Image
The story of how The Dessoff Choirs in New York City went about a search to replace a beloved music director several years ago will resonate with many choruses contemplating a similar transition.
Dessoff Choirs discovered that there is no blueprint and no one-size-fits-all approach. Their hope in writing about the experience is that others may benefit from what they learned; Chorus America's goal is to incorporate the wisdom of many such stories into new resources that will help define best practices in finding new leaders and navigating the transition.
Facing a Transition
Inevitably, in the life of a chorus, there comes a time when the unthinkable happens: The music director you've come to love and respect and whose musical tastes and gestures have become almost second nature to your group decides to step down. What do you do next? How do you find a new director with the personality and skills who will pick up where the old conductor left off and take your chorus to the next level?
These are questions The Dessoff Choirs faced when Kent Tritle, music director for eight seasons, announced in February 2004 that he was not renewing his contract. Under his leadership, the chorus had developed a well-regarded series of self-produced concerts in New York City and had forged stimulating collaborations with the New York Philharmonic, the Mostly Mozart Festival, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival, among others, while offering premieres of new works by Tan Dun, Philip Glass, and John Tavener. The thought of continuing without Tritle's leadership was disappointing, but the opportunity to meet new conductors and to try new musical ideas was also exciting.
The first thing the Choir's board of directors did was to appoint a search committee (the Choir is governed by a board elected from the singing membership). The 10 members of the committee were chosen based on diversity of age, experience, and duration in Dessoff, as well as diverse professional characteristics, such as musical background, and organizational, financial, and business skills," says search committee chairman Wylie Hembree.
Over the course of several meetings, beginning in April 2004, the committee outlined a strategy for the search process, with an eye on the calendar—rehearsals for the 2004-05 season would begin in September. The initial idea was to invite three finalists to conduct the season's three concerts, which had already been programmed by Tritle. But the committee quickly realized that they wouldn't be able to sift through resumes and carry out interviews, much less observe any serious candidates conduct, in time to engage someone for the Christmas concert. So the board hired a guest conductor—someone who had worked with the Choir before and chose not to be considered as a candidate.
Getting the Word Out
The first step was to create a job description and to post it where potential candidates might see it. The committee polled members of the chorus for their suggestions. We (the committee) asked Tritle, his predecessor Amy Kaiser, and other choral directors for names of people to contact. We posted ads on various websites: Chorus America, ChoralNet, and the Vocal Area Network. Within days of Tritle's announcement that he was stepping down, conductors were contacting us about the position. In all, we received 85 expressions of interest and 63 complete applications.
All members of the committee looked over each application and, via email, phone calls, and face-to-face meetings, selected 30 candidates to interview. The pool of candidates was diverse - we received applications from places as far away as Wisconsin, Florida, and California, as well as from the greater New York area. Some were fresh out of music school, others had led major choral organizations for decades. We looked at several criteria: Did the applicants' resume and cover letter indicate an interest in the kind of varied and eclectic programming Dessoff has traditionally performed? Did they have experience and enthusiasm about conducting an avocational choir? What did they look for in a choral singer? Did they have any ties to New York's musical community? Did they have experience building a nonprofit organization, helping with fundraising, and working closely with a board of directors?
Each member of the committee took turns interviewing candidates, which helped keep the process fresh. There were surprises - sometimes the candidate who looked perfect on paper flamed out in the interview, or someone about whom the committee was divided came in and dazzled us all. Because the season was fast-approaching, the committee adopted a kind of rolling process - if we liked a candidate after the interview, beginning in August 2004 we'd invite the person to a one-hour conducting session with members of the chorus. Since it was summer, we couldn't expect full attendance at these conducting sessions, but were delighted to find that a core of about 30 singers invariably showed up at every one. We invited 18 candidates to direct a session, though two withdrew their applications before their sessions.
For each session, the candidate was asked to lead the chorus in a warm-up, conduct one piece from a list of recently-performed works, and introduce the chorus to a new piece of music. At the end of each session - and we'd often have two candidates per evening or three on a Saturday afternoon - we'd ask each singer to fill out a feedback form, assessing not only the candidates' positives and negatives, but the general "vibe" in the room.
