Leading a choir
From the start of the 2024-2025 academic year, the choral conducting class will evolve to offer students a wider range of professional experience and take account of the realities of the field: in the BA and MA programmes, professional choral conducting, in opera houses or as freelancers, baroque choirs, but also amateur choirs and children's choirs.
The students will benefit from a strong teaching team, with a main choral conducting teacher in the person of Denis Rouger and occasional guest speakers in each specific field: Natacha Casagrande for amateur choir conducting, Fruzsina Szuromi for children's choir conducting and Leonardo Garcia Alarcòn for baroque choir conducting. This enhanced training will be based not only on the HEM's own choir workshops, made up of HEM singing students, but also on local partner institutions such as the Grand Théâtre de Genève, the CPMDT and amateur choirs in the region.
The class requires singing and piano skills, along with a wide-ranging musical culture and knowledge of the repertoire. The ability to easily read scores is also necessary, along with linguistic abilities. Beyond these musical qualities, choir directors must also acquire leadership and management qualities (including managing rehearsals).
The training dispensed in the class is centred around the practice of choral direction, supplemented with the acquisition of complementary skills in orchestra direction. In order to acquire specific experience of the profession, the students are given a chance, on top of the individual and group classes, to do an internship at a renowned lyrical institution.
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Teachers
