4 day Choirleading Masterclass with Stephen Taberner

Name: 4 day Choirleading Masterclass with Stephen Taberner
Start: 2025-11-13T14:00:00+00:00
End: 2025-11-16T16:00:00+00:00
Location: Holmbury St Mary Village Hall

Schedule

Thu, 13 Nov, 2025 at 02:00 pm to Sun, 16 Nov, 2025 at 04:00 pm

UTC+00:00

Location

Holmbury St Mary Village Hall | Dorking, EN

We are delighted to be able to present this 4-day workshop, to be held in the relaxing and stimulating environs of the Holmbury St. Mary in the lovely Surrey Hills. The longer time span will enable a deeper investigation into ST’s thinking around all of the important bits of choir leading, and will come with accompanying notes. The main areas of interest in this workshop will be:
1. VOCAL WARMUPS/VOICE CARE
2. ARRANGING
I could do a whole week on this alone. We’ll get a good chance to look at the rudiments, my personal philosophy, various dos and don’ts, and some different basic formats and exotic variations. You’ll get the chance to do things, and we’ll get the chance to wrap our ears around many things.
3. PART TEACHING
How do you get a choir or singing group to learn songs? What ways are efficient? Permanent? Fun?
4. BLENDING
This concerns the methodologies whereby we can pull various levers to coax beautiful sounds from mere mortals, in a choir situation. This is how you learn to ask the choir to make sounds which will delight them, and you.
5. CONDUCTING
This, along with no. 2 above, is my favouritest bit. The choir/conductor relationship is extraordinary, and a playground where magic can happen, if you allow it. If there is one part of choirleading that facilitates real music, real songs, and a real sense of connection, this is it. It’s about songs, and it’s about our connections, as humans. You will get to do things.
There are no formal qualifications for this workshop, and you certainly don’t have to be a choirleader. I would probably suggest a degree of confidence in more or less singing in tune, with others around you, even if not always confident in holding a part solo. I hope that makes sense!)
We’ll go from 10am to 5pm each day (from midday on Thursday!) and there may also be some evening activities, almost certainly not of a formal nature, probably more of a social/musical nature. I’m very excited to be running this workshop in it’s longer form.
Accommodation is in the Hurtwood Hideout, an independently run YHA hostel, nestled on the edge of the Hurtwood in the Surrey Hills. A short walk through the wood takes you to our workshop venue, the delightful Holmbury St. Mary Village Hall. Note that our first session — starting on Thursday at midday — will be held at the village hall in Peaslake, which is the next village along from Holmbury St. Mary.
Please note that all the residential places still available are likely to be allocated to a top bunk!
all bookings at:
https://www.tickettailor.com/events/ngevents