DVD textbook from Leslie Guelker-Cone and featuring WWU Concert Choir featured at recent conference

A DVD textbook from Leslie Guelker-Cone, a professor music at Western Washington University, was a featured publication of Santa Barbara Music Publishing at the American Choral Directors Association’s National Conference, held in Chicago in March. The DVD, titled "The Collaborative Choral Rehearsal: Inspiring Creative Musicianship," was published in 2010 and has been widely viewed and well received by choral music teachers both in the United States and throughout the world.

The DVD features Guelker-Cone and the WWU Concert Choir and models the use of multi-sensory, student-centered rehearsal techniques that encourage the development of critical thinking skills and independent musical decision-making abilities. Ideas from a variety of interdisciplinary sources inform this work: kinesthetically based educational methodologies, research on brain-based learning, alternative leadership and interpersonal communication models, multi-sensory pedagogical approaches, theatrical character-building activities, studies in the psychology of performance enhancement and business-based collaborative organizational models.

Drawing on these interdisciplinary studies, the WWU Concert Choir models an interactive instructional approach that employs a holistic combination of body movement, intellectual contemplation and emotional connection. Singers engage in discussion and experimentation in order to solve artistic problems and make thoughtful musical choices in the context of the choral rehearsal.

Offering a unique addition to the pedagogical literature in the field of choral music education, this DVD textbook is intended to provide practical ideas and resources for choral conductors and for choirs of all ages and ability levels.