Ep #02: How to Rehearse Like Jonas Rasmussen: Practical Tools for Building Precision and Joy

What if your warm-up wasn’t just about waking up voices, but snapping a whole room into one mind? We sit down with Danish conductor, educator, and arranger Jonas Rasmussen—leader of Academic Choir Aarhus and a youth mixed choir, and the creator behind millions of views of rehearsal craft—to unpack how synchronicity, risk, and razor-sharp cues turn good choirs into magnetic ensembles.

Jonas shares the origin of his viral videos and the pedagogy behind them: never the same warm-up twice, seven words or less to protect momentum, and the audacious “kamikaze” first read that embraces mistakes to surface what matters fast. We explore how to prioritise fixes when everything feels broken, why articulation and phrase often unlock pitch, and how short, focused repetitions keep motivation high without grinding singers down. His take on score use is refreshingly practical: hold music high, read ahead in quick bursts, and keep peripheral contact so communication never dies at the page.

Performance gets a human reset, too. Jonas trains choirs to sing to Bob—the audience—with feet and focus aimed outwards, transforming connection and stage presence without gimmicks. On competitions, he rejects outcome obsession and centres potential: work to a peak, then tour lightly with the level intact. Along the way, we chart his journey from intense young pianist to conductor-mentor, his adaptable approach with kids, adults, and weekend workshops, and his belief that choir is the analogue antidote to an AI-saturated world—pure voices, shared pulse, real community.

If you’re a choir director, conductor, or vocal leader hungry for smarter rehearsals and richer performances, this conversation is packed with actionable ideas: flow-preserving cutoffs, intelligent triage, audience-first staging, and warm-ups that feel like play but deliver results. Jonas also previews The Playful Choir, his new book of 30 exercises with companion videos, plus a year of workshops across Europe, the UK, and the US. Subscribe, share with a fellow director, and leave a review—then tell us the one rehearsal habit you’ll change this week.

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Follow Jonas Rasmussen:

• Website: jonasrasmussen.dk
• Instagram: @choirconductor
• YouTube: @choralconductor
• Facebook: facebook.com/choirconductor

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Transcript

Jonas’s Choirs And Teaching Work

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Hello and welcome to the choir director podcast, the essential resource for choir directors, conductors, and vocal leaders who want to build stronger choirs, run better rehearsals, and create outstanding musical experiences. I'm Russell Scott, and whether you're leading a community choir, a school group, a musical theatre choir, choral society, gospel choir, well, any type of choir really, this show is for you. And over the next few weeks, we're going to be interviewing some incredible leaders in the world of choir. And we're going to be talking about all things choir. Yes, that word choir is going to be said quite a lot. Well, here we go, we are into episode two, and I'm really excited about this one. Today on the show we have an amazing guy who's really taking the internet by storm right now, with millions of views on YouTube, on Instagram, on TikTok. He's everywhere. Today's guest is Jonas Rasmussen, and Jonas is a Danish choral conductor, educator, and arranger who leads academic choir arus and also his youth choir and teaches classical choral conducting at the Royal Academy there in Denmark. Alongside his work on the podium, Jonas shares practical rehearsal craft online. He's reaching choir leaders and singers well beyond Denmark, all across the world right now. And in this episode, I'm really thrilled to welcome Jonas to the show. Here we go. What a great intro! Welcome, Jonas, to the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

It's really great to have you here. Uh seeing all the great things you're doing on social media right now, and the things that you're doing, of course, with your choir to inspire them and to give them such a great experience is really inspiring uh to watch and to listen to as well. Tell me a little bit about your background to start with, and a little bit about you and your choirs and how this all began.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

Yes, so I'm based in Aarhus in Denmark, and um I have I conduct two choirs on a regular basis. Uh they have weekly rehearsals. I do have my youth choir, uh a mixed choir. We sing most genres, folk, classical, jazz, all that stuff, pop, and then I have my classical adult choir, um, also a mixed ensemble. And then I teach coral conducting at the Royal Academy here, and um I am also a mentor at Forge, conducting an online program for worldwide uh coral conductors. So that's the basics of my everyday working life. And then, of course, I do the whole social media thing, which I started uh almost a year ago now, and it has been quite a journey so far. Uh, and just started out as uh, you know, just something I did to try it out, and um now I really consider it uh a quite a big part of my of my working life. It's something I put many hours into now.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

Yeah, I mean it's you know, you're you're trending away there, and it's it's amazing to watch and uh and so much fun to watch too. Um what made you you know what made you start doing that? What was where was the idea behind it all?

