As the landscape of choral education changes - disrupted by Glee, YouTube, and increasingly cheap audio production software - teachers of choral conducting need current research in the field that charts scholarly paths through contemporary debates and sets an agenda for new critical thought and practice. Where, in the digitizing world, is the field of choral pedagogy moving? Editor Frank Abrahams and Paul D. Head, both experienced choral conductors and teachers, offer here a comprehensive handbook of newly-commissioned chapters that provide key scholarly-critical perspectives on teaching and learning in the field of choral music, written by academic scholars and researchers in tandem with active choral conductors.

As chapters in this book demonstrate, choral pedagogy encompasses everything from conductors' gestures to the administrative management of the choir. The contributors to The Oxford Handbook of Choral Pedagogy address the full range of issues in contemporary choral pedagogy, from repertoire to voice science to the social and political aspects of choral singing. They also cover the construction of a choral singer's personal identity, the gendering of choral ensembles, social justice in choral education, and the role of the choral art in society more generally. Included scholarship focuses on both the United States and international perspectives in five sections that address traditional paradigms of the field and challenges to them; critical case studies on teaching and conducting specific populations (such as international, school, or barbershop choirs); the pedagogical functions of repertoire; teaching as a way to construct identity; and new scholarly methodologies in pedagogy and the
voice.

About the Author:
Frank Abrahams is Professor of Music Education at Westminster Choir College of Rider University in Princeton, NJ. A native of Philadelphia, he holds degrees from Temple University and new England Conservatory. Dr. Abrahams has pioneered the development of a critical pedagogy for music education and has presented research papers and taught classes in the United States, China, Brazil, Taiwan, Hungary, Israel, Italy, and the UK. He is senior editor of Visions of Research in Music Education and has been on the editorial board of the Music Educators Journal. With Paul Head, he is co-author of Case Studies in Music Education and Teaching Music Through Performance in Middle School Choir. He is also author of Planning Instruction in Music with co-author Ryan John.

Paul D. Head serves as the director of choral studies at the University of Delaware, where he conducts the internationally renowned University of Delaware Chorale, the community-based Schola Cantorum and the UD Symphonic Chorus, which performs frequently with the Delaware Symphony Orchestra. Dr. Head is a native Californian where he taught in the public schools for eight years before completing his Master of Music in Conducting and Music Education at Westminster Choir College of Rider University and a Doctor of Musical Arts in Conducting from the University of Oklahoma. His choirs have toured extensively throughout the world and have received consistently high acclaim for their musical artistry. Dr. Head maintains an active presence as conductor and guest clinician, as well as researcher and pedagogue. His work is published in several books and publications, notably The School Choral Program, Teaching Music Through Performance, and as co-author with Frank Abrahams for Case Studies in
Music Education.