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Is it permissible for parishioners to sing in church with the choir? Hieromonk Job (Gumerov) There is no such prohibition, but it is better to sing to yourself. Such singing prevents those standing nearby from praying. This is especially noticeable when a person sings along inaccurately. Parishioners sing together during Divine

Despite his young age, Mikhail Vandalovsky is a well-known Kyiv regent. He leads the choir of the St. Andrew the First-Called Church in the capital, he is also the choirmaster of the Dnipro chapel of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, the singer of the jazz ensemble Ad Libitum, which won second place in the Chervona Ruta song contest in 2010, the singer of the Kyiv municipal chamber choir ". In addition, he is also a vocalist, composer, arranger, and in the recent past, an excellent violinist. He is often invited to the patronal feasts of various churches, so that the choir, under his sensitive "guidance", will decorate the festive service, and then the feast. Therefore, we decided to turn to him in order to find out how the young musician lives, what trends are observed today in church choral music, and which church choirs are the future: professional or amateur.

About church choirs: singing competitions solve the problem of communication

“This year, the first festival-competition of parish groups “Pentikostia” took place in Kyiv, held with the blessing of His Beatitude Metropolitan Vladimir. How do you feel about this undertaking?

“I want to say that this is a very important initiative, for which I want to personally thank His Beatitude Metropolitan Vladimir and the rector of the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord, Archbishop Alexander (Drabinko). Unfortunately, I could not take part in the competition, but next year we will definitely take part. I think that church Kyiv needs such a festival. In my opinion, in the future, more attention can be paid to the fulfillment of liturgical tasks, such as: singing stichera and troparia from the sheet into voices, mobile adjustment of keys and chord arrangement to the exclamations of the clergy, logical and timely singing of petitions during litanies. At first glance, this may not seem like such an important aspect, but in fact it is very important. That is, more emphasis should be placed on practical matters singing of church choirs during divine services. The festival "Pentikostia" is good because it solves the problem of communication between Orthodox choirs. It would be great if a single platform was created on the basis of the festival, like an association or a club of Orthodox choirs, where it would be possible to share notes, experience and discuss new areas of creativity.

- Why notes? What, is there a problem with getting them?

- For a beginner choir, this can be a problem. Until now, there is no single Orthodox resource where one could find notes of certain chants. There are various sites, but so far all this is very poorly developed. Still, unfortunately, there is a problem with the fact that it is not very customary to exchange notes between the choirs of temples. For example, when I started my regency work, I had to get some notes almost by cunning. Now we have a problem with how to get notes or hooks for ancient liturgical chants.

How many years does it take to create your own church choir?

- To create a good church choir, you need God's will, human diligence, patience, and most importantly - love for what you do. And time is as God will give. You can rehearse every Saturday for a year, or you can rehearse for one month every day, depending on what kind of people have gathered together and how hard they are trying in the name of the Lord. By the way, the male choir is much more difficult to assemble in the temple than the female choir. Orthodox men are usually the breadwinners in the family and they are much busier, because, as a rule, it is more difficult for them to choose free time for rehearsals.

“We have something to show the world!”

- Who would you call the best among church choirs and ensembles in Ukraine today?

“When I listened to three discs of chants by the Sretenie ensemble led by deacon Igor Sakhno from Kharkov, I realized that today this is the best performance of ancient chants in the CIS countries. The performance of the chants of Byzantium and Ancient Rus', which I have heard so far, cannot be compared with what the group of Igor Sakhno performs. By the way, six people sing in the Candlemas, and each of them is, so to speak, a mega-star. And four are also first-class regents. So, Dmitry Bolgarsky is now the choir director of the Holy Trinity Ioninsky Monastery. Unofficially, he is considered the best regent of Ukraine. He publishes notes, educates new regents, helps other regents. He will always help, explain, answer any question. If someday they create some kind of association of regents, this is probably the best candidate to lead it. Another participant of the Candlemas is Igor Sakhno, the choir director of the Kharkiv Church of the Three Hierarchs. Vyacheslav Martsinkov, director of the bishops' choir of the Transfiguration Cathedral in Dnepropetrovsk. Sergei Kovalev, choir director of the church in the name of the holy martyrs Cosmas and Damian in Dnepropetrovsk. Igor Sakhno, head of the Sretenie Ensemble, trained with the famous Athenian protopsalter Lycurgus Angelopulo. But besides knowledge, he also has spiritual experience, a personal relationship with God and a constant mood for prayer. If you take a recording of the Bulgarian chant “We sing to you” performed by this ensemble, this is a very high level of performance of ancient chants. I think many will agree with this. In addition to the people already listed, I would especially single out Elena Solovei from the Church of the Life-Giving Spring, who is the director of the youth choir of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. She, in addition to brilliantly conducting services in the Lavra, also manages to take her choir abroad. This is great! We need to exchange experience, show our church singing culture not only in Ukraine, but also abroad. They have a lot to learn, and they have a lot to learn from us too. And she is also a brilliant conductor teacher - I studied with her for several years and am very grateful to her for that. I would like to mention Oleksandr Tarasenko, conductor of the Bishops' Choir "Resurrection" of the Holy Resurrection Cathedral in the city of Rivne. And of course Bogdan Plish. In his choir "Credo", created on the basis of the church choir, I sang for 5 years and I can say that he is a great master of his craft. I am grateful to God for having met such a musician on my way.