SPEAKER_00 3:18

So last year we were preparing for a competition, um, the European Choir Games. And in that preparation, I just thought we have something special going on here that I think could probably inspire other choral directors. So I went to the board and I said, could we could we try and record our warmups? And I'll make some short videos. You're not going to be on camera, it's only gonna be me. Uh, you don't have to worry about anything, I'm doing the whole thing. And they were very skeptical because who would ever want to watch that? I mean, the things we just do for an everyday um rehearsal. So, but I got the permission, and that was great. And uh the third video I uploaded just completely exploded in my head and got a millions of views uh in the in the first few weeks. And so I thought maybe there's something here, maybe we actually have something to offer that can be an inspiration for coral conductors worldwide. And here we are, almost a year later, and a little over a hundred videos later, with uh exercises and um you know warmups and every chor-related content you can think of, basically.

SPEAKER_01 4:31

And it's so much fun. It's so much fun to watch. Is it is it fun doing it as well? I mean, they the the choir must love it, surely. Obviously, they they really love it. Yes. Because we all try and do these silly warm-ups, and now we're all starting to look at yours and say, Well, are we doing those? Or, you know, and I bet there's some that he would like to see, and there's our other there's some of yours, and we're thinking, Oh, we could use that, and we can try that and adapt that and try that. It must be, you know, it's it's really rewarding and it's it's so useful. So, I mean, you know, thank you from the choral community. That sounds really cheesy, but I mean, you know, it's it's a great thing you're doing. Do give us a little bit of background on on you and how you got into music, and that just just so we can, you know, our listeners can uh have a little bit of information on you yourself.

From Pianist To Conductor

SPEAKER_00 5:11

So I am from here, and I started out uh by being a pianist. I had aspirations to become a concert pianist when I was young, and I was really serious about piano in my teenage years and went to competitions all over Europe and uh dropped out of school just to practice and really be in that zone. And then when I was about 18, I I had my big epiphany that I was not going to be in music at all because it was simply just taking a toll on my mental health, and I just couldn't imagine a whole life being a pianist being stuck in that praxis room. But luckily, I started in choir when I was 16 and just found my family there, my tribe. And so even though I completely dropped out of music, I stayed in choir while I was doing my uh high school um degree. And after that, I thought about being a journalist, studying philosophies. I mean, I had all things in mind, but when it it came down to that, I just couldn't I just had to do music in some in some way. So I started directing a choir and quickly got ambitious about that, and then I applied for the school in Stockholm, uh, where I got in and did my bachelor's degree. Then I went to Cambridge and did my master's degree, and then I went back to Aarhus, where I am now since uh 2017.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

Wow. So it was quite a you know, quite a long time. I mean, once you're committed, I think. I think I think the thing with music is once it's in your soul, it's in your soul. You know, we can't get away. It's the only thing we can do. It's the only thing we can do because creatively it's just in it's just ingrained into us, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 6:52

I completely agree. And I'm you know, when you're a young person and just looking at all those years in front of you, could I imagine doing something that was not music? I just I really just couldn't. So I'm very happy that I chose conducting. You say, you know, somebody says that um conductors are just musicians that couldn't couldn't make it as instrumentalists.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

