Boychoirs and Discrimination
With all the recent talk about gender in our society, I have become more aware of discrimination. In my choir training for young singers class, I have been introduced to the world of children's choirs and before coming to college, I had no idea that there were choirs just for boys, and sometimes even just boys and men. Something about the whole concept of a "boychoir" and especially an all-male choir (where boys sing SA and men TB) strikes me as very strange. I of course understand the history of choirs in the church, etc., but is there really a need for all-male choirs today? If so, what is a woman's role in choral music, if any? Do boychoirs discriminate against young girls by not offering equal opportunities to grow as a musician to both genders?
posted by Anonymous @ 9:09 PM
2 Comments:
I’m not sure where tradition ends and discrimination begins (or continues). As most of us know, the history of Western, sacred, choral music is that of men and boys; women were not allowed to have such positions in the liturgy. But is this just an excuse, or a cop-out?
Now, we can talk for days about discrimination in the evolution of religion, but we can leave that for discussion in a different forum. I think the questions that we need to consider are:
Is there a place for a sex-discriminative musical ensemble in our society?
Is there a place for a gender-discriminative musical ensemble in our society?
Is there a place for a racial-discriminative musical ensemble in our society?
Should any discrimination in music be tolerable?
This topic is so interesting! Thank you Carrie! Personally, I am divided in my thoughts on boychoirs.
On one hand, I agree that they can be discriminatory. When boys and men are performing large scale choral works for "entertainment" or in a concert setting, I think it is unneccesary. I realize that most of the music they sing was originally written for boychoirs and men, but times have changed, and I imagine it must be easier to find women or girls who can sing the soprano or alto parts than boys who are willing to commit to a "feminine" voice part and stand in front of their peers and sing.
On the other hand, I think that in an educational setting, especially when boys are beginning to go through their voice change (around middle school and the beginning of high school for most), it could be beneficial to have an all-boy group. There would be less pressure for the boys to look "cool" in front of the girls, and if their voices crack or just do not want to work, I think there would be much less embarassment in a roomfull of boys who are going through the same thing. As a choir director, how great would it be to be able to work with all the guys while their voices were changing, and not have to deal with the 'drama' that a mixed classroom would inevitably bring? At the same time, if the boys and girls were separated, the girls could really focus on their sound and their own voice change, and not so much on impressing the boys. In this ideal little situation I've created, I think that I'd recombine the choirs for practice around the second half of 10th grade or the beginning of 11th grade.
I guess my biggest problem with boychoirs in the performance world is that they only exist because of centuries-old traditions of discrimination against women. It's such a sensitive issue!
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