Richard and Eric discuss the now famous Virtual Choir phenomenon and its varying ramifications on not only the choral community but on greater social society. In their critique, they attempt the impossible by unifying seemingly disparate ideas of thinkers and philosophers such as Debord, Baudrillard, Eco, Kierkegaard, all in too short of a time. Is the virtual choir actually a choir? Does the virtual choir share aspects of previously seen social experiments in the recent past? Are there claims the virtual choir makes that could be seen as problematic or illusory? Trying to look deeply at this very popular social art-form proves to be not only challenging but enlightening.
All in Pedagogy
Richard and Eric discuss a recent article from The Spectator by Andrew Mahon, who was critical of Peter Sellars's staging of the St. John Passion of J.S. Bach. The article forms a jumping-off point to examine the role context plays in performance, performance practice, and artistic interpretation. There are a number of relevant issues surrounding the notion of context that play out in the work of the choral musician, with some that are worthy of deep consideration.
Richard and Eric try a new mode of discussion and ramble on in attempting to tip over a perceived 'sacred cow' of the current choral scene: closing concerts with 'crowd-pleasing' pieces. This seemingly simple idea has a surprisingly large number of factors and variables to ruminate on, and the boys end up perhaps having more questions than when they started.
It’s been ninety-nine years since the decline of futurism, but those long, aggressive lines still find themselves in today’s buildings, some of which evoke an other-worldly presence.
In this first discussion, Richard and Eric examine "antifragility" (a concept developed by essayist and scholar, Nassim Taleb), and its relevance within a choral context. Can the metaphors and terms used by Taleb regarding antifragility's usefulness in the fields of risk analysis, engineering, economics, and biology create new ways of thinking about a myriad of issues in the choral ensemble?