They say that about all teachers, but it's they say about all teachers, and it's a crazy thing, really, because I think you know, teaching is a is an incredible thing to do and it's an inspiring thing to do, but you have to start somewhere. You know, to teach, you've got to either qualify or you've got to be hugely talented at the an instrument or a topic that you're you know you're expert on. You have to everyone has to start somewhere. But I know so many choir directors, of course, are not uh we're not trained as professional musicians or or go to um music college or conservatoires. You know, they've decided because the world is opening up um in such a way for choirs to be formed and for people to sing wherever they are, whatever they're doing, whatever level they are, it's a really wonderful place to be. It's not just about singing at the highest level, it's about singing. And you know, you you and I, you work in the world.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

And and about just joining together to make something beautiful. And that's the thing choir can do that almost no other activity can do. It's something you participate in and you make art together, and you're just having a good time. It's and it's so difficult to get out of rehearsal and be mad. I mean, of course, something can happen in rehearsal, but oftentimes you just leave rehearsal and and go from there singing, having having a tune stuck in your head. So it's it's just a wonderful thing, and you can do it of all ages, really from from kindergarten choir to to old people's homes, retirement homes, uh choirs. It's just a lovely activity. And my philosophy is also that you don't have to be good at it, you just have to start doing it. And maybe along the way you will you will find that you actually become better at it. I mean, everything you do for a long time, you will become better at, no matter I mean, that's just the natural progression, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 9:11

And you learn new songs and And we of course we become, you know, we become generally people become successful at what they're passionate at doing. Yes. For most of the most of the time. I think I think that you know when you've got your heart set on something and you love it so much that you live it so much, you will generally be successful at doing it. That doesn't mean of course you're gonna earn millions of pounds doing it, but it does mean that you can build a life around it. And that's a and that's a great thing too, because you know it does, you know, mental health does play a big part in life, and music and singing and creating is is a massive fulfillment, I think.

Why Choirs Matter For Everyone

SPEAKER_00 9:49

Yes. Yes, and not just for professionals, but in all walks of life, and I I really think that we are about to see uh the craziest explosion of choral singing that we've ever seen because of the whole AI disruption that we see in society. I think we will crave human connection, and what could be more analogue than meeting once a week, just singing with pure vibrations from your voice, no machines involved. I think it's just a beautiful, beautiful activity to do together and something we will we will see a lot more of.

SPEAKER_01 10:30

It's so basic when you think about it, really, just coming together as a group and making some noise.

unknown 10:35

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:37

Uh the room. Not everybody makes great noises, but a lot of people make great noises. Uh some amazing choirs out there. Now, your your choirs are known for both precision and vitality. Of course, you're working on a on a competition stage as well. What are the first two or three things you establish in rehearsal to get a sound moving quickly?

SPEAKER_00 11:00

I would say synchronicity is my number one priority. We have to, whenever we get into the room, we of course do the warm-up. But I think warm-up as a word, it's a little bit problematic because we're probably warming up for 15 minutes, but the actual warm-up, as in warming up the muscles, takes maybe three, four minutes. And the rest is actually just landing in the room together, gathering the concentration, really locking in as an ensemble, getting ready for what's ahead. And so my number one would be we are now a group of people, we're not individuals anymore. We need to be uh synchronized. So that could be many different um exercises that just encourages that kind of we're doing the same stuff at the exact same time together.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

Do you ever do you ever feel self-conscious? Do you create things on the spot and then find some things work, some things don't work, some things work better than others? Do you ever do you ever feel self-conscious about it? Or is it is it all about exploration?

SPEAKER_00 12:09

All the time I'm trying to experiment and also I'm trying never to do the same warm-up twice. So there will always be just a little bit of variation to every to everything. And also it it's of course because I work with singers that are easily bored. They're at a level where I need to challenge them to their absolute max for every week, or they just will not turn up for the next week. Um, that's really my experience, that I I have to put them on the very edge of what they're capable of. And they enjoy that. That's kind of the choral culture that we are always pushing boundaries. And of course, that makes the demands on my creativity uh quite high. So I have to come up with something new for every rehearsal. And sometimes it happens on the way to rehearsal, and sometimes it happens in the moment, just because we all get caught up and some somebody sparks an idea and a new exercise forms out of that.

SPEAKER_01 13:12

Do you find it harder with adults or harder with children? Or about the same?

