When the internationally renowned Washington DC based Choral Arts Society, one of the main choirs in the region, just recently reported that the retiring founder and present director Norman Scribner will be replaced by Professor Scott Tucker quite a lot of eye brows were raised. Those who didn’t raise their eyebrows likely just said ‘who’ when they heard this news. Few individuals in DC had even read about Tucker so his appointment came as a bit of a surprise to onlookers who had more than a passing interest in the quest for Scribner’s replacement.
The Choral Arts Society has known about Scribner’s awaiting retirement since August 2010, but the search to uncover the ideal alternative instantly became a lengthy global process. In order to take up his completely new position at the beginning of the 2012-13 season Scott Tucker is himself retiring from his 17 year tenure as Choral Director at Cornell University. Tucker has been Director of the Cornell Glee Club and University Chorus since 1995 and according to a recent article by Nikki Lee in The Cornell Daily Sun Professor Tucker has some fairly intriguing performance strategies that seem to have worked unbelievably well with all the individuals there.
There was high praise too from the former president of the University Chorus, Jessica Briggs, who seemed to also benefit from Tucker’s beautiful range of inspirational skills. In accordance with Lee’s article Briggs stated that “I’ve never sung with a conductor who knows so much about music or is such an incredible musician.” Briggs went on to add that “He (Tucker) puts everything he has into conducting us, which makes us want to put everything we have into singing.”
Within the report Lee spoke with some of the students from Cornell’s men’s Glee Club and the women’s University Chorus and they speak very highly of Tucker. According to Patrick Chamberlain, president of the Glee Club, Tucker pushes the group to enhance by making sure their egos don’t get too big. Chamberlain said “His rehearsal technique was to never compliment us.” He continued to include that “The moment he compliments us, we sound terrible because we start thinking egotistically.”It looks like anyone in the Washington DC area who does not know much about Scott Tucker will quickly be able to hear on their own precisely how stunning professor Scott Tucker really is.
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http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/April12/TuckerLeaves.html
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