by Jessica Allen,
University of Michigan Doctoral Student
ACDA-Michigan Graduate Student Representative
At the ACDA-Michigan state conference Saturday, October 24, I had the opportunity to sit down with headliner Joe Miller for a brief interview. Dr. Miller, currently the Director of Choral Activities at Westminster Choir College, has strong ties to choral music in the state of Michigan. During his time as Director of Choral Activities at Western Michigan University, he served on the ACDA-MI executive board as Repertoire & Standards College and University Chair and President and was instrumental in reinstating the annual state conference. I also have a personal connection to Dr. Miller as he was my primary teacher when I was a choral music education student at WMU. First, in light of the conference, I asked questions related to his interest sessions “Learning to Dream” and “Building Sound through Vocalise.”
JA: How did you decide on the content of your interest sessions? Why did you want to share these topics with us?
JM: Because I still have so many friends and contacts here, I have kept a sense of how the state of Michigan is doing – watching MSVMA, the job market, and students of mine that are here working. One of the things I knew I wanted to do was a session to reinforce the good things, because it’s so easy to feel devalued when you’re fighting the economy and arts being cut. Instead of another skill session, I wanted to do something that helped people to hold on to those good things and reinforce that the world needs us to keep doing this work. Because I think inspiration comes through music and not through talking, I wanted other things I did to be about making music.
JA: From “Building Sound through Vocalise,” it was apparent that a sense of play is a very important part of how you engage choirs. Is that something inherent to your personality, or was that something you cultivated because it works? Along those lines, how much are you just yourself in front of a choir and how much is your conductor persona?
JM: I certainly feel like myself on the podium – I’m not trying to “do” anything, I’m just trying to “be.” One of my earliest teachers was Dr. Marvelene Moore at the University of Tennessee, and she was a Dalcroze specialist. I did so much work with her in my elementary methods courses, and she was so engaged in kinesthesia. She believed in experience before anything else and that experience should be like a game. I grew up with her dancing, and I saw how effective large motor motion and small motor motion was musically and how it managed a classroom. Having students engaged in movement helped my teaching. That kernel developed into other things. If I’m working with high school students or undergraduates, I want to treat them like human beings, but I also want them to remember that they’re kids. I want to be careful that play doesn’t become just silly. Play always has to be tied to teaching, to the musical ideas. When students do that and begin to respond and see how it applies to the musical idea – that’s when the atmosphere becomes much more like play. They have to buy in.
JA: In your session “Learning to Dream,” you mentioned a number of creative ideas and projects you have in the works. How do you create time and space for creative work that requires reflection and innovation? How do you live in the moment and devote energy and thought to long-term goals and projects?
JM: My life is as a conductor. That means my home life with my family has to be a part of that. I need to be a whole person, so I need the engagement of my family. They’re not with me at every moment, but they must be a part of that life so that when I go home we can talk about it – or not talk about it. I feel like that’s an important part of being a whole person.
In order to have time to dream and think about long-term projects… I’m inspired by things I see and by things I hear. I’m very fortunate that I’m one of the artistic directors of the Spoleto Festival. This is great because of all the musical outlets and musical collaborations, but the greatest benefit has been my relationships with the dancers, the theater companies, and all of the other artists. Being able to take a moment in my life – where I’m always in front of people leading the creative energy – to stand back and watch someone else’s creativity inspires me. When I hear someone sing or act or dance, or I see the work of a lighting designer – that just takes me away. Having time to do that feeds my long-range creative goals and how I want to relate to society as an artist. I have to have time to do that. When I taught at Western Michigan University, I got a theater subscription immediately. It would be Friday night and I would be exhausted and worn out from the week, but I would get a little dinner and watch a production of Of Mice and Men. I’d go home, and I’d be on fire and not wanting to sleep! The next day my creative mind would say, “How can this become choral music?” I think it’s different for different people, but the older I get the more I seek out those opportunities to be fed by other people’s creativity.
As graduate student representative for the ACDA-MI executive board, I also asked questions specific to students.
JA: Thinking back to your first high school job, how did you know you were ready to pursue graduate school? What compelled you to pursue doctoral school?
JM: I think this is such an important question and an important topic to talk about with students. In every position that I’ve ever held, I’ve never really thought of it as a stepping stone. When I started teaching high school, I was so excited about having my own choirs and to be able to shape them, form relationships with them, and guide them. That was all I was concentrating on; I immersed myself in doing that. When my high school program was growing by leaps and bounds and was becoming very, very successful, I got to a point where I thought I’d given all that I could to those students. My last year of teaching was going really well, but I wasn’t making music fast enough. I knew it was because I needed more depth and more training. For me to give more, I need to know more, I need to explore more. So that’s when I knew it was time to go to graduate school. Every job that I’ve done has basically been that way. Even my job at Western Michigan University was that way. I never applied to move from the job – I loved the job. I guess I had blinders on about it. But my dean asked me to write out my goals and dreams for what I wanted to do in the next five or ten years, and I just stared at the piece of paper. The only thing I could think to write were things we were already doing, just do them better. That was a big clue for me that I needed to go on, because I need to keep dreaming. If I don’t do that I can’t give the students what they need. It’s a disservice to them when it gets to that point. Sometimes in life you don’t have that option because there are other things aside from your job that make that decision for you. But I think it’s still the same way even in relationships or with family: you want to be in a place where you can keep giving and growing. It’s hard, and it’s complicated.
JA: You did both of your graduate degrees at College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati. In your experience, what was the difference between your growth as a conductor at the master’s level versus the doctoral level?
JM: The degrees were totally different for me. My master’s degree was “the great awakening!” I just came from “little nowhere” and did my high school choir and learned all that I could. I could tell you every piece of high school literature, what worked and what didn’t, and how to teach it, but there was this whole world I didn’t know. Musicology, performance practice, repertoire…my master’s program was like doors flying open. Really great growth. I’m so grateful that my doctoral program had so much depth. I didn’t know it at the time, but with every qualifying exam and every comprehensive exam I was deepening in myself a sense of scholarship and pedagogy. I could never stand in front of the New York Philharmonic today without the depth that I got during my doctoral study. It gave me deep roots. Otherwise it would have been easy for me to get blown over. My master’s program was like a candy store, but I had to put my roots deep in the ground and find out what I really liked to do. I was a singer, and my doctoral program made me get really deep in that area. That confirmed that I was on the right path.
JA: What advice do you have for undergraduate conductors? Graduate conductors?
JM: Throw yourself in whole heart. Jump. Just run and jump, and pour yourself in. It’s important to be in a community that you personally respond to, but you can’t be worried about the “perfect job.” Jump in and invest yourself fully, and don’t worry about it being perfect. So many students say, “I want to step into this job, and I want it to be just like this.” It doesn’t work that way. The job will become what you make of it if you really invest yourself. You do, however, want to resonate with the school, the students, the parents, or the community in some way I think.
JA: Do you still feel like a student of choral music? If yes, in what ways are you still learning?
JM: You’ve heard me say it – I feel dumber every day when it comes to choral music. So much of that is due to shaping what I think the role of choral music is for the world and for our society. It’s ever changing. Society is changing, and choral repertoire is changing and trying to respond to that. It’s a little bit like quicksand. It’s not like the concrete has dried, and off we go – it’s always a dance we’re weaving. That’s inspiring to me, but it also makes me want to continue to know more. When I know more about humanity then I can know more about choral music. To me they are the same. Choral music is so different from other arts. It’s a group of people working together using something inside their bodies –their voices. It’s a real reflection of who we are today. The ever-changing nature keeps me thinking and on my toes.
