As the landscape of choral education changes - disrupted by
Glee
, YouTube, and increasingly cheap audio production software - teachers of choral conducting need current research in the field that charts scholarly paths through contemporary debates and sets an agenda for new critical thought and practice. Where, in the digitizing world, is the field of choral pedagogy moving? Editor Frank Abrahams and Paul D. Head, both experienced choral conductors and teachers, offer here a comprehensive handbook of newly-commissioned chapters that provide key scholarly-critical perspectives on teaching and learning in the field of choral music, written by academic scholars and researchers in tandem with active choral conductors.
As chapters in this book demonstrate, choral pedagogy encompasses everything from conductors' gestures to the administrative management of the choir. The contributors to
The Oxford Handbook of Choral Pedagogy
address the full range of issues in contemporary choral pedagogy, from repertoire to voice science to the social and political aspects of choral singing. They also cover the construction of a choral singer's personal identity, the gendering of choral ensembles, social justice in choral education, and the role of the choral art in society more generally. Included scholarship focuses on both the United States and international perspectives in five sections that address traditional paradigms of the field and challenges to them; critical case studies on teaching and conducting specific populations (such as international, school, or barbershop choirs); the pedagogical functions of repertoire; teaching as a way to construct identity; and new scholarly methodologies in pedagogy and the voice.