Sketches on Conducting: Tita Len, Empathy, and Resonance

by Miko Lopez-Mateo

The relationship between the conductor and the singers in a children’s choir differs from an adult’s choir. In a children’s choir, the conductor must take on the additional roles of parent and teacher.

Tita Len half-jokingly describes the young Cherubim recruits as “barbarians”  - the uncivilized who had to be taught not only how to sing ,  but how to listen.  They must be trained to be polite, punctual, considerate of others, appreciative of the merits of bathing daily (with water, not Lysol!), to adopt the norms necessary to perform as a group. 

The Cherubim education is therefore about music and singing, underpinned by the conviction  that development as a person was essential to development as an artist. 

 The children must also unlearn hiya in order to perform. Tita Len says of her experience: “To sing well, the human being must assert the self, and affirm his or her faith in the self.”  That sense of self is nurtured by teaching empathy, by explaining the context of the song, not just in terms of style and structure, but also lyrical content.  Whether it be the repetitive phrases of “He Watching Over Israel” in Mendelssohn’s oratorio or the long narrative verses of Billy Joel, the singer's understanding of the piece means that it somehow creates an interior resonance in the one singing, and that resonance tells the singer how to convey the  meaning of the song  to the audience. In dynamics and phrasing is emotion transmitted.

The children were never made to feel self-conscious about unabashed feelings or reactions to the music.  It seems understanding the perspective of others leads children to understand themselves as well. It also fosters an openness to experiences and sensitivity to beauty and to other people. It is a precious gift to be moved by beauty and transformed by it as a child, under a conductor who, to borrow Rilke’s words, draws one voice out of separate strings. As an adult many, many years later, I never cease to be amazed by Tita Len's tremendous empathic impact onstage uniting composer, conductor, performers and audience in one experience, beautiful and compelling.