Creating Effective & Engaging Reherasals
Dr. Janet Galvan
An artist/teacherâs knowledge of what to do to get positive results in rehearsal is gained with deeper knowledge and experience. Score-based rehearsals combined with the quest to honor the story of the music can lead to an engaging rehearsal process.
Creating plans that are based on guiding singers to discover (hear) something new in the music at each rehearsal is one way to have more productive rehearsals as well achieve faster results in meeting the vocal and musical demands of each composition. Through this process, singers will also gain knowledge, techniques, and empathy in telling the stories of others.
Over time, these approaches lead to more efficient rehearsals, allowing groups to accomplish in 4 days what previously took 3 weeks. Having a repertoire of rehearsal strategies to address vocal, musical, and performance challenges of the music helps to make interesting rehearsals rather than an endless set of repetitions. Come and explore this philosophy and specific strategies with Dr. Janet GalvĂĄn.
Covered during the masterclass:
- Effective and engaging rehearsal techniques
- How to gather information to meet upcoming musical challenges
- How to meet the students at their current ability level
- Techniques for purposeful rehearsal
- Building community through rehearsal
Meet Your Professor
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Dr. Janet GalvaĚn has empowered and inspired choral conductors, choral singers, and educators nationally and internationally. She has contributed to the invigoration of the choral art through innovative programming, staging, rehearsal techniques, and choral conducting workshops at Ithaca College, where she was the Director of Choral Activities. Her singers are noted for creating a deep connection with audiences.
Sought after as a guest conductor of choral and orchestral ensembles, she has conducted professional and university orchestras including Virtuosi Pragenses, the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, and the Madrid Chamber Orchestra in choral/orchestral performances. She has conducted national, divisional, and state choruses throughout the United States for the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA), the National Association for Music Educators (NAfME), and the Organization of American KodaĚly Educators (OAKE), and has conducted ensembles of all ages, from adult professional choirs to childrenâs choirs. She has conducted in venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Centerâs Alice Tully Hall, Washingtonâs Constitution Hall, Minneapolisâ Symphony Hall, Bostonâs Symphony Hall, Pittsburghâs Heinz Hall, Nashvilleâs Schermerhorn Symphony Center, and Dvorak Hall of Rudolfinum.
Her own choral ensembles have performed in Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Centerâs Alice Tully Hall, as well as in concert halls throughout Europe and Ireland. GalvaĚn was the sixth national honor choir conductor for ACDA, and was the conductor of the North American Childrenâs Choir, which performed annually in Carnegie Hall for 10 years. She was also a guest conductor for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
GalvaĚn has been a guest conductor and clinician in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Brazil, and throughout Europe, as well as at national conferences and the World Symposium on Choral Music. She was on the faculty for the Carnegie Hall Choral Institute, the Transient Glory Symposium, and the Oberlin Conducting Institute. GalvaĚn was a member of the Grammy Award-winning Robert Shaw Festival Singers.
GalvaĚn has two choral music series with the Roger Dean Publishing Company and it the series advisor to Latin Accents, a series with Boosey & Hawkes. Additionally, she is the author of chapters in two books, Teaching Music through Performance in Choir, Volume 2 and The School Choral Program: Philosophy, Planning, Organizing and Teaching. Her article on the changing voice was published in the International Federation of Choral Music Journal in August 2007, and reprinted in La Circulare del Secretariat de Coral Infatils de Catalunga.
GalvaĚn has been recognized as one of the countryâs leading conducting teachers, and her students have received first place awards, as well as being finalists, in both the graduate and undergraduate divisions of the American Choral Directors Association biennial National Choral Conducting Competition. Many of her former students are now conducting university and professional choirs. In addition she has been an artist in residence at many universities, leading masterclasses, working with university choirs, and presenting sessions.
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