A successful conductor will inspire her musicians to give the audience their best possible artistic performance – those sweeping crescendos and hushed pianissimos that bring tears to people’s eyes. Effectively dynamic and emotive performances often rely on the rise and fall of a conductor’s baton. In fact, conducting is an art form in and of itself – just ask Christine Noel, artistic director for both the Rhode Island Children’s Chorus and the Providence Singers.
Noel has more than two decades of experience behind the podium. She started out as a music-education student at Rhode Island College and the Kodály Institute of Music in Kecskemét, Hungary. She continued her studies and practice at Boston University (from which she holds a doctorate of musical arts), and spent time living abroad in Italy, where she worked as a vocal coach and conductor for choirs at the University of Florence. When she finally returned back to her home state in 2003, she says, something was missing.
“I lived in Italy for almost two years, and it just felt like a long time to be away from teaching children,” said Noel. “By the time I got back to Rhode Island, I was really missing that opportunity to connect with young people.” So began the Rhode Island Children’s Chorus, which she co-founded with Executive Director Joyce Wolfe that same year.
Since then the group has grown from 14 children rehearsing in Burrillville to a group of more than 200 members aged 7-18, comprising six different choirs in three different locations. Some highlights of the chorus’ 14-year lifespan? They’ve performed on a Grammy-nominated album, opened for the Rockettes, had a cameo in Wes Andersen’s 2012 film “Moonrise Kingdom,” and performed the national anthem for the Harlem Globetrotters. “People often think you have to sacrifice a certain level of musicality when you work with children,” said Noel. “That is not the case at all. It’s really been a joy and so musically rewarding.”
But the rewards don’t come without work. For a conductor, that involves a mixture of rehearsals, meetings, studying musical scores and rehearsal planning. According to Noel, there’s a lot of solitary preparation.
“In a typical week, I’ll spend hours sitting with orchestral scores, marking the music with interpretations that I want to elicit from the musicians, sculpting in my mind what the piece is going to be like at the performance, and then figuring out all of the steps that need to be taken to get there,” she said. “It’s a lot of learning, a lot of studying and a good deal of strategizing.”
All that hard work paid off for Noel in 2013 when she was named the new artistic director for the Providence Singers, a chorus for which she’d been an assistant conductor since 2004. Established in 1972, the Singers also have an impressive resume that includes performing with jazz legend Dave Brubeck at the Newport Jazz Festival, hosting choral festivals for the National Endowment for the Arts, and regular performances with the Rhode Island Philharmonic.
“Many of the members are professional musicians or music educators, but we also have attorneys, doctors, business folks, and stay-at-home moms who also happen to be highly experienced singers,” said Noel. “Attempting our goals with only one rehearsal a week can be quite challenging.”
Nonetheless, the Singers continue to deliver critically acclaimed performances under Noel’s direction, whether they’re performing their annual rendition of Handel’s “Messiah” or debuting one of their commissioned works, a part of their mission that Noel takes pride in.
“While we often perform pieces of music that are older and well-established, it’s also important to us to help give life to new works of art through commissions,” she said. Most recently, the group debuted Norwegian composer Ola Gjeilo’s “Westminster Bridge,” a piece inspired by the poem of the same name. The commission was made possible through the group’s Wachner Fund for New Music, and made its world debut in Providence on May 14.
In addition to commissioning new works with the Providence Singers, Noel says her work with the Children’s Chorus has been immensely gratifying.
“My vision is to focus on high-level musical and vocal training, of course that’s a goal,” she said. “But equally important to me, and has been from the beginning, is developing children’s self-esteem and empowering them from those earliest years.”
Noel says that she often receives letters from graduating seniors reflecting on their experience in the chorus, and a common theme is the self-confidence they’ve developed. “I’m a serious musician – I take myself seriously in terms of my music,” said Noel. “But it just never gets much better than hearing someone tell you their life has been changed because of the work that you do.”