There are internal problems in church choirs, but we also see examples of "star" achievements

- There is a strong opinion that the church choir is a place where quarrels often break out, gossip circulates and unhealthy competition reigns. Is it so?

- In general, this is not so. But there are options. The regent is of great importance. As the saying goes, a fish rots from the head. If the regent and singers come to the temple to God, and not for the sake of earning money, there will be no problems. Usually there is much more competition in secular choirs than in church ones. In church choirs, there is a problem of a different kind - conversations among themselves during singing, whispering, when not all choristers are in the mood for prayer, for glorifying God properly. You just need to accustom yourself - you went into the temple and left everything that was before, outside the door.

- I would like to clarify the issue of payment for the work of the choir. There is an opinion that performers in the temple do not need to pay at all, they should sing for free ...

- I am often asked, do you sing for money or not? I say that if 5-10 euros is money, then for the money ... In fact, people are simply forced to take these 5-10 euros in order to survive. And I understand that when people ask me about 5-10 hryvnias that they lack, this is not from a good life. And I am very sorry for them and myself that we generally have to talk about such a topic. Well, the reason for this is not a person's view of the Church, but a hard life. Indeed, in countries where the standard of living is higher, for example, in Finland, the Orthodox come to sing in the temple without payment. But, they can afford it, because the world earns good money.

- What do you think, is the future in churches for professional or amateur choirs?

- I think that to a greater extent for amateurs, however, not in the near future. Having worked with the Dnipro Chapel, I can say what to achieve good quality singing is possible with amateurs. For example, recently the choir "Oriana" came to Kyiv from London. So this is an amateur choir, its members are not professional musicians, but they are performers the highest class. What they recorded says about the level of this choir joint drive with ex-Led-Zeppelin Robert Plant and performed Duel of the Fates for the first episode of " star wars» George Lucas. If it is possible to create such a choir by collecting ordinary people, each of which has its main place of work not in the choir, but somewhere outside it, so tell me, what prevents you from creating a choir in a temple or cathedral from among ordinary parishioners, and not professional singers? But I think that there is a niche for all levels of performers. Unfortunately, we see that kliros, consisting of grandparents, do not disappear from churches. I would like to see the opposite picture. Imagine, you come to the temple, and there is a full choir of young people, harmoniously singing God. It's fine! All this will gradually happen. And I think there will always be church choirs consisting of professional singers. It does not interfere. And, of course, children's choirs. I would like to hear their singing more often in church.

About music: spiritual and spiritual

- There is an opinion that only church music is useful for a person, and the rest is harmful to the soul. How do you feel about it?

“I strongly disagree with this. I believe that most of all good music is soulful, and Christian chants are spiritual. Including soulful and the music that is performed exclusively on instruments. Recently I began to read one author - he strongly shares liturgical singing and music. And he writes that liturgical singing is eternal and good, while all other music is bad and this is from the evil one. I consider this approach a kind of modern Gnosticism - matter is bad, but spirit is good. And liturgical singing, and classics, and many modern music It's all from the Lord. Only liturgical music is spiritual, and the rest good music- sincere. Yes, there are some styles of music that can really be considered from the evil one, and which are evil. But any music that makes you think about the eternal, that speaks of the beauty of creation, warms the soul and heart, which is written and performed by a person who believes or even seeks God and loves what he performs is good for the soul. Spiritual music, on the other hand, can be performed so badly and in such a state of mind that it will no longer be such.

- Now it is fashionable to scold conservative choral singing and praise monastic simple singing. Is this an objective criticism or a subjective one?

