CHORAL CONDUCTOR / MUSIC DIRECTOR
Rehearsing the Ambassadors before their performance at the SHAG festival in Connecticut for Pride 2023.
Most people don’t think of it that way, but it’s true: there is an inherent element of performance in all choral music. It can be the performance of class, of inclusivity or exclusivity, of class, even of sexual orientation. Yet, outside of show choirs, that performance element is often overlooked or ignored altogether.
I am fascinated by that performativity, however, and it is part of my artistic and academic vision, both, to examine it, play with it, and make the implicit overt and explicit. Sometimes, it’s deliberately performative — as in choosing how we dress, move or even stage a performance — and sometimes, it’s more subversive and rebellious…like putting a bunch of trans singers in the middle of the high church liturgy, in a venue where we are traditionally unwelcome and even outright rejected.
What changes when the people singing the music changes? That’s the question that continues to interest me as a director, and where my artistic paths forward lead.
I am currently the artistic director of the TRANScend Ambassadors and the TRANScend Community Chorale — New York’s first and only art music-focused trans and gender-expansive vocal ensemble. We are exploring new and traditional repertoire with the unique sound of trans voices, and the innate performativity that comes with singing outside the bounds of traditional social mores.
CHORAL SINGING IS PERFORMANCE ART
Audrey Snyder's setting of Oscar Wilde's poem, The Flight of the Moon. From our Pride 2023 concert at St. John's in the Village.
Kedrov's setting of Otche Nash (Our Father) in English. From TRANScend’s Pride 2023 concert at St. John's in the Village.
Caroling in the Union Square Holiday Market, 2022.
Rehearsing Dylan Tran’s dear heart, 2022.
Leading the Ambassadors at the SHAG festival in Connecticut, June 2023.