Chapter 11
To Go or Not to Go
Contest. Adjudicated Event. Here's where it gets tangled, dark, and controversial.
Let's say you go to an interview for the position of choral director of a program that's struggling or non-existent. The administrators tell you that they're looking for someone to "get our choir back on track." Halfway through the interview, the high school principal says, almost as an aside, "You're fine with going to contest, right? We always send our choirs to contest." In one breath, you are told that the program is choking, and in the next, you are basically instructed to spend every rehearsal from September to January dragging your struggling ensemble through mind-numbing SATB sight-reading exercises so that one of your colleagues can subjectively pass judgment on everything you stand for by assigning you a neat little number.
Purists may say, "Large-group judges are not subjective. They rate each choir according to a rigorous set of well-thought-out and educationally sound guidelines." Oh, really? Does the phrase "1-2-3 split" mean anything to you?
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You can have great choirs without going to contest. And I'll go one further to really cheese off some purists: in the larger scheme of life outside of the rehearsal room, being a good sight-reader isn't even a blip on the radar.
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Contrary to what many directors believe, being a good sight-singer does not necessarily make one a better musician; it just makes one a better sight-singer. There is little artistry in sight-singing; it's drill-and-practice based. We all could think of several examples of this. How many of us have said at one time or another, "He's a great technician, but he plays/sings with no soul"?
Moreover, sight-reading is not a pressing necessity when you're trying to rebuild a program...
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