- For this there is objective reasons, and not much. Now they perform a lot in the temples of Vedel, Bortnyansky, Berezovsky, Leontovich. These composers have written great music. But not all performers have the spiritual experience that these composers had. Problems begin when the choir begins to sing in such a way as not to glorify God, but to show their abilities, stand out and assert themselves at the expense of others. That is when selfishness begins. Concern "We Praise God to You" by Bortnyansky, performed by the choir of the publishing department of the Moscow Patriarchate, sounds in such a way that no one should have any doubts that this music was written by a wonderful believing composer. Although this is a polyphonic composition, in which there are chords that are difficult to hear, and modulations, and polyphony. But it is sung with spiritual content, with feeling, very harmoniously, without the egoism of individual performers, and most importantly, in the spirit. I also want to note that it is bad not only when a person knows how to sing well, but does not have the proper spiritual qualities, but vice versa. When someone does not know how to sing, even if it is a person of spiritual life, he will still not perform anything sensible. We need harmony. A person who graduated from the conservatory, in itself, cannot have any spiritual experience only on the basis of the musical disciplines he has mastered. To do this, you need to be a believer and a church person. One must have a personal relationship with God, feel His breath, see eternity. Therefore, if you see that the work of a church composer is performed in an inappropriate way, then the problem in most cases is not in the composer and his creation, but in the regent and his choir.

- And what are the subjective reasons?

As they say, everything is light to the bright. Also here. Alas, recently the number of people who do not remember the will has increased: "Rejoice without ceasing." And they don't have the proper love for others. Hence the attempt to find something evil, to find faults even in sacred music. I sometimes notice this myself. Recently, when we were rehearsing the Liturgy of the composer Mikhail Verbitsky with the Kyiv Choir, I caught myself thinking that it was written somehow very simply, sweetly, and this irritates me. And then I realized: this is beautiful, bright, harmonious music. Why does it "twist" me so much? This means the problem is with me. I'm bad now, not Mikhail Verbitsky with his Liturgy. And in fact, I am sure that we will go to Canada with this Liturgy, and there will be many people who will rejoice, cry, hearing it, and many of them will then come to church, repent, do works of mercy. When we performed Berezovsky’s sacramental verse “Blessed be I have chosen” (this is the first track of our disc) by the Dnipro Chapel, people sang and cried, not from grief - from the fact that they felt the Creator’s love, eternity, hope. Then the thought occurred to me that it was not Berezovsky who invented this music, it was the Lord who invented it, it has always been, it is from eternity, where there is no beginning and end. And Berezovsky only opened it and wrote it down so that we could see it too, pass it on to others. This is from God and evidence of this - people who, to this music, learn to pray, love, hope, forgive and believe.

“Sing a song to God so that the souls of all who stand in the temple sing to Him”

- You named some composers who wrote church music and, of course, I wanted to clarify how you feel about Rachmaninov and his work?

- Rachmaninov's All-Night Vigil is proof that a person does not need to be in dignity or be a monk in order to write magnificent spiritual music. If you look at the music of another composer - Mozart, his "Requiem" or "Mass" in C minor - this is also sacred music of the highest class and level. The only question is that the performance of these works does not turn into pretentious, too impulsive. Or vice versa plastic, soulless, mechanical. And the music of Rachmaninoff and Mozart can be performed both spiritually filled, and vice versa. I recommend listening to how the Kyiv choir performs "Credo" from Rachmaninov's All-Night Vigil "Now let go", on the disk "Kyiv Chant". This is a role model, because there is both spiritual fulfillment and mastery of performance, and many, many things. In fact, you can sing a lot of composers, but it is important to think about how you sing it. It is important how this will affect the prayer process and the prayer mood in the temple. It is very important to do everything to make parishioners want to pray. The main goal of the choir is to sing a song to God and make the souls of all who stand in the temple sing to God.

- Are there any modern young Ukrainian composers who write church music?

- Yes, sure. In our church, for example, Maxim Kuchmet sings, a young composer who also writes sacred music and chants. Moreover, he writes in such a way that it does not go beyond the canon and at the same time gives something new, some new stream.

- Now the idea is fashionable that every chants are good for special condition. For example, for the Easter service, the best chants of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, and for the first week of Great Lent, say, Byzantine ...

- It's very subjective. For example, I remember a choir called "Byzantium" comes to the festival "Glas Pechersky". They sing the first piece and everyone is delighted. Listeners cannot understand whether they are in heaven or on earth. Everyone takes off. This is real Orthodox singing! The second work ... The third. Everyone starts to change mood. On the fourth hymn, people begin to leave the temple. The fact is that listening to Byzantine chants for a long time is not easy for the public in the temple. And it was a prepared audience, it should be noted. That is, if the parish is ready to pray for a long time and praise God when the service is performed in Byzantine chant, then you can at least conduct all the services in this way. And if not, then it is not worth holding one such service.

