My name is Joshua Meling, and I am a senior Philosophy major and Music minor at Whitman College. This spring I am interning with the Youth Chorus of Milan (YCM) while studying abroad in Italy.
The organization is composed of several choirs with varying ages and specialties, and I have the opportunity to work with a good number of these groups. Since the Youth Chorus is also part of a larger choral association, there is further collaboration with other choirs as well. My role is to assist the music director with running rehearsals, teaching and directing music, and by providing feedback and strategy in relation to the choirs’ progress. A couple times a week I will attend and assist with the various group lessons. Then, as the time of concerts approaches, my job shifts slightly in light of the different choirs coming together for the final production. While the music directors attend to some of the larger aspects of integrating all the different choirs together, I lead sectional rehearsals with specific students. In this way, I can help with the fine-tuning of musical details while other matters are being addressed.
In addition to being involved with the students and the music program more directly, I work on some other big-picture projects such as preparing for the end-of-year auditions cycle. Recently, one of my main responsibilities has been to help create a particular kind of event format to be utilized by the Youth Chorus in coming years. The aim of this project is to design opportunities for YCM choral students to experience watching professional music groups in Milan. As part of this process, I have worked in partnership with the music education department of Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi (La Verdi). The planning in place sets up students with the chance to attend concerts put on by groups like the sy
mphony orchestra, and pre-concert talks will be given on the dates of these performances. This work largely focuses on how preparation
and research rooted in the music history of concert programs can best be tailored towards the intended audiences in mind. The Youth Chorus hopes to broaden musical perspectives, and this type of event can be a way to introduce a sense of excitement for genres and performances that may be unfamiliar to many students.
The event format that I am helping to design and establish is a wonderful example of creating community centered on the arts, which I am continually learning about in a professional sense. As a long-time musician and performer myself, I am seeing the performance process from a different angle throughout my internship. Being placed in a position where I must think about how other musicians are approaching their singing and also considering factors leading to audience impact at performances and events, I aminvolved first-hand in areas that I previously observed from more of a distance. Additionally, because of the international nature of all the YCM students and their families, there is also a lot of meaningful cross-cultural interaction that occurs. By working this internship, I witness the importance and impact that comes along with generating artistic opportunities for all those involved.
While in Milan, I am gaining a more comprehensive understanding of what goes into working in music and the arts, and I anticipate the many positive ways in which my time with the Youth Chorus will inform my career and the work I do after Whitman.