Again, it was an eye-opening process. Some candidates who shone in the interview disappointed in rehearsal, while others got us to sing better than we had imagined! "It's great to work with someone totally new and unknown," says alto and board member Marcia Miller. "It requires enormous give and take, and reveals not only the candidate's strengths and weaknesses, but one's own limitations." Of great help through this stage was accompanist Steven Ryan, who provided invaluable observations of each of the candidates and their collaborative style.
In retrospect, one of the drawbacks of interviewing candidates and inviting them to conduct while we were still receiving applications is that the baseline kept shifting. Many members of the committee felt that we were being too inclusive, inviting too many of the applicants we interviewed to conduct. It might have been better to wait until all the applications were in, have a marathon session to review them, invite the 10 top candidates for interviews, and the five top interviewees to conduct full three-hour rehearsals. But given the time constraints, we did the best we could.
Winnowing the Pool of Applicants
The conducting sessions continued into the middle of October 2004. Then, the committee met to review the impressions of the candidates and discuss the outcome of extensive phone reference checks, as well as pore over results of the chorus questionnaires. Six potential finalists were identified, and over the course of the meeting we narrowed the list down to three, even though only two concert engagements were available. That raised some touchy questions. We were already in rehearsal for our December program with a guest conductor. Should the organization add an additional concert to provide a third finalist the opportunity to conduct? Would the Choir be able to afford the additional cost of rehearsal space, salaries, and hall rental? Would it unduly tax the singers' time and patience? Still, we felt it would be better, in the long run, for the Choir to be exposed to three conductors, each with a different musical style. And, in case one of the candidates withdrew, we'd still have a choice. The committee presented this recommendation to the board and it was accepted.
Evaluating the finalists was by far the most edifying and fascinating part of the process. Each finalist was asked to provide a proposal for a seasons' programming, which demonstrated not only an aesthetic sensibility but how he or she would work within a prescribed budget. Each finalist interacted with a number of chorus members in various capacities, from our librarian to our artistic committee chair to our membership chair, and additionally was interviewed by the board. And, of course, there was the weekly (and sometimes twice-weekly) rehearsal with the Choir and, in the case of two concerts, the chamber chorus. This was the crux of the matter - whether, over the course of preparing for a concert, the candidate "wore well" with Dessoff.
Inevitably, the difficulties of a season without a music director took their toll. In addition to our four self-produced concerts, we had four outside engagements, and attendance, sometimes a problem in avocational choruses, became spotty. More than the usual number of singers requested leaves of absence for particular concerts. As the season moved towards its conclusion six weeks after it normally ended, tempers sometimes flared. Still, there was a palpable sense of engagement from the majority of singers in terms of investing in a process that would decide the group's future.
After each rehearsal and concert cycle was completed, Choir members were asked to fill out longer feedback forms and provide rankings of each finalist in relation to the others. Most members chose to participate - either by name or anonymously - and the responses were passionate, well-articulated, and extremely helpful. Each candidate had partisans and detractors, though when all was said and done, there emerged a clear favorite identified by both the Choir and the search committee. Right before the final meeting in June 2005 - 15 months after the search process began - one of the finalists withdrew from consideration, reinforcing our decision to go with three finalists instead of just two.
The committee unanimously recommended James Bagwell as the next music director, based on his superb conducting of Rachmaninoff's Vespers, the enthusiastic response of the chorus to his focused yet easy-going rehearsal style, and the enthusiasm of all the committee members, board members, and our accompanist. The board unanimously approved.
Could the search process have been streamlined? Could different approaches have been pursued? Perhaps. Would we have come to the same decision without that process? None of us will ever know. But as someone who was intimately involved with it, I think the result - finding a conductor with impeccable musicality who can passionately motivate a group of amateur singers - was the best possible outcome. And I personally look forward to a new musical experience when James Bagwell steps up to the podium and leads us in his first season as the new music director of The Dessoff Choirs.
This article is adapted from The Voice, Winter 2005/06.
