Choir Fam Podcast
The Choir Fam Podcast is a venue for conversations about the current state of choral music. Hosts Dean Luethi and Matthew Myers seek to bring the worldwide choral community closer together through their discussions with a variety of guests who work with choir in its various forms. The goal of the podcast is to provide listeners with interesting tidbits of knowledge they could use in day-to-day choral rehearsals and to bring light to the ways that issues in the choral field are being observed and addressed.
- Update frequency
- every 9 days
- Average duration
- 46 minutes
- Episodes
- 142
- Years Active
- 2022 - 2025
Ep. 130 - Expanding the Choral Sound with Contemporary Music - Rob Dietz
“I love the way that contemporary a cappella engages singers who might not necessarily see themselves as ‘choral singers’ to be able to sing together and maybe discover a love of more traditional cho…
Ep. 129 - Making a Difference Through Choral Music - Joy Hirokawa
“We were all asking ourselves, ‘what can we do to counter this, what’s happening in the world? How can I help my singers understand and navigate what is happening in our country right now?’ I made th…
Ep. 128 - Building Emotional Intelligence Through Choral Singing - Jeremy Brown
“My mantra for my teaching is: I want to create good humans while also creating good musicians. I tell every ensemble that on the first day of school. What they care about is 'Does Mr. Brown see me? …
Ep. 127 - Reconsidering Pedagogy to Support Neurodivergent Singers - Peter Allen Haley
“Start with the way that you structure your rehearsal, your classroom, your feedback. In terms of feedback, we talk about not giving people more than three pieces of information to work on. Working m…
Ep. 126 - Balancing the Needs of Our Singers and Our Institutions - Kristina Ploeger-Hekmatpanah
“We’re often put in positions that make us uncomfortable with the inner struggle of how to keep our job and have our program recognized enough to get support versus how to carry out our true mission …
Season 5 Wrap-Up
Thank you for listening to our show this season!!
Here are the favorite choral pieces from our guests in the fifth season:
Christmas Oratorio, Johann Sebastian Bach
Mass in B Minor, Johann Sebastian Bac…
Ep. 125 - Inspiring Choral Skills Through International Competition - Mark Anthony Carpio
“More competitions are being organized, and it has become a way for these conductors and choirs to work on their skills. By joining these competitions, the rate of their progress accelerated. People …
Ep. 124 - Exploring the Fusion of Choral and Commercial Music - MaryAnne Muglia
“We had 10 sopranos, 4 altos, 2 tenors, and 1 bass, and they were all volunteers. We were spending hours trying to learn this music that we didn’t have the numbers for, so I ended up writing almost 1…
Ep. 123 - Improving Ensemble Intonation and Listening Skills - Albert Pinsonneault
“We ended up forming a new string orchestra at the high school, and I led every rehearsal and conducted every concert. I remember the very first day. I looked at my teacher and said, ‘how do you star…
Ep. 122 - Music and Mission in LGBTQ+ and Senescent Choruses - Tim Seelig
“Everything changed for the gay choral movement because they had twins: music and mission. They weren’t just there for the music, and they weren’t just there for the mission. I’ve been feeding my twi…
Ep. 121 - Choral Collaboration with the Choir Guys: Daniel Gutierrez and Blake Richter
"I start every morning at the junior high, and we co-teach together. It's great for alignment in the program, for familiarity with the students and getting to know them and hopefully continuing in ch…
Ep. 120 - Unlocking Humanity and Vulnerability Through Choral Singing - Chris Maunu
“I think during my formative years, shying away from my true self – my authentic self – that's definitely shaped how I approach being in front of choirs, using choir as a platform to really encourage…
Ep. 119 - Mentoring the Next Generation of Choral Educators - Jennifer Sengin
“You never know what anybody's potential is. I think about that now as a teacher, that we are expecting 17-, 18-year-olds to know what they want to do for the rest of their lives. It’s so early in yo…
Ep. 118 - Preserving the Art of Community Music Making - Michael Murphy
“Sometimes my students ask me if I worry about the future of choral music with advanced technology, AI, but I really am not concerned at all. The way that I see it, the act of making music with each …
Ep. 117 - Tips for Writing Accessible and Eloquent Choral Music - Dan Forrest
“I think the hardest thing in the world is to write easy music that still is eloquent. A piece relies on strength of idea and not strength of technique or difficulty. That underlying idea is so rich …
Ep. 116 - Modeling Vocal Versatility for Singers - Cindy Ellis
“I want students to function in a studio recording session and a live performance, which are very, very different worlds. I want them to be able to do not just jazz, not just classical, not just gosp…
Ep. 115 - Mental Health Strategies for Choral Ensembles - Sarah Graham
“Students will often refer to voice lessons, to choir rehearsal, as therapy. I felt that there was something to that. I wanted to make the connection between individual therapy and voice lessons and …
Ep. 114 - Creative Problem Solving in the Choral Rehearsal - Sharon Paul
“One of the things we know about the brain is that information that is acquired through problem solving is more likely to be retained. I might start rehearsal by saying 'take out the piece in D major…
Ep. 113 - Advancing Composition with Improvisation and Mixed Media - Katerina Gimon
“You never know someone else’s story. You never know what the experience of a concert or hearing a piece is to somebody. You don’t know how that affects them. So much of my music and why I do what I …
Ep. 112 - Building Cultural Empathy Through International Travel - Emily Ellsworth
“People may live in a place that's very different from us, but they have the same hopes, dreams, fears, and struggles with everyday life that we all do at some level. All the parents want education f…