RCO Chief Examiner Patrick Russill, Head of Choral Conducting at the Royal Academy of Music and Director of Music at the London Oratory, led the College’s annual Choral Directing Workshop last month.
This year the workshop venue was the Temple Church, just off London’s Fleet Street and the setting for scenes in the film of The Da Vinvi Code. We had this glorious venue to ourselves for the day.
The morning was spent in ‘dry dock’ working on basic conducting technique with piano, the participants forming their own ad hoc choir. There was also time to consider the philosophy of conducting – what do performers need from a conductor? How do choirs and instrumental ensembles differ in their needs…?
In the afternoon an ensemble of eight professional singers joined to sing repertoire drawn from the College’s Choral Directing Diploma syllabus: Bruckner’s Os justi, Howells’s Hear is the little door, Purcell’s Remember not Lord our offences, and Tippett’s magical arrangement of Early one morning. Selected conductors took it in turns to work with the choir, free from the need to teach notes and correct singing technique and to concentrate instead on the effectiveness of their own conducting.
It all sounded glorious in the spacious acoustic of the Temple Church, and hopefully the following feedback helps convey the value of the day to all concerned:
“Patrick Russill was outstanding and made the whole event great fun as well as highly instructive. Excellent value, great teaching and the venue and choir were a real treat! Thank you.”
“This was an enjoyable and inspiring workshop and I picked up lots of tips that will be helpful to me in my work as a choral conductor. I particularly appreciate how the course leader Patrick Russill was able to express often quite complex ideas in simple terms that could be understood by everyone on the course, regardless of their experience.!
“Thank you for another splendid RCO day of mental overload. Long may it continue!”
And finally, for a full personal account of the day from one of those attending, do take a moment to visit http://www.theladyorganist.com/rco-choral-conducting-workshop-with-patrick-russill/
