With the help of a tuneful teacher, a group of dedicated Concordia College students learning German have found a fun new way to hone their skills through song — Der Concordia Deutschchor.
Not only do students sing in German, but the rehearsals are full-immersion German language experiences as well. No prior music experience is required, and in fact, students just beginning to learn the language are welcome to join too, said Dr. Rebecca Stewart-Gray, visiting assistant professor of German at Concordia.
“I’m a musicologist and a performing singer. I’ve sung in choirs for many years,” she said, noting that performance and German studies have always been closely connected.
That’s true at Concordia too, where nearly all of Stewart-Gray’s students are involved in music. As she has conducted German-immersion choirs before, she ran the idea by her students, and found that many of them were interested in giving the experience a try.
I just want them to come here and connect, have fun, laugh, and sing, and realize that they can do all that in German too.
She started the group on a German-language Christmas carol, “Stille Nacht” (Silent Night), and a canon in Latin attributed to W. A. Mozart, “Dona nobis pacem” (Grant Us Peace) which they will perform at the Department of World Languages’ upcoming winter party. Soon they will begin work on a medieval courtly song by the composer Oswald von Wolkenstein.
The Concordia music curriculum already includes plenty of representation for German classical composers, and German Diction is on the list of major core courses for a Bachelor of Music – Voice Major degree. Participating in Der Deutschchor can offer a student more robust training in performing texts, as well as in how to deal with some of the unique challenges that one faces with German, such as learning how to properly pronounce Rs and authentic umlauts in speech and in song.
Students with no background in German are also welcome to join Der Deutschchor, and all participants will get a chance to explore the language in a new way, with an openness that isn’t always possible when working toward a grade or participating in a competition.
“We really try to stick to the immersion principle,” Stewart-Gray said. “I just want them to come here and connect, have fun, laugh, and sing, and realize that they can do all that in German too.”
Music can provide more opportunities for students to learn not just language, but also history and culture. Looking toward Spring 2024, Stewart-Gray is considering having students sing songs written by German-speaking poet and composer Ilse Weber as a prisoner in the ghetto Terezín. Weber and one of her sons were murdered in Auschwitz, but much of her music and poetry survived.
“The songs are just beautiful. When students hear that they too can be a part of the project to recover the voices of suppressed people, they understand that the study of languages and cultures means so much more than just conjugating verbs,” Stewart-Gray said.
There are real-life, contemporary cultural applications of this training for students as well. The German, Austrian, and Swiss governments provide significant funding for the arts, meaning there are many music ensembles at all levels that students can participate in during a study abroad, a postgraduate fellowship, or as part of their career. Performing music is often significantly more accessible to people in German-speaking Europe than it is for people in the United States.
Stewart-Gray has incorporated full-immersion choir rehearsals into her German language and literature courses for years and she hopes to do the same in the future at Concordia.
Der Deutschchor is a program hosted by the highly-active Concordia German Club, which meets multiple times every week to converse in German and plan and host events.
The college’s German program itself is growing, with students taking the language for a variety of reasons, including for internships or work in Germany, the study of literary, musical, theological, or historical works in their original language, and career opportunities in the fields of international politics or environmental studies, where Germany is a leader.
More information about Concordia’s German program is available at ConcordiaCollege.edu/German.
For more information about Der Deutschchor, please consult the event posts on Cobber Connect or email Stewart-Gray at rstewart@cord.edu.