- In what language is it more difficult to sing, in Ukrainian or in Church Slavonic?

“It's a matter of habit. Technically it is equally difficult for me to sing in any language, but spiritually I am more used to praying in Church Slavonic. There are people who want to pray in Ukrainian or Russian. I think that it is necessary to leave the right of choice on this issue. But, the whole parish should choose, and not just the rector of the temple alone or the choir.

- I wanted to ask about the tempo of singing in church choirs. Now there is a tendency to sing faster and faster. How do you feel about this?

- In this sense, I would like to slow down the process of worship. That is, to sing more slowly and more clearly. If there is a task to save the time of the Liturgy, then perhaps it is better to refuse some part of the service, but what remains should be sung more slowly and more clearly. Unfortunately, I often encounter haste in the singing of singers. Sometimes their speed becomes uncontrollable. Then I look for methods of influence ...

- What works are more difficult to sing - secular or church?

- Many church works are not super virtuosic, unlike, by the way, secular ones. But in the church choir one must always have a state of prayer, one must be spiritually prepared for the Liturgy. In the secular - their own, other features.

Everyone thought: who has nothing to do, before singing all the time some kind of “ta-ta-ta”

Tell me about how you got started in music...

- I was born in Kyiv. From early childhood I went to the Exaltation of the Cross Church. There my father sang and read in the kliros, my mother in the choir, and my godfather, Uncle Misha. And I remember how he understated a little (laughs - ed.). Though I didn't know for sure at the time. Now I always pay great attention to the order of the choir - I don’t allow singing out of tune, as this will create internal discomfort not only for those who sing, but also for those who listen. Even then, I paid attention to how the regent gives the tuning for singing, I thought: who has nothing to do, before singing all the time some kind of “ta-ta-ta”. And that's why now I try to tune the choir quietly and in a timely manner. So that it does not knock down the prayerful spirit of the service. But I did it unconsciously, that is, I analyzed something, but I didn’t understand what, but I felt discomfort during the uncoordinated singing of the choir. Often during the service, my father would read prayers in my ear and explain what was going on in the church. Sometimes they even made remarks to us, they say, what are you talking about during the service. I think it is very important to explain to people what generally happens during the service. Otherwise, it turns out that a person came to the temple, prays as best he can, but what is happening, he understands only at the level of the heart, and this is not enough. Then I started to climb the choir and sing along. From the age of 6 he went to a music school, began to play the violin and piano. Then, from the 3rd grade, he entered the Lysenko school. My grandmother worked with me a lot, and she instilled in me a real concept of sound. However, only after five years of playing the violin do you begin to understand what a real, full sound is. Grandma put a lot of work into it. She was a professional musician who graduated from the conservatory and graduate school. She taught Lysenko at school and taught violin.

How did she teach you?

- For example, she said that the bow should always go like clockwork. That is, you imagine that you are moving a bow over a piece of butter. This way you can get the violin to sing and not squeak. After a while, I realized that I hear not only sounds, I hear what is behind them. And when it comes to religious works, including classical music for musical instruments, which was written by Christian composers and has a Christian meaning, then I already hear not only sounds and music, but also prayer in music. It's not about technology at all. The main thing is to be able to play in two or three notes limited on earth, to play the infinite and unlimited that is in heaven. That is, to convey the inexhaustible grace and love of God. The task of Christian music is to find in sounds something that is not here on this earth… After a while I decided to take up choral singing. At first, I didn't quite understand where I was. People in two or three chords, well built, saw already perfect chants. Faced with a low level of music-making in the choirs. Often this was due to the conductors and their level. The conductor is a kind of leader, but this leader must not only do everything well from the point of view of the musical vertical, but also fill the singing with meaning. Well, then, of course, I saw many excellent conductors and realized that everything is real, but there is still a lot to learn.

When the Word was revealed in sound

- So music for you is not just a set of sounds?

- Of course. What matters to me is what's behind the music. It is written that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. So you always need to remember that the word can be said, but you can sing it. The word, after all, can be simply expressed in music. There are musicians who, unfortunately, will never understand this. I'm not talking about surprising someone with a professionally performed crescendo or morendo. I'm talking about putting meaning into what you sing. To perform music and chants, surviving the experience of your meeting with God and passing it on to another person. As my grandmother used to say, to fill the sound not just with frequencies, but with meaning.

