“Let the music win!” Towards a Reimagined Choral Pedagogy: A Phenomenological Case Study of Chorister Experience at the Toronto Children’s Chorus
Bibliographic record
Abstract
"[The Toronto Children’s Chorus] is committed to the enrichment of children’s lives through the discipline, teamwork, and unique camaraderie of fine choral singing. The unparalleled music education and life-changing opportunities to perform exceptional music in local, national and international venues help to promote the personal welfare, growth and a portfolio of life skills that prepare children to become effective citizens." In this research project, I conduct a critical examination of the Toronto Children’s Chorus (TCC) by providing a phenomenological exploration of its Head Choristers, “the most visible chorister leaders in the Chorus, [who] perform critical roles as ambassadors, role models and leaders,” in an attempt to identify, describe, and document how their experiences have been shaped by the mission, artistic vision, structure, and program of this choral organization. Utilizing data collected from Head Chorister speeches and semi-structured interviews, and informed by Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), this research seeks to understand the experience of choristers at the TCC and the experiential impact on choristers’ lives in and outside the choral classroom. In understanding the impact of such experiences, this research then assesses whether elements of the organization’s programming and curriculum respond to a ‘reimagined choral pedagogy’. Through the primary lens provided by its Head Choristers, this research investigates the TCC’s vision, structure, curriculum and programs, assessing to what extent it expresses a reimagined approach to choral music education. In so doing, the project articulates what elements of the current TCC approach constitute promising pedagogical practices, and how these practices respect the unique contribution of its choristers, honour the community of which it consists, and its impact on the lives of the choristers as citizens. As promising practices are revealed throughout this research, growing edges and areas of concern also come to light, which are included in the recommendations section of this dissertation.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.004 | 0.008 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.022 | 0.029 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.006 | 0.004 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.008 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.006 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".