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| National Youth Choir 2012, Ottawa Podium |
I never thought I would be
at the age where I begin prefacing my statements with: “When I was young…” but…
when I was young… there was no such thing as live-streaming. Computers were
luxury items. I remember the comforting sound of the ink cartridge spitting from
my DOS printer, the satisfying tear while ripping the perforated edges off my
stream of printer paper, and the highly pixelated desktop from my Windows 95.
When I entered the earlier incarnations of this very choral competition, there was a transient beauty to the process. Our choir would submit a recording entry, and if we were chosen to be a finalist, we were entered into the finals round where we could compete with another choir live on radio. Afterward, the only way to hear our performance would be to get to our stereos, put in a cassette tape, and record the time-delayed live radio broadcast. I remember actually going through my cassette tapes, rewinding them, and evaluating my emotional connection to its prior contents before taping over them. There are no such concerns with the Association of Canadian Choral Communities National Competition for Canadian Amateur Choirs because all tracks are available for live-streaming whenever you want. Thus, this current choral competition introduces a sense of permanency and the ability to share Canadian Choral music to larger audiences.
When I entered the earlier incarnations of this very choral competition, there was a transient beauty to the process. Our choir would submit a recording entry, and if we were chosen to be a finalist, we were entered into the finals round where we could compete with another choir live on radio. Afterward, the only way to hear our performance would be to get to our stereos, put in a cassette tape, and record the time-delayed live radio broadcast. I remember actually going through my cassette tapes, rewinding them, and evaluating my emotional connection to its prior contents before taping over them. There are no such concerns with the Association of Canadian Choral Communities National Competition for Canadian Amateur Choirs because all tracks are available for live-streaming whenever you want. Thus, this current choral competition introduces a sense of permanency and the ability to share Canadian Choral music to larger audiences.
I happen to be making my guest blogger debut on CBC Music. Open up the slideshow to read my thoughts and song picks for the finalists in the three Youth Choir categories.
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| voces boreales, Ottawa Podium 2012 |
Live-streaming is a
luxury because it grants choirs a platform to showcase the fine singing that is
occurring across Canada. All choir entrants are a click of a button away for
your own personal listening. Whether you agree or disagree with the comments I
have made above, the most important thing is for you to take a listen and see
what you think for yourself. A listener does not require a specialized degree
in choral pedagogy to appreciate choral music. The beauty of music is that it
has the ability to universally move us all. I encourage you all to take a
listen to the fine singers in all the choral categories. They deserve to be
heard.
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