Exploring the Affective and Spatial Politics of Choral Music Performance through Focus Groups with Singers

Abstract

This paper builds on focus groups with singers from a chamber choir that rehearses and performs in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario. It explores the spatial politics of performance and singers’ understandings of the impact of choral music, in particular in music with social justice themes. Discussion centers on two compositions about forced migration. Singers reflected on their experiences rehearsing and performing these and other works, exploring the function of choral music, the politics of performance, and race and whiteness in choral singing. We argue that focusing on singers’ experiences allows musical geographies to further explore an affective politics of performance. Participants described singing as a form of political engagement—though one different from electoral or activist politics—but one that they navigate ambivalently, through affects that include hopefulness and (sometimes productive) forms of anxiety and discomfort. We contribute to discussions in cultural geographies and geohumanities around race and musical geographies, the affective (geo)politics of performance, and art-geography collaboration.