2022 Winter Conference Sessions

Solfege and Sonority is a participatory session for teaching music literacy in a choral rehearsal, with a focus on the needs of teachers who work with young singers. It is based on David Xiques’ book, Solfege and Sonority: Teaching Music Reading in the Choral Classroom, published by Oxford University Press. The workshop lays out teaching sequences for melodic and rhythmic concepts, lesson plans, and concise strategies for introducing key techniques. The individual lessons themselves are short (no more than 4-6 minutes each) and comprehensive, encour- aging singers to develop literacy of rhythm and melody together. The lessons are tied to the teacher’s current choral repertoire with the emphasis on teaching music reading and performance repertoire simultaneously in order to use precious rehearsal time in the most efficient manner. Participants will act as a “the chorus” as David leads the lessons of the introduction and reinforcement of the rhythmic and melodic elements, and will view videos of this approach working with young singers, all through diverse multi-cultural repertoire. The teaching procedures are based on tried-and -true practices while re-imagining the instruction for modern choral classroom situations found in many 21st century schools.