Dear Conductors,

We hand over to you a collection of songs Let's Sing!!! for three-part mixed choir – soprano, alto and baritone. The idea of creating a songbook arose from need to expand and diversify the available repertoire. The pieces included in the collection represent a wide stylistic spectrum: from religious music, through works inspired by folk music, to songs containing non-musical elements. These are both a cappella songs and songs with the accompaniment of a piano. The selection criterion was their artistic and educational value. A wide stylistic range of compositions is aimed at making the choirs’ repertoire more attractive and enriching at various stages of vocal development, and to suit the tastes of singers and conductors.
The collection consists of scores of works in the alphabetical order of the composers’ names. The scores are followed by translations of foreign texts, then the “map key” (if the work has one), a word from the composer, editor’s comment, and finally – in the case of foreign-language works – a link to the pronunciation.
The conductor decides about the choice of the work to be performed by the choir and should take into account the level of vocal skills of the singers, their perceptual abilities and musical interests. Choosing a piece is tantamount to consciously planning the vocal, musical and emotional development of the ensemble by the conductor.
The comments included suggest how to effectively work on the works to achieve artistic success. This, in turn, will increase the feeling of happiness and satisfaction from singing in the choir, and will also increase the motivation of the singers to continue active participation in the life of the ensemble.
Each work containing a literary text is a plane of equal dialogue between poetry and music. Therefore, work on the song should begin with reading the text with the choristers and analyzing its content (meaning of words, translation from a foreign language). It is worth drawing the singers' attention to reading in accordance with the prosody of the text, with proper diction, voices, accentuation and vocal attitude. In works with texts in a foreign language, a uniform phonetic pronunciation should be developed. The next stage is to combine the text with music by building the appropriate message of individual phrases, leading to the final meaning of the literary and musical whole.
In the initial stage of work on a piece, it is advisable to work out selected elements of the composition while singing. When educating metrological issues, it is worth using the exercises included in the textbook Choral Rhythm in exercises and prompts by Marcin Wawruk, published by Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne in cooperation with the Choral Academy.
The conductor's gesture is extremely important, as it should support the expressiveness of the piece - follow the text, dynamics, building tensions and their solutions. The main goal is to shape the emotionality and strengthen the power of the composition's message, not only through the conductor's scheme, reflecting the composer's metre and rhythm idea, but above all through the expressiveness of the gesture following the vocal aspect of the work.
The performer's daily routine is an attempt at the most perfect realization of the composer's intentions, expressed in the form of comments on pace, dynamics, accents, articulation and character. The meaning of performance is not a faithful representation of the author's intention, but a creative, expressive, personal interpretation. The final shape of artistic expression is influenced by various elements of the work, including building the climax which is the core of the work to which all means of musical and literary expression are aimed. The most important component, however, is the creative work of the conductor and the choristers, who enliven the work with their own emotions. They determine the specific truth contained in the piece, which is an element that arouses the delight of the listener.
I wish you such delight.
Ksenia Miśkiewicz

Dear Conductors,
We worked with great joy on creating a collection of pieces for a mixed three-part choir. The deficit of this type of collections and, at the same time, the growing number of youth choirs prompted us to ask leading contemporary composers to write pieces for this songbook. They have created real gems, each of which carries both artistic and educational value. I believe you will make good use of them in reflections on conducting.
It is up to us, the choirmasters, whether the choir singers will love the piece. So, let us do everything so that WE first fall in love with the works we choose. Let’s carefully analyze each note in combination with the text and find musical illustrations. Let’s learn each part to find traps. Let’s play each piece on the piano, listening to the harmony and inventing exercises that would prepare the choir for overcoming difficulties. Let’s learn complicated rhythms by heart so that we can improvise on them. To cut it short: let’s be experts in the work that we propose to our choir. Let’s be the best ambassadors of the music we choose for our choristers. We are the guides around the mysterious world of music written on a piece of paper. It is up to us whether this journey into the unknown turns out to be easy or difficult, fascinating or boring. It depends on US whether this musical world turns out to be a world that our choristers will ultimately recognize as their own and will not want to leave it until the end of their lives.
I wish you this, my friends! Love music so that your choristers will love it too.
Agnieszka Franków-Żelazny
 
The collection will be available at the Choral Academy office: akademia.choralna@nfm.wroclaw.pl .

Collection contents:

Pronunciation of works in foreign languages can be found here.