SPEAKER_00 13:18

I have worked a lot with children in the past, but I find that my energy is a little bit too playful because children are naturally playful. And if I start to go in the playful mood, they will just explode, and I suddenly just lose control. And I mean, I of course I've I've worked with children and I I know the different tools I have to use, but I really cannot just let loose as I can with uh with the young people in in my choirs. With adults, it's also a little different. Um you always have to adapt for the group that you're in front of. And when I do uh workshops uh internationally and and here in Denmark, it's often people who are just there to have a good weekend. And maybe I'm not um my job is not to challenge them to their absolute max because it won't be a good experience for them. So always adapt to whatever makes the group um have fun, and also you know, I I love that there should be a little bit of progression, but maybe not too much or too overwhelming.

Adapting For Kids, Adults, And Workshops

SPEAKER_01 14:36

Yeah, so how do you how do you deal with the kind of information overload? I mean, a lot of a lot of choir leaders struggle with information overload, let alone let alone the singers themselves. But how do you decide you know what to address now, what to park, what to ignore? How do you how do you deal with the whole information overload for and what what's your advice to other other conductors who who are experiencing the same?

Handling Information Overload

SPEAKER_00 15:02

I think when you are in front of the choir, you often hear a lot of things that you want to to address, right? And then you have to prioritize what's important. And I I wouldn't say there's a one size fits all here, but I would generally say that the thing that would make this better the fastest would be the thing to address first. So there's nothing worse that than when you're in a choir and you're singing some a song and you don't really know the parts yet, but the conductor is just hammering away on the pronunciation. And I'm like, we are not there yet. There has to be some kind of progression where okay, we we learn the notes, we we know the rhythms, and then we can start to talk about something else, right? But I would say this if we are learning a song, and maybe the notes are the thing are the thing that are difficult, I would probably not necessarily address the notes directly, because I would probably talk more about phrasing, articulation, as an excuse to do it again and again and again and again. It can be a real motivation killer to just do something again and again, just to do it again and again. But if you always give them that little, I don't know if you can say that in English, a little carrot, um, where they are actively trying to improve on something while they're improving also in another area without even realizing sometimes. Um, I find that to be a pedagogical tip and something I I work with and try to perfect all the time.

SPEAKER_01 16:50

Yeah. And I it's interesting. I I I find the quickest progression working with choirs is but it is is by adding something different each time you repeat something. Uh so it's it's very similar to what you're saying. So, you know, it might be that uh you you work on a bit of tuning, or you ask them to open up a vowel a bit better, or you ask them to articulate a bit more uh you know differently, or more diction, or add some dynamics. And as they're doing that, of course, they're repeating it all over and over and over again. And each time, every time they feel like they're getting better at one thing, they're then we're then able to move on and get better at something else. And meanwhile, everything is gradually progressing. I mean, you you know, you you have to repeat at the beginning to to to you know uh three or four times, whatever it might be, to to learn something brand new. Um, but I think I think you're right. I think I think uh distraction, distraction's key here.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

And I also think important an important thing here when you're learning something new and you give these kind of instructions to become better and better each time, you really don't have to say that much. Um the famous conductor, the American conductor Robert Shaw had this phrase of seven words or less. And I really think you can go a long way with seven words or less. Like, okay, once more focus on this word, once more focus on the crescendo, once more focusing on this vowel, once more, and then just keep going, always with a different um focus.

SPEAKER_01 18:20

So do you do you have specific a specific order in which you teach something new? Do you have a do you have a way of teaching or approaching a brand new piece of music? Is it all about the notes? Is it about the words? Is it about understanding the piece first? How do you approach it when you first grab a new piece of music for your choir?

