![\"Joelle](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2019\/12\/Bates_Choir_4868_B.jpg\")
<\/a>Jo\u00eblle Morris, at right, and the college choir during their Nov. 17 Northern Star<\/em> performance. (Layla Dozier ’21 for Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n In a Nov. 17 concert titled Northern Star<\/em>, which extolled the glories of nature and the cosmos, Morris made her debut as leader of the Bates choir. She succeeds John Corrie, who stepped away from the choir directorship after 32 years but continues to work with Bates voice students (and to serve as artistic director of the Maine Music Society).<\/p>\n A lecturer in music in her second year at Bates, Morris also works with individual voice students and teaches music theory. Off campus, she directs the CODA Chorus, a community chorus in central Maine. And Morris is a mezzo soprano who sings jazz and classical music, including with two chamber groups she co-founded, the Resinosa Ensemble and the Amethyst Chamber Ensemble.<\/p>\n Her r\u00e9pertoire also includes a evening-long tribute to Edith Piaf, the iconic French chanteuse of the mid-20th century. There’s a logical connection: Morris was born in Evian, France, and has worked extensively in Europe. She attained her academic degrees in the U.S. and moved to Maine in 2011. Morris, her husband, and their children live in the Brunswick area.<\/p>\n In November, we joined Morris in the Bobcat Den to discuss authenticity, core fitness, Beethoven’s birthday, and, yes, Edith Piaf.<\/p>\n Everyone has the ability to create music, because that’s how we, as humans, communicate. We’re made to communicate with song, with music. And we don’t have to be American Idol<\/em> good, because it’s not about that. It’s about sharing your humanity with someone else.<\/p>\n I tell my voice students: Don’t try to sing pretty, pretty is boring. Try to sing with emotion, because people are not going to remember your mistakes \u2014 they’re going to remember how you made them feel. If a listener says, \u201cI got chills out of that one,\u201d the chills don’t necessarily come from a pretty voice. They come from an authentic voice.<\/p>\n Jo\u00eblle Morris models a gesture for \u201cThe Willow Song” by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor as she prepares voice student Clara Porter ’22 of Portland, Ore., for an Olin Arts Center voice recital. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n I started singing in high school because I had a substantial knee injury and couldn’t do sports anymore \u2014 and sports had pretty much been my life. So I started putting all this extra energy into choir, and really enjoyed it.<\/p>\n When I got to college, first I was a business major, but for some reason I was put into the musicians\u2019 dorm, which was great. One of my friends, a pianist, dared me $50 to audition for the school opera, which was Madame Butterfly.<\/p>\n And I was like, “I’ve never sung an aria, I’ve never sung Italian, I don’t know anything about this” \u2014 but also, \u201c50 bucks buys a lot of ramen noodles.\u201d So I took the bet and I got in the opera as a choir member. And I loved it. So then I switched my major. It was really a lot of work, but I got caught up.<\/p>\n What I love about college students is seeing the growth that happens. Once you get them out of their insecurities a little bit, then they can really bloom in a way that’s just wonderful to see. That’s been really gratifying to see this semester.<\/p>\n The Bates College Choir performs in November 2019. (Layla Dozier ’21 for Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n I like the creativity, I like the discipline, I like the collaboration. Especially as a vocalist, you always have a pianist or a chamber orchestra. I really enjoy the sharing of ideas. I did a lot of jazz in Europe, with a trio and then with a big band. That’s really what taught me to listen and collaborate with other musicians.<\/p>\n And that idea of collaboration as well. It’s all these voices together, and we have to learn how to blend and have the same articulation and rhythm and whatnot. So that idea of collaboration really is in the humanity of music.<\/p>\n In France, once when I took over a choir, it was people from lawyers to the butcher next door, to an artist, to secretaries. You get to meet so many people. And of course they want to show you their town and what to do. The easiest way to be part of a community is to join a musical ensemble of some sort.<\/p>\n They tend to be surprised at how they have to use their body in such a different way \u2014 even athletes or dancers, who are used to using their bodies. Singing is just as demanding but in a very different way. It’s like tai chi. You can’t use your body in tension, because the moment your body tenses, your voice tenses, your instrument tenses. You have to learn how to relax, but use your core strength nevertheless.<\/p>\n Singing in choir makes you feel like you’ve done something that’s difficult but attainable. It’s not easy to sing your notes, sometimes in a foreign language, while staying in rhythm and blending with everyone around you. And to use your body as a pump to create this sound, and to look at me flapping my arms around. There’s a lot going on that you have to be engaged in. And once you get used to that, then it gives you a great high.<\/p>\nYou believe quite firmly that anyone can sing.<\/h5>\n
<\/a>You have degrees in vocal performance from the University of Colorado Boulder and the Lamont School of Music. When did you first become seriously interested in singing?<\/h5>\n
What do you love about directing the Bates choir?<\/h5>\n
<\/a>Broadly speaking, what do you love about being a musician?<\/h5>\n
What surprises students in the choir or studying voice?<\/h5>\n