For my honors thesis, I chose to study the mission statements of children’s choruses. My main question was: what values are these organizations projecting, and how do these values interact with each other? I looked at several mission statements and conducted a content analysis. I found, both within the literature and in the mission statements I read, that choruses are generally preaching values of equity, accessibility, and musical excellence. What fascinates me about this study is that there is a general consensus in the music education community that true accessibility and true musical excellence cannot coexist, that there have to be skill and talent standards that naturally limit accessibility. So, how do these children’s choruses reconcile this tension? Maybe it is time to change our definition of musical excellence…
Click here to see my thesis presentation at the 2023 Neag Honors Symposium.