Seven Words Or Less: Clear Cues

First Read Philosophy And Risk

SPEAKER_00 18:40

So this is a very interesting question. I as I see it, there are kind of two schools of call directors. There's the one school that says we need to learn the notes before we can add the music. And then there's the other person that says the music has to be there from the very, very start. And I think I'm somewhere in the middle. I have been a I have been quite a bit over here trying to learn the notes and then add the music, but I really find it to be very valuable to add add on every time, as we just talked about, really trying to get the focus away from getting the notes right. Um when I approach a new piece of music with my choirs, I will often just push them into deep waters by saying, This is a new piece. We will sight sing it from beginning to end, no piano, good luck, see you at the end. Every man for himself. Yes, exactly. And I call this the the I don't know if it that works either, uh, the kamikaze round. It's like it's um no, it's just the the place where every mistake is welcome. We're just trying to get an overview and to challenge ourselves, also because it's just fun to have like a car crash happening, and then we then we kind of know what we are going to work on. So, and sometimes if it's an easy piece, you also suddenly realize, okay, somebody has sung this before, or they know this tune, or it's actually not that difficult. So it sets the it sets like the the framework of what you're gonna do gonna do next. Because I see a lot of conductors saying this is a new piece, we start with the soprano, then we add the alto, then we do soprano and alto, then we do. I mean, just layering it. And sometimes that's fine. I mean, that's fine for many choirs, but it would not work with my choirs because they would get easily bored. They would get they want the challenge of being able to try by themselves, even though they fail.

SPEAKER_01 20:59

Because their sight reading is is so good?

SPEAKER_00 21:02

No, their sight reading is not particularly good, but you know, sight reading is is is a lot of guessing also. And I I as I show in my Instagram videos, I'm encouraging I have the phrase that you should be prepared to fail or you should be eager to fail, because that's the quickest way to growth. But what we actually want in that is the willingness to take risks because if you don't take risks, that's that can be killing for a rehearsal. So my young people are just risk takers at at heart. So that's why we do like the side singing. Most of these people don't study music at all, and some some of them for them, this is their first choir. So it's a real challenge, but they're up for it. And just taking the risk means that we can get um so so far so quickly.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

I think risk taking is really important. I I often think it's easier with young people once they have once they've got a bit of confidence and they trust the person in front of them. They're willing to take risk. Adults are a little bit more self-conscious, I think, because they're they feel like they've got more to lose. They've got the embarrassment. They don't want to make a fool of themselves. But I also think that I I always I always try and preach that everybody should be responsible. Everyone's a playing a part in the choir. There's no what no what I call backbenches. Nobody should just sit at the back and sit quietly to themselves. Everybody should make a contribution because that's what makes the overall sound. I think one thing you've said that's really interesting is is about the the first run through and that it is okay to sound terrible. We expect it to sound terrible the first time we sing something through, especially if you've never seen the piece. It helps find out who's more on top of it, who's more intuitive, and it gives you as a choir director so much information about what you need to focus on, what you need to look at, perhaps in what order you do something in. It shouldn't just be a kind of free-for-all that it's just no use to anybody, that's just a waste of choir time. But if it can help gain confidence for the singers in some areas, knowing that these patches are easier than this patches, they can mark up their scores if they're using music. But also for the choir director, it produces so much information to help you approach the rehearsal. Would you would you agree with that?

Planning Less, Reacting More

SPEAKER_00 23:28

Absolutely. And I think this is the the crucial difference between the very experienced call conductor and uh less experienced, that the less experienced can be very prepared. And I see my students always make like a shopping list of I need to do this and this and this, and maybe in this bar this will be difficult, and so on. And the experienced ones have that same kind of list, but not as a as an order. They have the focus points and they react to what they hear in the room. So it will it will you cannot really plan a rehearsal beforehand in that regard because you have to react to what's happening. And I that's what I preach to my students, at least, that they should be prepared for anything.

SPEAKER_01 24:17

And I I I I I I very rarely have an actual rehearsal plan of I'm doing this bar to this bar and this bar to this bar and this bar and so on, or I'm gonna work on that, or I'm gonna work on that. I do everything based on what I'm hearing and seeing and feeling because I think that's that helps you to create an amazing experience for people, an an inspirational one, and it helps progress because you're working, you you know, if you have the experience working with choirs, you will you will be able to do that instinctly. And so you have a framework, I'm gonna work on that piece, and I know we got up to there last week, and we're gonna just recap and then we're gonna continue going on. But after that, it's a case of what am I hearing?

