Choral Mastery

By 6:45 on a Thursday night, most of the North Shore is headed home thinking, “One more day ‘til weekend break.” But not Christian Stirling. As music director at Saints Faith, Hope, and Charity Catholic Parish in Winnetka, he’s just beginning the string of rehearsals and Masses that are the highlight of his week. Watching him nimbly scoot from organ bench to piano stool to podium—with a bounce in his step and a smile on his face—it’s clear he’s in his happy place.

“Choral music is my passion,” says Stirling, his British accent giving the “O” in “choral” the tall, open sound he coaches the choir to use when they sing. “That’s been true as far back as I can remember.”

As a small boy in England, Stirling went to weekday evensong services in Cambridge, and Sunday afternoon Mass in a 11th century Norwich cathedral. “The beauty of it,” he remembers, “was so inspiring: the space, the sound of the organ, and the beautiful anthems being sung by boys that were not much older than me. It was the combination of all three— voices, music and setting—that really inspired me. I knew that’s what I wanted to do.”

Decades later, after years of boys’ choir singing, music education, chairing two high school music programs, and getting a Doctorate (DMA) in Choral Conducting at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, Stirling is still at it.

He came to the U.S. on a Winston Churchill Fellowship (the British equivalent to a Fulbright Scholarship) in 2005, to examine similarities and differences between music education in North America and the UK. He met his future wife Heidi, a flautist and two-time Grammy-winning vocalist with the Chicago Symphony Chorus, and started at Faith, Hope, and Charity in 2008.

Now, in addition to selecting and composing music, and playing the organ and piano for five Masses each weekend, he directs the choir and teaches music at the church’s school.

His goal, for parish and pupils alike, is to instill a lifelong appreciation of music.

The work that leads to that— weaving together the right music for each Mass, directing the choir, and teaching the children—has many different elements.

Stirling’s priority with children is to teach them to read music. “That is the fundamental element that I think every music curriculum should have. But sadly, you rarely find it anymore,” he says. “In music education, a lot of the world has gone off on this tangent of very quick fixes. Like, ‘Oh, let’s have them go and do five weeks of African drumming, and then we’ve got the music requirement sorted.’ Yes, African drumming is wonderful and has many important musical benefits. But, an effective musical curriculum is characterized by a regular, systematic programs of sequential study. One wouldn’t expect to learn to play the piano in five lessons, or indeed master African drumming in five lessons —it takes months or years. The only way kids can access music for a lifetime, and become independent learners, is first to teach them how to read it.”

Stirling starts with basic staff notation, which encompasses pitch and duration. “The two big organizers to music are pitch (Is the note high or low?) and duration (How long does the note last?)” he explains. “Once you’ve got those pillars, you can read music. You have the pattern, the code.”

Stirling says it takes the kids just a few weeks to learn to read music. “With that, they’re equipped to explore music independently, with the skill to pick up a piece of music and work it out for themselves, which can be very exciting for them.”

Another maxim Stirling has in teaching is to introduce many kinds of music. “That’s always been a driving force behind my pedagogy,” he says. “I believe it’s important to push through what they know, to get to those things that are not so prominent and visible in their culture. There’s always that fine balance between meeting them where they are at, but then helping them to stretch a bit further.”

The same is true in working with a choir. “In a typical church choir you may have people who never had any musical training, and those who are accomplished,” he says “A rehearsal is very much about the relationship between you and the musicians. You have to understand personalities, limitations, and strengths and work with those. As a conductor, you are a facilitator, enabling people to come on a musical journey with you, compromising where you need to, but striving to achieve your vision for how  a piece of music should sound.”

Rehearsing music with the choir, Stirling guides the group toward “a very healthy choral sound. striving for unity of vowel sounds, good intonation, good breathing and posture, and good diction.

The more solitary work of music composition and selection, is another compelling part of Stirling’s occupation.

In the Catholic Church, the musical portions of a Mass are prescribed by a Liturgy of the Word at the beginning, and a Liturgy of the Eucharist later. As well, the choir sings hymns, psalms, and an anthem. To choose the music fitting this format for five Masses, Stirling studies the Scripture readings and the message for the day, matching musical selections with some element of those themes when possible. He must also balance the music stylistically.

“There is a lot of debate in the Church between old versus new music,” says Stirling.

Striking the right balance, he says, can be tricky, because music is a very subjective art form and likes and dislikes don’t always fall along age lines.

Stirling’s thought? “I consider all worship— whether the music is old or new—to be contemporary, because it is being sung in the present, in the here and now.”

While Stirling confesses he has a bias toward selecting choral music by British composers, such as Vaughan Williams and Herbert Howells, he also likes the music of Gjeilo, who writes in a style that is more sophisticated than pop music, but with some of its idioms. Stirling also writes music himself: liturgical pieces, anthems, and compositions for special occasions. He composed the music for his wedding, and his daughter’s First Communion, as well as an entire Faith, Hope, and Charity Mass setting. He’s included some of his pieces in services, without fanfare. “I don’t make a big thing about it,” he smiles, “I just slip them in here and there.”

Looking ahead, he wants to compose more music, publishing it so that it can be shared. “Always, my ultimate goal is to engage people more deeply in their lifelong experience of music. Choral music is one of the most compelling ways to do that.”