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Photo used by permission. Copyright Kevin Leighton, kevinleighton.com.

other words, it doesn’t do to tell them off straightaway. how you’re treating the singers. It’s a difficult subject;
You need to start with encouraging or enabling compli- it’s more complicated really than talking about gesture.
ments: “yes, very good, well done, that’s getting better, I think a high proportion of my work with any choir is
now let’s do this and try to improve more,” rather than, how I deal with the people. You want them to do really
“that was really awful.” It’s a basic didactic fact that well, but they’re not machines.
most people will get better if they’re encouraged. Of
course, you can lose the attention of a room if you’re What attributes (musical or non-musical) make
too fussy with them and keep going over everything a choral conductor a great leader?
too many times. They either get quite cross or else very
bored. You’ve got to be very conscious of reading the Recently we had a visit from some people in Nor-
atmosphere. My rule to follow is that if you’ve tried wich who are running some type of football academy
something and it doesn’t improve up to two or three connected with Norwich City Football Club. They
times, best to leave it and come back to it. You can only were going around to various other kinds of institu-
exacerbate a situation like that. tions trying to look for what were the similarities. You
Moreover, if you’re working regularly with the same couldn’t get much more different than a chapel choir
group of people, it’s important to make sure you nur- and a football club, but what the football coach had to
ture them as people. They don’t want you intruding on do was the same as the conductor. It was very interest-
them or anything like that, but if I know that one of ing, and it was a rewarding thing to converse with them
them suffered a bereavement last week, or if one of the and find out what they thought was important.
children had been in trouble at school, just the very fact What’s involved here are skills of leadership, which
of knowing these things is important, in the sense of are expressed in different disciplines, through different

CHORAL JOURNAL November/December 2024 Volume 65 Number 4 23