SPEAKER_00 24:58

Yep. Completely agree, completely agree. And do you know if you can go to many schools for conducting, but it will not teach you that skill of being reactive in the room. I think it's just you have to put so many hours in front of the choir to really master that, and also not get caught up in details because you can hear something and and then bang on it for like 20 minutes, and that's just no fun for anybody.

SPEAKER_01 25:25

So it's it's really we've all done it, and everyone hates it, and you all walk away feeling terrible at the end, and you just think, What was the point? Absolutely. What is one common mistake you you see with choir directors um in terms of their rehearsal approach? Is there a is there something you'd say, you know what, don't do that, or don't do that. There's a sort of common thing. I just see the people doing that, sh you know, don't do that. Approach it differently, and you'll get a different result.

Keeping Flow: Cutoffs And Eye Contact

SPEAKER_00 25:57

I mean, a a huge pet peeve of mine is when we've sung something and we do the cutoff, and the director goes, What's in my score? and then proceeds to talk to the score, and then it's just so disengaging. It's um I I challenge my students to learn everything by heart, and it doesn't mean that you have to be able to play it necessarily or sing every part by heart, but you should challenge yourself to do the cutoff, keep the eye contact, be ready mindfully to say what you need to say, and then go again. Because every time we do a cutoff, there's a risk that the energy levels will just collapse and people will start talking to each other. And as a conductor, we need to keep that flow going. So having in mind what you what you need to say and keep the eye contact at the cutoffs, that's essential to keep the rehearsal flow. And something I see very rarely, sadly. It's I'm a bit harsh now.

Joy, Perfection, And Creative Rehearsals

SPEAKER_01 27:06

Be harsh, be harsh. That's what's what people want to want to hear. Um, in terms of performance, now you've obviously put performed on a world stage, you've obviously done competitions, and when you prepare for competitions and sort of high-stake performances, it's high-profile performance that are important. How do you protect the ensemble's joy and risk taking whilst whilst raising the standard?

Bob 100: Singing To The Audience

SPEAKER_00 27:32

I think it comes down to not being too repetitive. When you rehearse the same pieces over and over and really strive for perfection, you can fall into the trap of saying the same things over and over and over again. And as a director, you need to be creative in trying to achieve things from different angles. So sometimes I think, okay, we've nailed this from a technical perspective. Now, maybe you should go into groups and talk about the meaning of the text. Or maybe we should watch ourselves back from a recent concert recording and have a talk about what we could improve. And so always find different angles where you are not necessarily the one in front telling people what to do, but making them engaged uh personally by evaluating themselves and evaluating each other. Maybe you can split the choir in half and make one half listen to the other half and then split and so on. So there's a lot of, especially at the very last rehearsals for competitions, that is okay, we know the music by now, we got the technicalities really nailed down. Now we need to focus all the energy towards the audience, and how do we do that? So we we have a concept that I just want to briefly cover, which is called Bob. And Bob is the Bob is the audience. So whenever I say look at Bob, it just means look at the audience. And if we have a Bob 100, that means your feet should point towards the audience. I think when I see choirs, many choirs are used to singing a concert for their director, and then the audience are kind of watching that happen. So it feels like a close club. Whereas if you do Bob Hundred, pointing your feet towards the audience and just looking at the peripheral vision to the conductor, that's when your performances can be taken to the next level, where it can really have an impact on the audience, where you're actually singing music to the audience and not just in your semi-semicicle.

