Choral Cultures

Abby Wiegand Dr.
van der Vat-Chromy
MUED 376 Fall 2020
Choral Cultures: Unlearning Bias
In any choral classroom, implicit biases often stand in the way of creating a safe and
welcoming environment for students and teachers alike. Misogyny, whether explicit or
internalized, is sometimes brought about by what seems to be a logistical necessity. Choirs in the
middle and high school setting tend to have fewer men, and more women. In my personal
experience, this causes choir directors to more highly prize and praise the boys in the room in an
effort to keep them in the program. Theater programs face a similar problem. If twenty girls
audition for four female roles in a play, and ten boys audition for seven male roles in the same
play, more boys will be successful at the end of the process, regardless of talent and work ethic.
It’s easy to see why this is the case. People with lower voices are valuable, and their range can
add depth and dimension to a choir’s sound. But what are the cultural consequences of that kind
of treatment? The girls and people with higher voices feel less important, in a society that
already undervalues their accomplishments. Certainly this is almost always unintentional on the
part of the teacher, but that lack of intention doesn’t erase the impact.
What can be done to combat this subtle misogyny in choral and theater programs? In the
case of middle and high school theater, there are a few surface-level fixes that can be dealt with
first. When choosing productions, a director should consider the pool of potential auditioners. If
fifteen competent sopranos and two strong bases are expected to audition, the show to be
performed should feature more roles for sopranos than bases to even out the odds of someone
earning a role based on the success of their audition rather than their gender. Another potential
solution is to take the gender binary of stage roles with a grain of salt. If a soprano can sing a role
traditionally played by a tenor, don’t let sex or gender stand in the way. This is directly
transferable to a choir classroom. If an alto can sing a bass solo, and that alto works hard and
earns it, let the alto sing the bass solo. Merit should be rewarded, rather than gender assigned at
birth.
Choir directors should also fight implicit bias by treating their students as equally
important and valuable. This applies not only to gender, but also race, ability, and sexual
orientation. Every perspective must be valued, and students should all get a chance to voice their
opinions and share in democratic classroom practices. Treat everyone as equal, do not tolerate
intolerance, and foster open and honest discussion about differences and disagreements. As a
side effect of this kind of teaching, one may find that the choir itself becomes more diverse. It is
my belief that some young boys are afraid to join choral programs, for fear of being seen as
feminine, as choir is often seen as feminine when compared to band programs. I may not
understand exactly what makes singing bass more feminine than playing the trombone, but I
have come across this problem throughout my time as a singer and pianist, as well as a teacher.
When we disrupt these stereotypes and create a space where femininity, those with sexual
orientations or gender orientations other than straight and cis, and racial differences are simply a
fact of life and not an inherently negative thing, we allow more people to feel safe and
comfortable being themselves. We teach boys that it’s ok to access their feminine side, and of
course, their masculinity as well, because despite stereotypes, there is nothing inherently or
explicitly feminine about choir.

Important when one considers all of this is the acknowledgement of students who do not
fit the gender binary or identify with a gender other than the one they were assigned at birth.
These students deserve to feel just as safe and valued as anyone else. Referring to the soprano
section as “sopranos” rather than “girls” or “ladies” is a small adjustment that might make a
student more comfortable expressing this truth about themselves.
Diversifying repertoire and expanding students’ ranges of musical knowledge is one
excellent step towards achieving this goal of a democratic and decolonized classroom. Music
written about social issues, music written by people outside the world of straight, white, men,
can be a great excuse to talk about these identities and what they really mean on a practical level.
This also aides in decolonizing the music classroom and dismantling the white supremacy that is
so pervasive in the world of music. There can be no culture of safety until those systems of
oppression are dismantled. We cannot talk about choral cultures and safety in the classroom if
we are unwilling to face hard questions and tackle difficult societal problems. Creating a
functional and healthy choral culture is our job as music educators, so it is our responsibility to
tackle implicit and explicit biases and improve ourselves and others in a way that is
non-judgmental and constructive.

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Abby Wiegand Dr.

van der Vat-Chromy

MUED 376 Fall 2020

Choral Cultures: Unlearning Bias

explicitly feminine about choir.

student more comfortable expressing this truth about themselves.

Diversifying repertoire and expanding students’ ranges of musical knowledge is one

non-judgmental and constructive.

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