Ep #36: Lhente-Mari Pitout: What South African Choirs Can Teach Us About Culture, Movement and Community

You can hear it in the first ten minutes with a great choir: the sound is alive, the tuning locks, and the words mean something. That level of responsiveness is not luck, and Simon Halsey CBE has spent a lifetime proving why. We’re joined by one of Britain’s leading choral conductors to get practical about what builds a world-class symphonic chorus across professional, youth and community settings. Simon shares how his early years as a cathedral chorister shaped his musical instincts, why co...

A children’s choir can sound polished and still not be truly free. The turning point is trust, and that’s where this conversation with Zimfira Poloz, Artistic Director of the Toronto Children’s Chorus and a University of Toronto educator in vocal pedagogy, gets practical fast. We talk about what it really takes to develop healthy young voices: playful first steps, audition nerves, and the small choices that tell a child “you’re safe here”. Zimfira shares how she builds choir culture so singe...

Most conductors don’t struggle because they lack passion. They struggle because the job asks for two hard skills at once: musical clarity and human leadership. I’m joined by Manvinder Rattan, choral and orchestral conductor and one of the UK’s most experienced conductor trainers, to talk about what actually makes choir rehearsals work when the clock is ticking and the choir in front of you is wonderfully, messily real. We get into the craft of preparation: why “winging it” leaks confid...

Your choir can sing the right notes and still leave the audience cold. The difference is often not talent, but story and culture and how deliberately we build both. We sit down with Dr Francis Cathlina, Vietnamese American conductor and Director of Choral Activities at the University of Memphis, to unpack his story-first approach to choral music making. We talk about how a clear narrative can guide concert programming, unify repertoire across centuries, and help singers understand what they ...

The fastest way to level up your choir is not another trick, it’s understanding how great choral music is actually built and how to bring it to life with real singers. I’m joined by Mark Hayes, internationally recognised composer, arranger, conductor, and concert pianist, whose work is sung in churches, universities, and concert halls around the world. We trace his route from a teenage church pianist in northern Illinois to a self-employed creative with over 2,000 published works and major pe...