TwentyFive Years in Choral Music Education

CHORAL MUSIC EXPERIENCE teaching methods and musical materials were inspired and developed by Doreen Rao during her pioneering tenure with the Glen Ellyn Children’s Chorus, her acclaimed concert and recording preparations for the Chicago Symphony Chorus and Orchestra and her visionary work in founding and leading the first National Committee on Children’s Choirs for the (ACDA) American Choral Directors Association.

First published by Boosey & Hawkes Inc. in 1986! the CME choral teacher text books and the culturally diverse choral music series for children and youth choirs contributed side by side with Doreen Rao’s annual CME Institute for Choral Teacher Education, the first professional development course and certification program of its kind for emerging choral teachers in the United States and Canada.

Throughout North America, the United Kingdom and around the world, CHORAL MUSIC EXPERIENCE has provided young choirs and developing conductors with a set of clearly articulated principles and practices most closely associated with Doreen Rao’s “music performance approach to music teaching and learning in the choir.”

Distinguished from both the autocratic-technical approach to rehearsing and performing, and the conceptually oriented, musical elements approach to music education, CME methods and materials continue to emerge as a uniquely dynamic and distinctive performance approach to music teaching distinguished by an emphasis on the joyful, real-life and commonsensical rehearsal pedagogies practiced in the musical context for the artistic, educational and social benefit of children and youth.

Described as a brilliant artist and teacher…whose methods and materials could re-energize the art of singing, Doreen Rao’s CHORAL MUSIC EXPERIENCE continues to link the standards of professional performance with the goals of music education.