Grammy-Award Finalist Topher Keene is widely regarded as one of America’s top Acting, Singing, and Public Speaking Coaches.
From teaching kids to sing their first solo, to helping Film and Television Stars perfect their roles, to helping pro Vocalists record hit albums, to helping YouTubers and Podcasters refine their vocal skills, to helping CEOs and Executives improve communication and presentation skills, Topher Keene can help anyone develop a powerful and confident voice and improve their performance skills.
How to Be a Better Choir Director This Year: Five Honest Practices That Compound
We’ve all been through the standard Professional Development workshop. Directors come in expecting ten tips and tricks they can take back to their classrooms — quick-fix techniques that will magically improve their next rehearsal. I've come to believe the quick-fix model is mostly an illusion. You can find counterexamples to nearly every tactical "tip" by looking at successful directors who don't use it. Some great directors are warm and effusive. Some are quiet and stoic. Some run highly structured rehearsals. Some are loose and improvisational. The surface practices vary enormously.
Choosing Repertoire That Actually Works for Your Choir
This is the part of being a choir director that we tend to talk about least. We talk about rehearsal technique, audition strategy, conducting craft, recruitment. But repertoire selection is where most of the season's outcome is determined. A great director with bad repertoire produces a frustrated choir. A merely good director with well-chosen repertoire produces a strong season. The repertoire choices you make in summer determine the music your singers actually grow inside of all year.
How to Run a Choir Audition That Doesn't Scare Away the Singers You Need
Every audition you run is filtering not just for talent, but for confidence under audition conditions. Those are two different things, and most directors confuse them. Here's how to design auditions that find the talent you actually need.
The Concert That Moves People: Beyond Technique to Performance That Audiences Remember
There are technically excellent concerts that leave audiences politely impressed but emotionally untouched. And there are imperfect concerts — concerts with audible flaws, missed entrances, sections that aren't quite together — that leave audiences in tears, or laughing, or filing out of the venue with that particular hush that descends after a real artistic experience.
How to Conduct a Choir Rehearsal Without a Pianist
Here's the truth most graduate programs don't prepare you for: you will, at some point in your career, run choir rehearsals without a pianist. Sometimes for a single week. Sometimes for an entire season. The directors who handle this well develop a set of skills that, frankly, every choral director should have anyway. The directors who handle it badly produce rough rehearsals where everyone is frustrated and nothing gets accomplished.