Chorus and Christian Music

[Indabayou]

I joined my university's choir this year, and while I love it, I can't help but to be a bit aggravated at the amount of Christian music we sing. I know they're classical music pieces and the director wants us to have a well-rounded repertoire that isn't just "ear candy", but I'm so so tired of singing out so many praises and "may our lord reign forever"s about a god I don't even believe in. And it is a musical bias to favor these songs, I believe. I'm sure that there would be no end to the complaints if we had to sing Islamic hymns every season and for events that aren't even religious in nature (we sang a selection from Handel's Messiah for family day and plan to sing the hallelujah chorus for our new campus president's inauguration, and my college is not a religous-based one in the slightest.)

And I'm not mad at our director. He makes sure we have a variety of music of all kinds to sing. Heck, last year the choir sang an arrangement about Cthulhu. But it's the utter saturation and constancy of Christian music in repertoires that bothers me. It makes singing an uncomfortable experience rather than a fun one whenever I have to pull it out, and I hate feeling like that. There's so much good music out there that isn't religiously swayed, can we sing that instead to get our fix of complex classical music without alienating others?

 

[SacredWarrior]

Try suggesting some other types of music or songs then? Speak up if you want change. Since the director seems cool, try talking to him about it. Maybe try seeing if some of the other members agree with you too?

 

[Kagayours]

Try suggesting some other types of music or songs then? Speak up if you want change. Since the director seems cool, try talking to him about it. Maybe try seeing if some of the other members agree with you too?

I agree. I think this comes a bit less from a "musical bias" and more from the fact that there's just a lot of classical Christian music out there. Yeah, it's not the only music to choose from, but if there's a ton of it then it makes sense that your director would wind up picking a lot of them if he's not thinking about catering to people of all religions (or lack thereof). I don't know how old your director is, but it might be a generational thing, with him assuming that most if not all of his chorus members are Christians. I think he might be willing to mix it up a little if you explain that this is bothering you, and suggest other songs that are still "classical" but not religious.