>> So our audiences are made up by a lot of people who know us, are friends, are relations.
People that we encourage to attend by saying you'll really like this piece
or you'll like the theme of the concert.
But there's a certain do-it-yourself aspect to singing in a choir.
And though choral music is called on at lots of different times-I mean,
if you think about national tragedies or religious ceremonies or all sorts of things,
there's a choir singing, usually, at some point in the ceremony or demonstration
or anything-people don't think of it as the same kind of professional ensemble
that they would a string quartet, wind ensemble, or symphony orchestra.
For me, personally, it's the lack of control of the various moving parts.
Because when you're conducting a choir of 75 people everybody has a life.
Everybody has different responsibilities.
Everybody puts their dedication to the ensemble at a different place in their priority list.
And so while it might be the most important thing
that I do it's not probably the most important that anybody else in the choir does.
And so dealing with missing people, various levels of preparation or lack thereof,
all the moving parts, it's really complicated.