Communicating the soul of music. Gesture, movement and language in choral praxis

Abstract

most times, if not always, it is thought that to prepare and train conductors, the only thing needed is a formal and technique teaching, regarding what exists in the score as indications for the performance. The other dimension, the expressive one, is something left to the conductor’s will as if it was only an expression of his/her talent or personal expertise. And this is true. Nevertheless, this article, which is the systematization of a ten-year experience teaching conducting, has provided some certainties on the existence of elements from the expressive dimension which are teachable in respect, mostly, to gesture, movement, and language as metaphors; that is to say, they can be objects of formal pedagogical practice.