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Strategies for Creating Unique and Memorable Recital Programs

Classical singers love recitals. They offer us a chance to demonstrate our most compelling qualities and perform the repertoire we are dying to share with the world. Recitals also provide a more intimate experience, letting us connect profoundly with our audience. While we are usually required to start performing recitals in college, we don’t receive a lot of guidance for creating recital programs, let alone ones that are interesting and unique. Below, you’ll find several strategies for creating your most memorable recital programs yet, both for live performances and virtual ones.


Define Your Audience

To begin, clearly define your audience. Narrowing your focus will help you choose repertoire much more efficiently. Ask yourself the following questions:

  • Approximately how many people can I expect to attend?

  • Where is my recital being held? What do I know about the demographics of typical ticket holders at this venue?

  • Approximately what age will my youngest audience member be? What about my oldest audience member?

  • Is my audience regularly exposed to classical repertoire, or is this audience newer to classical music?

If you are planning a recital that is not specific to an event or venue, try answering the questions above as if you were planning for your ideal audience. When in doubt, remember that audience members are going to be much more interested in repertoire that you are passionate about.

Choose a Theme

What would you like your audience to take away from your performance? Would you like to highlight a specific composer, poet, or time period? Or maybe you're interested in a place, mood, or circumstance? You could easily spend hours agonizing over creating a thoughtful yet entertaining recital theme. Start with repertoire that you already gravitate toward and are passionate about. Then, look for unifying characteristics. If you’re still feeling unsure of where to begin, here are a few common examples of recital themes:

Human Experiences

  • Love & Loss

  • Joy & Grief

  • Ecstasy & Misery

  • The Passage of Time

  • Spiritual & Temporal

  • Cultural Heritage

Unified by Text

  • Repertoire that uses the same poet across several composers

  • Texts written during a specific period of time, such as the Middle Ages or the Harlem Renaissance

Specific Composer Characteristics

  • Female composers

  • Lesser-known composers, or non-European classical composers

  • Composers who survived significant events, such as revolutions, wars, plagues, etc.

  • A circle of composers who knew, worked with, and influenced each other

Nature

  • Seasons

  • Time of day, such as dawn, dusk, twilight, etc.

  • Animals

  • Geography such as forest, oceans, mountains, etc.

Travel

  • Repertoire that represents and highlights various countries

  • Repertoire that depicts historical sights and monuments

If you’re still feeling stuck, try thinking back to past recitals you attended that you really enjoyed. What was it about these performances that excited you, and how can they inspire your own program?

Educate Your Audience

Now, more than ever, recitals provide an excellent opportunity to learn about lesser-known composers. Schools teach students to create recital programs that fulfill repertoire requirements, but this method doesn’t leave a lot of room for imagination. Have you ever come across a new composer and thought, “I wish I had learned about them before?” Well, now is your opportunity to do exactly that for your audience. When presented together, both your performance and your accompanying program notes should serve as a resource for further exploration. More often than not, however, this educational experience is overshadowed by the desire to entertain. Why not achieve both with the same performance? If you're not sure where to begin your search for lesser-known repertoire, check out the following resources:



Break Free of Your Comfort Zone


As a classical singer, you are an ambassador for the classical music genre. Therefore, why not use this performance opportunity to be a trendsetter? We all love Schubert, Debussy, and Barber; however, exclusively programming these well-known names does an immense disservice to underrepresented composers. Audiences experience many of the same frustrations as we do when we see the same pieces scheduled at the local opera house or concert hall over and over again. With so many resources and recordings available online, there’s really no excuse to rely on familiar names and pieces anymore. To start, try incorporating at least one set that features the music of a lesser-known composer. You could also program at least one song in each set that is more off the radar than the others. Another way to break out of your comfort zone is by exploring repertoire from countries other than France, Germany, Italy, Russia, or English-speaking countries. When was the last time you watched a performance of exclusively Latin American, Scandinavian, or Balkan repertoire?

Optimize for Online

As far as programming goes, not much needs to change when converting your recital into a virtual experience. The biggest hindrance to online recitals is the inability to have the in-person connections with audience members that we cherish so much as performers. Whether your online performance is pre-recorded or performed live, we would encourage you to have a discussion about each set in place of program notes so your audience can get to know you a little better. It will also help them appreciate the repertoire you choose even more. Audiences typically have many more distractions in a virtual setting than at a venue, so it may be more impactful to shorten your program. For instance, if each set in your program is approximately fifteen minutes long, try cutting one or two pieces to make them closer to ten minutes. Alternatively, try serializing your recital program by performing one set each week. Breaking up your program into multiple short sessions may end up being more conducive to the online medium.

As is the case with almost anything we do, recital programming becomes easier and more intuitive with time and experience. We encourage you to think of recitals as opportunities to not only showcase your unique skills and performance abilities but also to highlight pieces of music you deeply care about. The world is ready to gain exposure to the wealth of lesser-known classical repertoire. All it needs is you to create your next incredible performance. Happy programming!

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