- Let's get back to choral singing ...

- When I was in the tenth grade of the Lysenko school, we created a mixed choir "Heavenly Creel". The guys themselves asked me to rehearse with them. I willingly did it, but, unfortunately, at that time I still understood little. We then rehearsed in the classrooms of the school, and in the icon-painting workshop of my father on the territory of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. We performed in great hall conservatory, in the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. These were the first steps, I started working with the choir, and it taught me how to work with people. In general, choral singing also teaches communication, proper communication with each other. When I entered the conservatory and came to the concert of the chamber choir "Credo", I was amazed both by the quality of the choir's singing and the conducting technique of its leader Bohdan Plish. A lot depends on the technique of conducting. You can also invest a lot in a gesture. Everything that I could only dream of, and even more, was in his work in rehearsals and conducting in concerts. After that, I abandoned my childhood attempts to create a choir and began to study choral business at the conservatory even more willingly. For five years I sang in the choir "Credo" and I consider Bogdan Plish my second teacher after my grandmother. After that I started to learn a lot of new bands high level and study and study again.

What impressed you the most about the Plish technique?

“I saw that choral singing can also convey the love of God and God's love for us, as well as with the help of playing the violin. I saw that you can really play the choir, like the violin, only deeper, wider, and more penetrating. I would also like to point out that big influence I had an acquaintance with the women's choir of the Glier school, and its leader Galina Gorbatenko. The choir of the Glier School still sings on a par with the best choirs in the world, and regularly proves this at international choir competitions. I also sang in the choir of the Church of the Life-Giving Spring of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, where the regent is Alena Nightingale. I still sing in her choir whenever possible. In fact, it was from her choir that the choir of the church of the Holy Apostle Andrew the First-Called came out, where I am the regent. At the conservatory, I studied conducting with the teacher Oleg Timoshenko, but it was Alyona Solovey who taught me a lot about it. By the way, she is a student of Galina Gorbatenko, and now she is a choirmaster in her choir. We communicate, share experience, develop. At one time, in parallel with singing, I took up computer music and wrote completely different compositions. After a while, orders appeared, and they began to pay me. At the same time, he worked part-time - he wrote karaoke and melodies for mobile phones. At one time, this brought considerable income and greatly developed harmonic ear.

I feel that I can serve God and develop as a professional. As a person…

- Is singing in a church choir compatible with playing popular or rock music?

I don't know, but I've done it before. While still at the conservatory, in parallel with my studies, I played musical group, including in different institutions. We played Ray Charles, Sting, James Brown. It took me a lot of time, because in parallel there was the Credo choir, the Lavra youth choir, my church choir, ringtones for mobile phones, karaoke, parties, computer arrangements. I could hardly keep up everywhere - it's good that I had a scooter. I liked my life then, and I like it now. There was nothing wrong with what I did. I communicated with big amount different, including non-church, but good people, performed perfectly different music. I lived, created, searched.

When I graduated from the conservatory, I felt that I wanted to find something else in my pastime with music, and gave up many classes, including the group. It took me a while to figure out which way to go.

Somehow I got a call and was offered to sing a small concert with the jazz ensemble Man Sound. I took notes and got very excited. It was technically very difficult. musical works. I learned them, sang with the ensemble, and felt that I would like to sing in a jazz ensemble in parallel with my other activities. Please - in a couple of months I'm already singing in Ad Libitum. And at the same time I go to the Dnipro chapel and the Kyiv choir. That's how it all rolled.

I am very pleased that I have the opportunity to do what I do and to deal with the people with whom I sing together. Philosophers, mathematicians, and physicists sing in the Dnipro University Choir. Completely different audience. But the main thing is that many now attend the temple, and have become churched through the fact that they began to sing in the choir. This work has been a gift to me. In Ad Libitum, too, most of the guys sing in temples. By the way, there are six of us there, and three of us, including me, sing in our church of St. Andrew the First-Called. And I have an idea to generally unite Ad Libitum and the church choir, but so far this is unrealistic, not everyone is church-going. I still earn very little money, but I feel that I can serve God and develop as a professional - as a conductor, as a singer, as a teacher and as a student. As a person.

