of the choir, raise my hand, take a breath, and wait. Forty singers are looking at me. Some are watching my hands; others are watching my face. They are listening to one another, feeling the pulse, reading the music, and waiting for some indication that it is time to begin. Then, I move. With an intake of air and an output of sound, they sing as one, a synchrony. It is such an ordinary moment in a choir rehearsal that it can often wash over me. But being with the MSU choir students reminded me of the magic of this synchrony – one I have experienced countless times as a conductor and teacher and continue to witness in my current role at South Dakota Mines, where music brings students together in meaningful and transformative ways. I also experienced this with Dr. Cherland on the podium this past week. She was pure magic with her students. I could tell they adore her.
If I am not careful, this synchrony can pass me by. But the more I conduct or teach about conducting and communication, the more remarkable this ordinary moment of becoming one seems to me. How is it that a gesture of one person’s hand coordinates the voices, breath, attention, and bodies of an entire group of people? During my time as Artist-in-Residence at MSU, I considered this question from several angles. What became increasingly apparent to me was that conducting is a form of communication that depends on much more than the conductor.
