September 2019

Having contemplated some broad themes in my previous post about the research strand at the recent abcd Choral Leaders Festival, I’d like to pick out a few interesting cross-references between the papers. There were four speakers reporting on projects undertaken for advanced degrees in the strand sessions, plus the plenary keynote presented by Dr Katie Overy, all of which addressed topics that would make choral practitioners say, ‘Ooh yes, we want to know about that!’

But it’s in the resonances between them that you really feel the value of a event like this, rather than just reading their findings as published articles. Not that I object to reading articles, you understand. The published format offers other strengths – the opportunity for the author to cover more detail, and for the reader to take time to think about things en route. But it doesn’t offer the same kind of creative opportunities as a live event, where the ways in which the papers bounce off each other spark insights beyond what they each offer individually.

So, here are the things that I came away wanting to think about further:

Michael Bonshor's methodology diagram

The recent abcd Choral Leaders Festival in Birmingham saw the introduction of a new research stream to this annual event. This is the brainchild of Martin Ashley (whose own research is well worth reading if you don’t know it already), as part of a wider project to facilitate a research culture amongst practitioners and develop a disciplinary community amongst choral researchers. Look out for the launch of a new journal in the coming months as another part of this initiative.

As you might imagine, a morning immersed in multiple researchers’ work filled more pages of my notebook than can be digested in a single blog post. Indeed, many of the things I noted will show more in the way they nourish my thinking over the coming months than in any immediate reporting. But there are themes that need thinking about, and this blog is where I do my thinking in public.