Scores, Eye Contact, And Reading Ahead

SPEAKER_01 29:47

Yeah, I I I think we can gain so much from watching others, watching other choirs. It's interesting when you said about watching yourself back. I think watching yourselves back is is so useful and and having some of the choir stand out and watch the rest of the choir, you suddenly get a whole new perspective on on things. And also, you know, your point about singing to the audience, you know, I I was always I was always told, always sing through your conductor to the audience. Don't look directly at the conductor, look through the conductor, as you say, have them in your in your peripheral vision. My pet hate is when I watch choirs on stage that um that look at their feet, they're just looking at the ground. You know, or they you know they come on stage and they they're they're parading on even without music, they're parading on, but they're always looking at the floor, they're looking at their feet as as if their feet they don't know where their feet are or what their feet are going to do. They've they've gonna have to keep an eye on their feet. But when they've got music, it's even worse because they they don't communicate. Now, how do you how do you work through that? If you are a choir who uses music and they've got folders or iPads or whatever they're looking at, how how can choirs get better at watching an audience because they have this comfort blanket of the folder of music in front of them? Yeah, it's it's you know it's away from that.

SPEAKER_00 31:09

It's difficult to like control that as a conductor. It has to be up to the individual's responsibility to do that. But you can always remind them of holding the score so you can hold the score high enough so you can see both. Um I have some exercises about reading ahead, where we have five seconds to read like a system, close the score, sing it, then open up five seconds again, read ahead, and then kind of getting them into the habit of of knowing what's gonna happen next and keeping eye contact.

SPEAKER_01 31:46

Yeah, it's so important. It's so important to to make sure you get an entry or you come off cleanly, you know, at the end of a phrase. Um you your the the competitions that you go in for, how how strict are they and how d how how much tension is there and pressure on the singers?

SPEAKER_00 32:06

The thing about call competitions are that they're not real competitions, there are no real winners. You cannot say objectively that this choir was better than the other. And I really uh stressed this to my choirs that no matter what happens, it's not the end goal to win the competition. It cannot be the end goal because we are out of control um of the outcome. The thing we are in control of is to fulfill our own potential, and I think we have a pot we have a potential and we're working towards really going for our full potential, so that should really be the end goal, and I think that can take off some of the pressure because competition in music is to be frank quite unhelpful, I think. Um, because we use competitions to kind of motivate ourselves to make even greater art. And whenever you see a competition, I just enjoy that there's a choir after choir after choir who's really put in the hard work of standing on that stage, and you know you will listen to these choirs at their absolute peak because it's competition, and that's what's amazing about competitions. And then whoever wins, that's that's down to who was the jury and if they performed after lunch, or I mean there's so many things preferences, preferences, preferences. So so I try to take off the pressure by always talking about what is the end goal and it's not to win.

SPEAKER_01 33:45

And I think that's I think that's really profound actually. And I I think that I I remember I remember doing there was a competition, there used to be a very high-profile competition here in the UK called Choir of the Year. Um, and uh it was held at the Buxton Opera House, which is a beautiful opera house uh in the countryside, um up in sort of Middle England kind of area. And um it was an amazing competition, but it was very, very high pressure. And I was in a chamber choir at the time, and we we were in the semi-finals, it was live on TV, and uh an audience made up of the other choirs. It was I can't ever remember uh being so stressed to go on stage as I remember uh doing that competition. Um and the choir did really well and and um they they they went on to win. In fact, the following year we won uh one choir of the year. Um but it was it was such a high pressure uh situation that I can't say I really enjoyed the competitive experience a huge amount. What I did enjoy was the standard I reached doing it, because I learned so much about the delivery and performance and accuracy of the the detail of the piece. It was contemporary, contemporary classical music, it was really tricky stuff. Um and um yeah, it it it it it it helps you to really raise your game because you remain at that standard when you finish, doesn't matter what happened on the stage, whether you won or not, you remain at that standard going forward, don't you?

SPEAKER_00 35:14

Exactly. Yeah, so this past summer when we went to the European choir games, as I talked about in the beginning, uh afterwards we had a tour around Denmark, and it was the easiest tour of my life, and the level was so high, we've we've not been performing any better uh than that tour, just because we have been working so hard for the competition, and then all the pressure was off, and we could just sing, and it was so easy. It felt so easy because we were so prepared.

