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Fakultät Sozialwissenschaften

Chapter in the Oxford Handbook of Community Singing

cover of handbook showing a community choir in front of a building © Oxford University Press
New publication by Dr. Holly Patch, "Blend and Balance in Trans* Choral Musicking"

Dr. Holly Patch has contributed a chapter to the Oxford Handbook of Community Singing based on her ethnographic research of trans* vocality with the Trans Chorus of Los Angeles (TCLA). "Blend and Balance in Trans* Choral Musicking" addresses readers from the fields of gender studies, trans* studies, choral pedagogy, voice studies, music, and music sociology, among others.

Community singing among people who self-identify with the LGBTQ2* gender spectrum also concerns Holly Patch, who writes about redefinitions of traditional choral principles and the discovery of the group singing sound, signature, or "voice" in the Trans Chorus of Los Angeles (TCLA; "Blend and Balance in Trans* Choral Musicking"). Patch first surveys the social gendering embedded in traditional choral practice. As trans* singers will attest, performance uniforms, part assignments, and "ideal" choral balance are contingent phenomena; they reflect and reify an imagined, binary society where everyone is cis-gendered and individual voices disappear in service to homogeneity. How do trans* singers remain true to themselves in a "don't stick out" world? TCLA resists the SATB divisions inherited from the classical vocal world, and as Patch leads the reader to see, queering the choral form enables the location of individual, as well as corporate "voice." Significantly, these adaptations do not preclude musical excellence and beauty. (Morgan-Ellis & Norton 2024: 353-354).

Norton, Kay, and Esther M. Morgan-Ellis (eds). 2024. The Oxford Handbook of Community Singing. New York: Oxford University Press.