Facilitating transformative music experiences: A wholehearted approach for choral leaders

Abstract

In today's technology-driven age, choral arts programs are losing ground in the race for consumers' time and money. If these arts are to regain their rightful status in a balanced society, choral leaders must seek to elevate their music-making above the ordinary and expected to a heightened level of expression in which choral leader, choir, and audience connect and become one with the music, engendering a transcendence, however momentary, of present reality. Such a level cannot be attained by adapting to current trends and embracing technological enhancements, but rather by instilling respect for music for its own sake. This study contends that only by cultivating within themselves the qualities that lead to wholeheartedness—mindfulness, vulnerability, courage, authenticity, and humility—will choral leaders be able to facilitate that interconnectivity required to evoke such transformative experiences, and only then will choral arts programs become healthy and robust, impervious to fluctuating tastes and trends.