Beyond Glee

It is interesting to see that our television schedule has been dominated for several years by a gigantic talent show called "American Idol." The program has launched several careers in various popular music genres, and has made the telephone an integral part of the viewing experience, since viewers are asked to vote for their favorite performers.

Drama and comedy have been added to the formula of young performers trying to sing their way to stardom in the new and wildly popular program "Glee". It masquerades as a show about the benefits of music education and choral singing, but in fact presents talented young soloists giving impossibly sophisticated, yet unrehearsed performances, between instances of being bullied by cheerleaders.

It is great that our nation is riveted by musical programming, and that everyone seems eager to recognize that giving young performers a shot at fame is a good thing. I hope that those millions of viewers remain riveted when they learn of hours of practice and out-of-tune performances that are the real equation leading to stardom.

Last week I had the pleasure of hearing the Spivey Hall Children's Choir. Spivey Hall is an artistic institution in a suburb south of Atlanta, on the campus of Clayton State University. It presents an enviable series of great performers from the world of music in its concert series. The mission of Spivey Hall includes a Music Education component, in which a Children's Choir has been developed. They are conducted by their founder, Martha Shaw, and performed last week for the convention of Chorus America, a professional organization for those who direct and administrate choirs.

The young singers entered the stage with smiles of confidence, and entered a concert program of sophisticated music that was impeccably prepared. Given the difficulty of the music, the audience would have been satisfied with an accurate performance. But what we received was far beyond simple accuracy. The students under Dr. Shaw's direction demonstrated consummate understanding of the craft of singing beautifully. They sang with musicianship and maturity. The crowd sprang to their feet once during the program, and again at the end. They experienced difficulty applauding because they were wiping their eyes.

When I see a program on television that seeks to promote music education by presenting fame as its logical outcome, I think about students like those in the Spivey Hall Children's Choir. They will lead the lives of typical teenagers, then college students, then adults. They will be teachers and house-husbands and bank tellers. And a few of them will undertake the rigors of training to become a music educator. It is doubtful that any of them will become famous by emulating the style of other famous singers, or become rich thanks to the whims of the voting public.

But thanks to Martha Shaw and her staff they are rich beyond measure. They have beauty and art in residence within them. They have musical accomplishment that few have achieved. They have maturity and self-confidence that is not dependent on a fickle audience. They have experienced the aesthetic beauty that is the true intended product of great art, and it can't be lost through voting or bullying.

Congratulations to this great chorus! Those of us who were in your audience are better for having been there.