| The purpose of this study was to examine the repertoire selection practices of collegiate choral conductors at nationally recognized, religiously-affiliated, undergraduate-focused institutions for choral music performance. Participation in the study was determined based on the institution's history of invitational performances at the national conferences of the American Choral Directors Association for the period 1995-2015. The study involved a multiple case study of five Directors of Choral Activities and their five collegiate choral ensemble programs. Descriptive data were gathered from these five directors in the form of both concert programs of ten academic semesters and follow-up personal interviews pertaining to the content of the concert program collected data. The concert programs were analyzed for genre type, secular versus sacred text, language, composer, historical era, number of times performed, and any other appropriate commonalities. An examination of the application of repertoire selection principles (criteria) to varying levels of musicianship proficiency was conducted and an explanation regarding the learning purposes for each ensemble at the institutions was studied. Commonalities in repertoire selection practices for the purposes of vocal and musicianship growth were identified to support the scholarly literature on the subject of repertoire selection. This included the need to engage students in the repertoire selected by providing a balance of variety in historical era or style, genre, modality, key center, language, meter, and tempi. The repertoire selected for performance by all five institutions, as well as the individual conversations with the research participants, are included in the document. |