With the Dnipro Chapel, we have already given concerts in Germany, Switzerland, and in the near future we will go to Italy. With Ad Libitum we have already participated in the competition in Germany, and I think we will tour a lot in the near future. With the choir "Kyiv" we have already visited, there is not enough space in the interview where! - in a lot of countries. This choir is already 20 years old, and its conductor Nikolai Gobdich is a top class professional. He has already recorded more than 40 discs, gave more than 1300 concerts. In general, there is something and from whom to learn. In the near future we fly to America, Canada, Holland. It is very pleasant and interesting to work in this team, plus I have been a regent in the church of the Holy Apostle Andrew the First-Called for five years now. While we are establishing contacts with foreign countries, we are looking for sponsors, we are raising the quality of singing, we are preparing for recording discs, we are making tour plans. At first, I was afraid to take on this burden, but the rector of the church, Archpriest Vladimir Savelyev, convinced me. He literally said that I need to be bolder, and that the road will be mastered by the walking one. And I am very grateful to God that He gave me the wisdom to make this choice, and I am grateful to the rector for helping me make the right decision.

Colleagues, welcome! Irina Ivaskiv is with you. Creating a choir - what could be more responsible? So much to think about and take into account! And it would be better to avoid serious mistakes from the very beginning than to spend time and effort on correcting them later. In this article, we will consider two ways to organize a church choir with all their advantages and disadvantages. In this article we will talk about choirs created in churches, but, believe me, the creation of an ordinary choir will have the same principles.

Creation of the choir. Method number 1. Recruitment by ad

Flaws:

1) May not give the desired results:

It is extremely risky to organize a choir on the basis of the voluntary arrival of all comers (by announcement). Some people who really want to sing, who have the necessary data for this, who you want to see in your choir, for various reasons may not respond to your ad. For example, young men who experience age-related discomfort in their voice and because of this doubt their vocal abilities may be ashamed to approach you. But on the other hand, people who, for various reasons, cannot be members of the choir (for example, new converts, or people on notice, or people who have recently transferred to you from another church, or pregnant women, etc.) may respond to your announcement. Surprisingly, such people, as a rule, turn out to be the majority! This forces the manager to decide unpleasant problem: how to refuse this or that person.

2) May be accompanied by large dropouts.

Advantages:

1) It is justified when the choir ministry in the church is just emerging or is being revived after a long break, when the church is small, when the choir needs to be organized urgently, when the choir ministry changes its structure.

2) Justified in the creation of united choirs.

3) Requires a clear, competent announcement (it is better if the head himself makes it, or, according to at least, will write the text of the announcement to the person making the announcements).

4) Announcement can be made different ways: orally in the service (not to ask, but to provide the opportunity - for people this should be a privilege!), On the information board, in the church newspaper or a special bulletin.

5) It is better to make an announcement using all these methods at the same time.

6) You should use this method of organizing the choir extremely rarely!

1) More effective, because it gives not so much a quantitative as a qualitative set of choristers!

2) As a rule, it is accompanied by a slight dropout.

• It is better to recruit beginners at certain times of the year (for example, from May to August). In the summer, as a rule, the choir service has a small load, Easter performances have already passed, before the Harvest holiday (especially before Christmas!) You can “relax” a little. Many choristers go on vacation, so relatively few new works are learned. This helps newcomers to more smoothly join the team. During the summer, while the emphasis in working with the choir is on consolidating previously learned pieces, more or less familiar to beginners, they gradually adapt to the rehearsal schedule, to vocal loads, to rules and requirements. And in September, when the main work on learning new material begins, beginners begin to learn new songs together with experienced choristers. These new songs are new to both beginners and experienced choristers, and this fact "levels" everyone in the rights. It is in the summer that beginners can be given enough attention!
• If you engage in recruiting newcomers throughout the year, then work with the main team will be significantly suspended! You can, of course, work with beginners throughout the year, but subject to the only condition: the leader has several assistants (according to the number of parts in the choir) responsible for working with beginners!
• Beginners at rehearsals sit on the 1st row, in front of the choir, closer to the regent. This gives the regent the opportunity to pay more attention to them, to hear them better, to correct them in time. In addition, in this position, they can hear their part better from more experienced choristers standing behind. Thus, beginners learn faster. After a couple of months, some of the newcomers are seated by the regent at rehearsals in the appropriate roles, one at a time between the leading voices.
• At the end of the probationary period and checking the parts that the new chorister managed to learn during this time, the regent allows the chorister to join the choir and at services. This should be a celebration for the new chorister. Some choristers may have their probation period extended.

Conclusion

Friends, which way to choose is up to you. In any case, I wish you a lot of the most beautiful creative ideas and inspiration! Let the creation of your choir be surrounded by only pleasant chores!