Lake Forest College Music Professor Extends Creativity To Chicago Choral Artists

When Emilie Amrein began at four years ago, the school had just one choir of 20 students.

Today, the music professor's work has allowed the Lake Forest College music department to expand to nearly four choirs that include approximately 80 students.

Her work has not gone unnoticed. Amrein has expanded her musical talents to Chicago, where she has been appointed artistic director for Chicago Choral Artists.

Chicago Choral Artists is a choral group that began 35 years ago. According to Amrein, it is rare to see choirs reach this level of longevity. The choir is comprised of 32 singers of all ages from Chicago and its suburbs.

“I am looking forward to taking the group out of their comfort zone and building on beautiful music-making. This is something that both the choir and its audiences can look forward to,” Amrein said.

Amrein will lead the choir in performing two concerts — a holiday concert and an Earth Day themed spring concert — for the 2011-2012 season. The usual season consists of three concerts. However, Amrein has so many ideas for the second concert that the organization will be busy enough, according to Chicago Choral Artists Board President Elaine Pierce.

“Emilie is just so creative,” said Pierce. “We are blown away by her ideas and she just keeps pouring out more.”

The choir will learn the music for the concerts over 10-week periods, where they will rehearse once a week for two hours. According to Amrein, working together on a weekly basis will allow relationships to thrive between the singers.

Amrein was appointed as the choir’s conductor earlier this month, at the end of the year-long application process.

“The 50 applicants came from all over the country, it was amazing,” said Pierce.

Once Amrein was selected as one of three finalists for the position, after completing several interviews, she developed a program of 20 songs to teach to the choir. Her program titled “A Garland of Song” was based on Benjamin Britten’s 5 Flower Songs and included two songs in Chinese and two in French.

Using oral and written language, as well as the International Pronunciation Alphabet (IPA), Amrein taught the singers how to sing in foreign languages for the songs in her program.

However, these learning styles are not ideal for some students, so Amrein will spend the summer months researching a technique that would allow singers to learn necessary foreign language sounds through hand gestures. The project will result in a composite chart for classical music sounds that will be used in future teaching methods.

Amrein’s 18-month year old daughter served as inspiration for this project. Ellie, who is already learning musical sounds, sees a speech therapist, who suggested the future application of cued speech in Ellie’s communicative learning.

Cued speech is a phonemic-based communication system and upon hearing this Amrein began her research. Learning the hand gestures together will also cause stronger relationships to form among the singers at the college and at Chicago Choral Arists. But eventually, Amrein and her husband, David, may be able to use the gestures to communicate with Ellie.

Two Lake Forest College students are assisting Amrein with the project this summer. Recent graduate, Mariana Garciagodoy, of Mexico City, has taken several classes with Amrein, but more importantly views her as a mentor.

“She is very nurturing,” said Garciagodoy. “It is easy to talk to her outside of class, about anything.”

Amrein spends a significant amount of time teaching Garciagodoy and other students various conducting methods after class. Lake Forest College does not have an accredited conducting program, but instead allows for significant collaboration across various disciplines and in individual departments.

“I love Lake Forest College because of the liberal arts curriculum. Students are engaged and eager to build relationships in the community,” said Amrein. “I feel so lucky to have this job.”