Sing for Life with María Guinand - Melbourne 2015

The Australian Choral Conductors Education and Training (ACCET) presents the Choral Conductors Summer School from 19 to 22 January 2015. Workshops and masterclasses shall be led by Maestra María Guinand.

The activities to be performed in the city of Melbourne include two concerts conducted by María on Sunday 18 January in St Catherine’s School, Toorak and on Tuesday 20 January in Eldon Hogan Performing Arts Centre, Xavier College, Kew.

Prof. Guinand is not a newcomer to the Australian scene, in 1996, conducting her Cantoría Alberto Grau she participated in the 4th Symposium on Choral Music held that year in Sydney. Later in 2003, as part of the Sydney Summer Festival, she conducted the Australian premiere of Osvaldo Golijov’s La Pasión según San Marcos in the Sydney Opera House, being nominated to the Helpmann Award  in the “Best Classical Concert Presentation” category that year for this performance.

This year ACCET Summer School will offer the program “Developing your conducting” aiming to spend four stimulating days in which to develop and refine the conducting skills of the participants through understanding the body-mind process that links thought to conducting gesture and to be expressive in conducting. It will give to those who attend much new understanding of the voices of choristers, expand your range of rehearsal techniques, provide with a new range of choir warm-ups, and it is a very special opportunity to gain refreshing new repertoire in a variety of forms – in the substantial package of free choral music being received, in morning reading sessions of this music, and stimulating topical sessions about choral music of Latin and South America, and pop/jazz/theatre choral arrangements.

Joining Maria Guinand will be famed conductor Carl Crossin and a team of experts including Sonny Chua, Anne Credlin. Faye Dumont, Allison Harrigan, Bruce Macrae, Judith McKnight, Jenny Mathers, Mark Puddy, Robyn Ryan, Jodie Spooner-Ryan and Tony Stratford.

Emphasis on conducting. Development of your conducting skill is the central goal of the 22nd ACCET Summer School. This will occur through group tuition, demonstration and master classes. In five in-depth conducting group workshops you will improve your skill and confidence in conducting.

Maria Guinand

Maria Guinand, choral conductor, university professor, leader of choral projects in Venezuela and world-wide, is frequently invited as a conductor and teacher across USA, Europe, Asia and Latin America.

A graduate of Bristol University, Maria also studied choral conducting with Alberto Grau, Helmut Rilling, Luigi Agustoni and Johannes Berchmans Goeschl. She teachers a Masters Degree in Choral Conducting at Venezuela’s Simon Bolivar University, and, for over 30 years has been Associate Conductor and

Advisor of Choral Symphonic Performances and Activities of El Sistema, co-ordinating choral centres for children and youth in low economic circumstances in Venezuela, other Latin-American countries and Barcelona, Spain.

In addition to conducting major works of the western tradition Maria’s choirs have premiered 45 20th and 21st century works and she is a passionate advocate for music of Latin and South America. Her choir Schola Cantorum de Venezuela is chorus on the premiere recordings Osvaldo Golijov’s St Mark Passion and John Adams opera The Flowering Tree.

For more information please visit: