High School Choral Directors' Description of Appropriate Literature for Beginning High School Choirs

Abstract

Undertaken to investigate and describe the literature performed with a population of “beginning” high school choirs, this study is a survey of 263 MENC high school choral directors. From the 80% responses, 5 categories were analyzed: demographic information, repertoire selection criteria, literature sources, types of literature performed, and recommended repertoire for beginning high school mixed choirs. Chi-square and Kendall's tau-b analyses produced only one significant relationship. Additional findings in the study revealed that directors selected repertoire for advanced and beginning choirs similarly and that directors valued concerts, choral reading sessions, personal choral libraries, and recordings. Directors indicated that they programmed 20th-century literature most frequently and most successfully. Few similarities were found when selections recommended by directors were compared with a large published list.