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April 10, 2014 – Meeting Roundup – Martinsburg High Chamber Choir

A choir (also known as chorale or chorus) is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus. The former term is very often applied to groups affiliated with a church (whether or not they actually occupy the choir) and the second to groups that perform in theatres or concert halls, but this distinction is far from rigid. The term “Choir” has the secondary definition of a subset of an ensemble; thus one speaks of the “woodwind choir” of an orchestra, or different “choirs” of voices and/or instruments in a polychoral composition. In typical 18th- to 21st-century oratorios and masses, chorus or choir is usually understood to imply more than one singer per part, in contrast to the quartet of soloists also featured in these works.

Choirs are often led by a conductor or choirmaster. Most often choirs consist of four sections intended to sing in four part harmony, but there is no limit to the number of possible parts as long as there is a singer available to sing the part: Thomas Tallis wrote a 40-part motet entitled Spem in alium, for eight choirs of five parts each; Krzysztof Penderecki’s Stabat Mater is for three choirs of 16 voices each, a total of 48 parts. Other than four, the most common number of parts are three, five, six, and eight.

Choirs can sing with or without instrumental accompaniment. Singing without accompaniment is called a cappella singing (although the American Choral Directors Association discourages this usage in favor of “unaccompanied,” since a cappella denotes singing “as in the chapel” and much unaccompanied music today is secular). Accompanying instruments vary widely, from only one to a full orchestra; for rehearsals a piano or organ accompaniment is often used, even if a different instrumentation is planned for performance, or if the choir is rehearsing unaccompanied music.

Many choirs perform in one or many locations such as a church, opera house, or school hall. In some cases choirs join up to become one “mass” choir that performs for a special reason. In this case they provide a series of songs or musical works to celebrate and provide entertainment to others. A chamber choir or group of chamber singers is the choral equivalent of a chamber ensemble, using voices instead of instruments. This choir will usually consist of 20-40 elite and dedicated singers. Several chamber choir formats exist, ranging from barbershop groups to exclusively female arrangements.

The Martinsburg High School Chamber Choir, under the direction of Katie Smith, will be our musical program this week.

Someone Old, Someone New