SPEAKER_01 35:39

Now you've you've uh with with going back to your warm-ups and your crazy exercises that we're all loving right now, and you're getting so much uh social media uh attention, it's fantastic. I'm I'm I'm it's really exciting to watch. Um, do you have your favorite exercises? And I I'm something uh a bird tells me that that you're gonna publish some of these soon. Are we gonna be able to do use them ourselves?

Post-Competition Touring Payoff

SPEAKER_00 36:03

For sure, for sure. Uh I have a book coming out on June 1st called The Playful Choir. Uh, it's gonna be released by ECS Publishing, it's a US publisher, and it will be 30 of my favorite exercises, games, and challenges with accompanying videos. So, you know, on Instagram you only see me, but I have convinced the choir to be on camera this time. So you will actually see the youngsters uh performing these exercises and being inspired and seeing how fun it actually is, because there will be lots of smiles and and laughs in these videos. That'll be that'll be huge fun.

SPEAKER_01 36:39

That really that really will. What else what else have you got coming up? What um I I understand you're sort of very busy this year, obviously touring and and doing various workshops and things.

The Playful Choir Book And Tours

SPEAKER_00 36:49

Yes, a lot of a lot of travel will will commence this year. Uh I'm coming to London very soon, which I'm hugely excited about. On the 2nd of May, I'm collabing with Tori London on a singing day at St. John's Waterloo. And you can sign up uh as long as there are still spaces left. We'll see. We'll see. I think it's filling up pretty pretty quickly, but I hope to come back soon again. And yeah, I'll be going to France and Greece and Belgium twice, and Norway, Sweden, uh, Romania twice, and uh US, of course, uh twice also this year. So that sounds gonna be it's gonna be a crazy year.

SPEAKER_01 37:30

And if you're anyone like me that loves travel and loves music, when you put the two together, it's the sort of the best thing ever. It's the best thing ever. Experience the world, meet different people, different countries, different cultures. It's a fantastic thing to be part of. Do you have, before we finish, do you have a funny anecdote or something disastrous that's ever happened in your career that you can now look back and laugh at? Do you have a funny story you could tell our listeners?

SPEAKER_00 37:54

Well, I I told this story on Instagram, but it's what comes to mind, and it was my first rehearsal ever as a choir leader, where I, after the warm-up, just fainted. I just fell on the floor, and because I was deadly nervous, and it just it went black, and suddenly I was on the floor, and I was rushed to the emergency room, and it was um it was crazy. But I went back the next week, and here we are. So it um actually it was a bit of a looking back, it was a bit of a bonding experience with this choir. It was a senior choir, and they I was 19 at the time, and I think they all saw me like their grandson. And so they really cared for me, and and it was kind of sweet. And then from there we kind of built a bond that uh that would last for that whole year, and we really appreciated each other. And I think that first episode sparked that bond.

SPEAKER_01 38:59

I think these experiences do. You you know, you you have something that everybody remembers, and obviously you you you've all shared that moment, don't you?

SPEAKER_00 39:05

You know, yeah, I've I've kept in touch with the choir, and there's still something they talk about.

A Fainting Debut And Final Thanks

SPEAKER_01 39:09

So mine was falling off a stage, but we won't go into that one now. We'll leave that for another time. Uh, but yeah, there's some, I'm sure lots of people have got some crazy experiences that they could share with us as well. Uh Jonas, this has been a wonderful uh chat with you, and thank you so much for taking the time out to spend with us uh today talking about the amazing things you're doing. I wish you uh great success in all your upcoming workshops and performances and competitions and your book and your videos and social media and everything else you're doing, and I really hope we get to work together one day. Um that would be an amazing thing. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 39:44

Thank you so much for the invitations. Great, great honour.

Closing And Listener Support

SPEAKER_01 39:48

Well, what a great guy and so much fun that interview. Um, I can't wait to see what's next for Jonas. Anyway, that's the end of the show. I hope you've enjoyed it. Don't forget to please like the show, subscribe to the show, review the show, share the show, and let's uh let's get this out on the road and helping as many people as we possibly can. Uh, your help would be incredibly appreciated, and no doubt every single thing that we share is going to help others too in this amazing choral world that we work in. Until next time, goodbye.