Director's
Notes
by Catherine Robinson I've
been trying to remember where I was 25 years ago when Coro de Cámara
was founded. I was living in Seattle and performing with MusiComedy Northwest,
a musical theatre company that, unfortunately, was very shortly thereafter
to close. I had not yet started teaching in the Seattle area; I had not
yet met my former husband. And this madrigal ensemble formed from the
Los Alamos Choral Society was just getting started. Twenty-five years
is more than a lifetime for many of my current students...two lifetimes
for some of my singers and students.
I remember
auditioning for the Graduate Program in Vocal Performance at the University
of Washington. I was accepted to the program but not admitted to the
university because they hit their enrollment ceiling. Interestingly enough
I could have been student number 33,001 but their enrollment limit was
33,000 students. So I took classes as a non-matriculated student focusing
on choral conducting and choral literature. It was at the U-Dub that
I worked with Joan Catoni Conlon who is now in Colorado. It was in her
Choral Conducting class that I had a sort of "epiphany" about my conducting. And that was
simply that I wasn't very good at it. I thought I looked extremely musical
(and theatrical) but I was giving mixed messages to the singers in the
class through my overly large gestures. |
| Twenty-two
years later I was accepted to the Choral Conducting Master's
Degree program at California State University, Los Angeles.
And a mere two years before that I become the Music Director
and Conductor of Coro de Cámara. I swear the only
reason I decided to pursue this Master's Degree is because,
as I quote, "I direct the most well educated choir
in the United States." But the real reason I chose
to get the advanced degree was because I wanted to continue
to work on my conducting gesture and musical communication
in rehearsal and performance. |
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