As a singer, I need more than anything else to be able to find the beat. Our choir sits on both sides of the sanctuary; there's no way we can be precisely together if we don't have the conductor to follow. And nobody wants to sing nothing but robotic tempi, so we need to be able to follow rubato, accelerando, ralletando, etc.
It's good to be able to discern the beat well enough to be sure that the consonants will precede the beat properly. Just think how often repeated glorias result in lagging choirs...
I've never had a problem with a conductor beating the music to death. Rather, the issue has always been trying to figure out where in the flowery gesturing there's information on what I'm supposed to do.
Musical interpretation? We're supposed to be working through that in rehearsal so that the only issue in performance is how the moment happens to steer the conductor to ask for more or less than we planned.
As a singer, I need more than anything else to be able to find the beat. Our choir sits on both sides of the sanctuary; there's no way we can be precisely together if we don't have the conductor to follow. And nobody wants to sing nothing but robotic tempi, so we need to be able to follow rubato, accelerando, ralletando, etc.
It's good to be able to discern the beat well enough to be sure that the consonants will precede the beat properly. Just think how often repeated glorias result in lagging choirs...
I've never had a problem with a conductor beating the music to death. Rather, the issue has always been trying to figure out where in the flowery gesturing there's information on what I'm supposed to do.
Musical interpretation? We're supposed to be working through that in rehearsal so that the only issue in performance is how the moment happens to steer the conductor to ask for more or less than we planned.