Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien

Julienne Eisenberg, Prof. Dr. Franz Riemer

Since the 1970s, the awareness of the importance of vocal training in choirs
has developed at an ever faster and more intensive pace. More and more
attention has been paid to children's and youth choirs. In recent years this has
led to degree programs of different types at German music academies. As a
pioneer in this field, the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media
combined the introduction of their Master's program "Directing for Children's
and Youth Choirs " in 2007 with a research project on vocal training for
children's and youth choirs.

In both the areas of accompanying and comparative research, questions arise
which must be answered with quantitative and qualitative-analytical methods:
What vocal training methods and systems exist? Where are there educational
programs for teaching children's and youth choir directing and successful
children's and youth choirs, besides in the better-known countries (Finland,
Estonia, Lithuania, Sweden, Norway, Japan and the USA)? What is the
international competition like for putting together children's choirs and youth
choirs? How are successful foreign children's and youth choirs organized and
what system do they use? How is vocal training done in foreign educational
institutions and in children's and youth choirs?

The project not only looks outward to other European countries, but also
inward at the Lower Saxony region with its renowned choirs (i.e. the Hanover
Boys' Choir, the Hanover Girls' Choir, the Hanover Choir Center). The state and
the region can establish itself as a center of scientific output in the field of
choir music through the Institute for Music Education Research.

The two-year research project "Voice training in Children's and Youth Choirs"
was funded by the Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture with 132,000
euros.

The project was successfully concluded in 2012. The results were thoroughly
analyzed in a final report, and published in a monograph which critically
compares voice training methods for children's and youth choirs.

Eisenberg, Julienne: Stimmbildung in Kinder- und Jugendchören. Eine Synopse (Monographien des Instituts für musikpädagogische Forschung, Bd. 22, hrsg. v. Franz Riemer), Hannover 2010 - see Publications