By Erin Freeman

It’s seven o’clock on a Tuesday night. I dismiss the 80 players of the Richmond Symphony Youth Orchestra, pack up my briefcase, breeze past parents eager to speak to me about their child’s choice of college, grab my sandwich out of the fridge, run four blocks to my car, drive down the highway while eating my sandwich, and hopefully arrive at Richmond Symphony Chorus rehearsal in enough time to brief the section leaders, review warm-ups with the pianist, and greet the 110 dedicated vocal volunteers before the 7:30 downbeat.

My position with the Richmond Symphony is unique. As Associate Conductor and Director of the Symphony Chorus, I have the opportunity to pursue two of my passions: orchestral and choral music. I always knew this was possible, having grown up under the influence of Robert Shaw, but when I began to study conducting in earnest, it became clear to me that the two disciplines were treated as separate and distinct entities. Masters degree programs require students to choose an emphasis: choral or orchestral. Conducting textbooks generally focus on one or the other. And, there exists an unwritten but much recited rule that choral is choral and orchestral is orchestral and never the twain shall meet, except in your Mozart, Faure, and Britten Requiems.

For years, I have fought these divisions, insisting to all I meet that the two were the same. “Music is music,” I have (not so eloquently) said, and I have defied anyone to prove me wrong. Ironically, the person who would end up showing me the error in my belief would be the person who spends thirty minutes every Tuesday evening causing a safety hazard on the roads of Richmond: me. As I zip along the Downtown Expressway, I have found that I must transform myself. I do whatever I can to clear the previous rehearsal and prepare for the upcoming two and a half hours. I turn on talk radio– I make a phone call – I recall my favorite Rilke poem. In the two years I have been maintaining this Tuesday schedule, I have learned that the most difficult part of the harried half hour is not the sandwich, the driving, or the running, but the transition – the transition between orchestral and choral conducting.

The question is, then, why the need for such a drastic change? What element of the conductor’s experience requires me to shed one skin for another? In a desperate attempt to make these thirty minutes easier for myself (and probably safer for the other Richmond drivers), I have been working hard to find the answer.

Is it gesture? It shouldn’t be. Each wave of the baton indicates how to begin the tone, how to sustain it, and how to release it. Ideally, a gesture supports the effort the musicians are making without getting in the way. This is no different if the musician is a clarinetist who needs to know if a tone should begin with a gentle air attack or a singer who needs guidance on how the final “n” of “Amen” should be released. Eleazar de Carvalho’s concept of “zigzag way” cueing is equally important in Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra as it is in Bach’s Singet dem Herrn. And, the amount of tension in a conductor’s gesture manifests itself in every ensemble musician’s body, whether in the bow arm of a violist or the neck tension of a vocalist. In front of each ensemble, a conductor’s gestures need to be clear, meaningful, and relaxed.

Is it related to the types of verbal instructions necessary for each type of rehearsal? Not in the global sense. Each group needs to rehearse ensemble, intonation, phrasing, dynamics, and color. Yes, technical considerations of the different instruments (human or otherwise) require varied vocabulary. Strings need to bow, and tenors need to breathe. Winds need to tongue, and sopranos need to form vowels. However, perhaps because of the difficulty I face switching so quickly between the two rehearsals, I have discovered that each type of ensemble actually thrives on instructions usually presented to the other. Giving strings the “vocal” directive to breathe together, for example, improves instrumental ensemble, focuses attention on the sound they are about to produce, and helps the principles lead. And, similarly, singers benefit from instrumental visualizations. Images such as the length of a bow stroke help singers pace their breath support through sustained phrases.

Perhaps it is my role as a leader and rehearsal technician that must change in those hectic thirty minutes. Do these ensembles require distinct personalities or rehearsal plans? Do I need to be particularly cheery or organized with one and droll and flexible with another? I would argue no. My job is to represent the music, whether in front of singers or players. Everything that I do must be dictated by the music. Rehearsal plans grow from the texture of any given score, and leadership style changes with the mood or difficulty of the music. All musicians, vocal and instrumental, respond best when the common goal is the music itself. That is, after all, why we have spent years training, working, volunteering, and studying.

Maybe my Tuesday transition has less to do with the dichotomy of instruments and voices and more to do with the juxtaposition of high-schoolers with adults or, to take a broader look at my position with the Richmond Symphony, the distinction between professionals, amateurs, and students. (I do have the occasional embarrassing moment when I tell grown-ups in my best teacher voice to “take your pencils and write in that crescendo.”) After all, a professional group generally needs only four rehearsals for even the most challenging repertoire, while volunteer and training ensembles require quite a few more. The youth orchestra may call for more cheerleading at times, while the professionals would usually like to just get to work – no pom-pons needed. And, of course, it goes without saying that the level of technical instruction differs from group to group. But, the extra rehearsals with the students or volunteers, with their mechanical directions and motivational moments, all lead to the final four, which should mimic as closely as possible the professional experience. By the time the last quartet of rehearsals arrives, every ensemble should be able to play or sing through every piece. All technical considerations should be solved, as should most issues of ensemble and intonation. This leaves opportunity to shape sound, phrasing, and balance, those issues most commonly addressed with the professional group.

So, what is it? Why do I feel a bit like I must find my sea legs when I step out of my car, brush the crumbs off of my shirt, and switch the scores that are in my briefcase? The best explanation I can find is that the difference is in the music itself. As I exchange a Tchaikovsky symphony for a Brahms part-song, I trade the complexity of orchestral texture for the difficulty of a Goethe text. As I swap Debussy’s La Mer with his Trois Chansons, the musical language stays the same, but I replace the virtuosity of instrumental solos with the directness of vocal art. As I move from orchestra to chorus, the conducting remains consistent, the verbal instructions do not drastically change, the rehearsal plans are all centered on the music’s needs, and I must stay focused on creating professionally inspired penultimate rehearsals.

For years, I have been determined to prove that the two arts are one and the same, merely because the technical demands of the conductor generally do not (or should not) adjust. I have underestimated, however, the power that the two idioms have on a person’s psyche. I have discounted the most important part of the conductor’s personal experience: how music makes her feel. In those stressful thirty minutes, I have learned that, indeed, the choral and orchestral experiences are distinct entities, and that is perhaps as it should be. Music is not music after all. Rather it is a highly humanizing endeavor, one that should provide powerfully diverse experiences for all involved. I now embrace the individual characteristics of the choral and orchestral arts. Rather than lump them together into one, I now simply state that I have the honor of being steeped in both.

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Erin Freeman is Associate Conductor of the Richmond Symphony, where she also serves as Interim Artistic Advisor and James Erb Choral Chair.