Choosing Repertoire
for the School Year
T
he music you select is your student’s textbook. You decide
whether to focus on classics, spirituals, madrigals, sung
poetry settings, liturgical music, or on any of the tens of
thousands of published choral pieces written between
Gregorian chant and the present. You can teach your singers to
wrestle with great minds of centuries ago—like Beethoven and
Mozart—or dream of a better world with contemporary compos-
ers such as Libby Larsen or Jake Runestad.
You can offer connections to composers with whom your stu-
dents more readily identify, and who might become heroes or
role models to them, like African-American woman Rosephayne
Powell, Filipino-Americans Saunder Choi or Matthew Hazzard,
trans woman Marí Esabel Valverde, or Mexican-American David
Montoya.
www.composerdiversity.com
The Institute for Composer Diversity is committed to the
celebration, education, and advocacy of music created by
composers from historically underrepresented genders,
racial, ethnic, and cultural heritages, and sexual orienta-
tions as well as disabled composers.
Through repertoire choice, you can also:
• Teach singers texts they’ll never forget. How old were you
when you learned what “Fair Phyllis” was doing when she
wasn’t standing all alone? Choristers sometimes learn more
poetry in choir than they learn in their English classes, and
they certainly memorize more of it.
• Share our American folk heritage with arrangements of
“Shenandoah,” “Skip to My Lou,” “He’s Gone Away,” and
“Long Time Ago,” or quality arrangements of the Beach Boys,
Beyoncé, or Broadway and Opera.
44 Southwestern Musician | September 2020
by Jonathan Talberg
• You can teach history and educate through the texts of works
you choose. You can teach about another culture by contex-
tualizing pieces from around the world. For example, that
fun Filipino uptempo is a great entry into a discussion on
colonialism. A Brazilian samba is perfect for teaching the
intersectionality between jazz, Afro-Brazilian rhythm, and
the history of dance. And, instead of just programming a
Negro Spiritual because it’s fun, you can get into the history
and evolution of this quintessentially American art form.
• Collaborate with the school orchestra or band on a Mozart or
Schubert Missa Brevis, Vivaldi’s joyful Gloria, Monteverdi’s
charming Beatus Vir, or Hanson’s rousing Song of Democracy.
• Collaborate with a string quartet for Leavitt’s lovely arrange-
ment of Dvorak’s “Going Home” from the New World
Symphony, an oboist for Effinger’s “No Mark” from his Four
Pastorales, or a great drummer (or three) for works by Sydney
Guillaume, André Thomas, or Joan Szymko.
• Explore acoustical spaces beyond the cafeteria at some
schools. Is there an arts-friendly church nearby, a retirement
home with an auditorium, or maybe one of these has an
organ? This opens a whole different world of repertoire to you:
Benjamin Britten, Leonard Bernstein, Lily Boulanger, and the
entirety of 17th- and 18th-century English anthems.
It can take at least a week to choose a year’s repertoire. While I
believe it’s best to plan the entire season during the summer break,
you can still invest the time at this early stage of the year.
You must be able to sit down with stacks of scores. You also
need the Internet for recordings, publisher websites, and for emails
to request help from friends and mentors. Doing it all at once will
help your programming be balanced, ensure your students love
your musical selections, and ensure audiences enjoy a concert
experience, rather than simply seeing some choirs perform songs.
It’s about balance and cohesiveness.
 10 Rules to Guide Selection
So, how do you get started in programming a whole season,
and is it truly possible? Consider the following 10 rules to get you
started:
1. Only program music you love. Old music, new music, com-
missioned music, competition music, ceremonial music; if
you don’t love it, don’t program it. And, challenge yourself by
choosing a lot of new (to you) music each year. It’s appealing
to choose music you’ve sung in college, high school, or profes-
sional choirs—but, the truth is, it’s not always the right music
for your choirs. For that reason, look to fall in love with new
music.
2. Over the course of a season (or academic year), strive to find
balance between the repertoire from the traditional canon
and contemporary pieces. For every new work you choose, try
to choose something older. Remember, publishers and music
conferences tout the newest, youngest, and current brightest
star. Don’t forget to introduce students to Fanny and Felix
Mendelssohn, Barbara Strozzi, Clara Schumann, Undine
Smith Moore, and others.
3. Include music by women, composers of color, and other
underrepresented excellent composers from all periods of
music. By consistently studying and performing these works,
we can be part of a much-needed change in the music world.
4. Vary tempos, musical periods, keys, timbres, languages,
and accompaniment. Be especially careful not to program
too much slow, pretty music.
5. Prepare your students to be musical ambassadors by teach-
ing the alma mater and the national anthem and holiday
songs from a variety of traditions and by making sure they
know some folk songs to share if on tour in a foreign country.
6. Choose music with great text. Many of the best composers—
especially contemporary ones—are deeply moved by excel-
lent, thoughtful, original poetry. I ask myself whether the
poem stands on its own without music. If it doesn’t I will skip
ahead to the next octavo.
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7. Choose music that opens up conversations about our world
and students’ lives and experiences and your point of view.
I try to choose music that helps me instill wisdom and helps
students find connections—if it’s old, I try to make it new. If
it’s new, I connect it to the great questions of old.
8. Choose music students can sing and music that’s harder
than they can sing—but only slightly. Everyone deserves
to do something that’s pleasurable and easy, and everyone
deserves to be pushed to build new skills and achieve new
heights. Balance is the key.
9. Choose music to memorize and music to sing with scores in
hand. Each is an important skill.
10. Try to make each concert an experience by selecting music
that tells a story and combines into an artistic, cohesive
program. To do this, choose music you want to study, that
you believe in, and through which you can instill excitement.
We are music educators and also cheerleaders.
Choosing repertoire as a focused project allows you to achieve
balance in several ways: keys, difficulty levels, themes, old with
new, and slow with fast. It allows you to spend as much time
choosing music for your beginning groups as for your advanced.
Lastly, segment it into two groups (one per semester) to help you
evaluate whether you’ve included a diversity of composers, women
composers, composers of color, varied cultures, and more. Ensure
you’re challenging yourself with brand-new works in addition to
favorite choral “chestnuts.” You will find your year progresses
much more smoothly when you dedicate this time and energy to
make these important decisions up front. As with great singing, it
takes a lot of work, but it’s always worth it. 0
Jonathan Talberg is the Director of Choral Activities at
California State University, Long Beach. He is the 2021 Vocal
Division Featured Clinician.
Editor’s Note: The article appears in the forthcoming book The
Choral Conductor’s Companion, edited by Brian Winnie, pub-
lished by Meredith Music and distributed by Hal Leonard. Talberg
has edited it for this publication.
S ta r t a
chapt
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Connect & Mentor
This is an incredible time to mentor students who
have an interest in music education! With online
meetings, you could host amazing guest speakers
who otherwise couldn’t get to your campus. TFME
meetings, whether in person or online, are a
wonderful way to connect with your student leaders.
www.tmea.org/tfme
Southwestern Musician | September 2020 45