The development of excellence in high school choirs: a collective case study of three advanced ensembles

This research investigated the phenomenon of expertise development in high school choirs. It sought to determine factors likely to be conducive to the achievement of choral excellence by exploring the principal research question: What is the nature of excellence in the advanced high school choir and how it is established? Excellence in this study refers to “reputational excellence,” which was determined through a track record of professional recordings, broadcasts, concerts, and touring, in addition to musical qualities such as advanced repertoire, vocal technique, and tonal qualities well above accepted norms. The individual perceptions of students, teachers, parents, and conductors form a significant body of lived experience that was the foundation for this study.Choirs in schools are educative rather than merely social or diversional activities. \ua0Cultural–historical activity theory shaped the approach to the study; singers, conductors, choirs, and their school environments were considered a unified framework. The study drew on emerging theory on the nature of individual and collective expertise and its development.Analysis of the extant literature on the nature of choral expertise, leadership in choirs, and assessing the role of the conductor in expertise development was also undertaken.\ua0This collective case study focused on three mixed voice high school choirs located in three different countries. The research design used semi-structured interviews, rehearsal and performance observations, and some artefact study (concert programmes, advertising materials, recordings). Data were generated over two site visits to each choir and included multiple interviews with conductors and singers, spread over an 18-month period, and interviews with accompanists, heads of schools and music departments, and parents of singers. Multiple rehearsals were observed during each site visit, and each choir was observed in public performance on at least two occasions. The interview data were subsequently transcribed and coded thematically. As a choral practitioner and academic, the researcher’s auto-ethnographic account provided a frame for the analysis of the data.The research findings identified 10 aspects in the case study choirs that significantly contributed to the development of choral excellence. They are: (a) the significant role of performance, (b) the importance of quality repertoire, (c) the nature of conductor training, experience, and reflective learning, (d) the rehearsal process, (e) conductor intuition, (f) links between choir and the music curriculum, (g) singer engagement, challenge, and efficacy, (h) student leadership—modelling and mentoring, (i) the social dimension, and (j) support of school administration.Identification of the 10 factors that contribute to choral expertise suggests that these factors need not be confined to particular sites and contexts and that this expertise can be transferrable to other sites by implementing\ua0 the factors identified in this study. The thesis argues that excellent high school choirs can bridge the music education divide between that which focusses on a small musical elite and that which strives to connect with high school students generally. Further, the three sites demonstrate how the choral environment embodies the development of musical expertise, even for novices, through high levels of engagement, exposure to exemplary repertoire, developing vocal technique, aural development and musicality alongside such attendant skills as concentration, commitment, determination, empathy, and respect. All this occurs in an environment characterized by interactive social learning, peer modelling, and situated learning with appropriate conductor scaffolding – a true community of practice