Singing in a choir is fun, it builds teamwork and confidence in people as they work together to accomplish a common goal. Singing also shares something unique from all other musical instruments: WORDS. This means it is a powerful tool FOR memory and speec...

[A version of this article first appeared as a post on my blog From the Front of the Choir] Some people are put off when they come across a song with FOReign WORDS. They prefer to sing songs in English. photo by Chell Hill Not only are they missin...

[this is a version of a post which first appeared on my blog From the Front of the Choir]   Last week I looked at how you get beyond the written word if you've been learning lyrics from sheets of paper.     This week I want to look a...

Arrangement FOR men's voices by Alan Cruise-Johnston WORDS shown on screen Score available FOR free download

Music by Edward Elgar from "Scenes from the Saga of King Olaf" WORDS by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

[A version of this article first appeared as a post on my blog From the Front of the Choir]   You work on a song in choir week after week, but slowly things seem to get worse. You worry about getting the WORDS right, you can’t seem to re...

A five-star review in the Telegraph FOR the Howells Requiem from Trinity College Choir and Stephen Layton. “A fluid lyrical gift, an imaginative harmonic spectrum and a sense of occasion … the Trinity College Choir brings clarity of WORDS and...

[A version of this article first appeared as a post on my blog From the Front of the Choir]   “In our choir we’re not allowed to use WORDS in concerts.”   Photo by Kaptain Kobold   Great idea. In principle. But how...

 five-star review in the Telegraph FOR the Howells Requiem from Trinity College Choir and Stephen Layton. “A fluid lyrical gift, an imaginative harmonic spectrum and a sense of occasion … the Trinity College Choir brings clarity of WORDS...

FOR SATB Chorus unaccompanied WORDS by Mary Elizabeth Frye: Public Domain Music by Stanley M. Hoffman © Copyright 2018 by Stanley M. Hoffman. www.stanleymhoffman.com All rights reserved. The poem above is sometimes called “I Am” due to its repet...  moreFOR SATB Chorus unaccompanied WORDS by Mary Elizabeth Frye: Public Domain Music by Stanley M. Hoffman © Copyright 2018 by Stanley M. Hoffman. www.stanleymhoffman.com All rights reserved. The poem above is sometimes called “I Am” due to its repetition of the phrase. Was the poem inspired? The Hebrew name FOR God, YHWH, means “I am” or “I am that I am.” And there does seem to be something magical about the poem, as it was written by a woman who, to our knowledge, had never written a poem beFORe. Mary Elizabeth Frye was an orphan with no FORmal education. In 1932 she and her husband hosted a young Jewish woman, Margaret Schwarzkopf, who was fleeing the Holocaust. When she received news that her mother had died in Germany, the heartbroken houseguest told Frye in despair that she had never had the chance to “stand by my mother’s grave and shed a tear.” Frye found herself composing the poem above on a ripped-off section of a brown paper shopping bag. She said the WORDS “just came to her.”  less