Why I conduct.

We will now break from our usually scheduled Asian programming to bring you this:

Just kidding.



I feel like whenever I tell people that I want to go into conducting that the first thing that pops into their head is "why?"  That, or "ok, weirdo."  I feel that it is doubly so at my school, where we do not have a conducting major, and many of my vocalist friends and colleagues seem to think that choir is a chore, and only go because it is required.

I would like to offer this explanation (not that any of you care - I'm just writing this down so that I can come back to it later).

This summer has been a wonderful experience.  Since, as I pointed out earlier (hooray redundancies!), my school does not offer a conducting major aside from music education, I try to do all I can to fill up and load up on classes (hurrdurr I'll load YOU up...).  I have been very busy with workshops and internships and what have you, and it didn't really strike me until tonight - as I was conducting along to bad Youtube recordings and some good ones - of this fact.

Music flows through me.


Quite literally.  When I am up on the podium and I start conducting, I am the happiest man on the planet.  It flows through me like blood through my veins.  It reminds me that music is all about COLLABORATION, and that together, we are all creating something as special and as magical as when it was first composed.


I conduct out of love.


The same goes when I am a singer in a choir.  When we all know our music, and can connect to the conductor, I can almost see the music flowing from his fingertips and infusing me with the ability to give all I can to make the performance as wonderful as possible.  It is like the conductor is the catalyst with which the music flows through.



I felt this at our concert two weeks ago.

This feeling is something that I don't quite get out of solo singing.  Yes, it is a wonderful thing to bond with your accompanist, and exploring the nuances of the music and the text, feeling the give-and-take in the music is something that I adore - but it just doesn't FEEL the same.  And while it does give me a sense of accomplishment, the feeling is NOTHING compared to the joy of completing a concert that you designed and rehearsed and worked and worked... And this was all last semester, BEFORE I got really in tune with myself!


This is something that I will strive to accomplish with any group that I have the privilege of conducting and directing.


This is my dream.