We were lucky to catch up with Michele Zuckman recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Michele, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

In 2015, I was teaching classroom music full-time, raising a young child, and driving across state lines one night a week to conduct an amateur community choir. These were all endeavors that I loved very much, but I began to notice that I had little to no time left to explore my own passions (or even think much about what they were!). I realized that I missed singing in a chamber choir, which is something I had done previously with Princeton Singers before resuming full-time work and motherhood in the Philadelphia area. I literally did a Google search for choirs in Philadelphia — I knew about the main ones but wanted to see what other gems were out there, and I found Chestnut Street Singers, a collaborative chamber choir. Members of the choir conduct, choose repertoire, serve on the board — a dream! I set up an audition and was selected to join the ensemble beginning in the fall of 2015. Since then, I have been a soprano, a conductor, a board member, a reception facilitator, an usher overseer, a drum and music stand carrier — you name it! Most of the members of the Chestnuts are not professional musicians but you would never know it. They work and perform at a very high level and treat the work with great passion and respect, not to mention how they treat one another. Meal trains for members who have babies, amazing post-concert potlucks, caroling in West Philly because members have neighbors who have grown to expect our visits, and the list goes on. For our tenth anniversary, we commissioned Los Angeles-based composer Dale Trumbore to compose a work for and about the Chestnuts, with texts by current and past members of the ensemble. My colleague Rebecca Reddi’s text captures our ethos very well:

I’m a writer, a coworker, a sometimes painter,
A friend, a colleague, a boss, a neighbor.
But thanks to Mondays, I’m a singer.
On Mondays, I’m a singer first.
I plan dinners, wash dishes, do laundry;
Change diapers, wipe tears, read stories;
Call clients, make changes, meet deadlines.
Manage money, manage time, manage feelings,
Misplace a sock, forget the milk, lose my patience.
But thanks to Mondays, I misplace my worries,
I forget my stress.
I may lose my place.
I may miss a note, a beat, or an entrance.
But thanks to Mondays, I’m a singer.
On Mondays, I’m a singer first.

Video of me conducting “A Different Kind of Flight” by Dale Trumbore, encore performance for our 15th anniversary season on November 23, 2024, beginning at 38:00: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiA_xJyyKHk&t=2707s

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Michele Zuckman, and I am a music educator, choral conductor, and singer. I have taught high school choral music for 22 years in private, public, and charter schools in PA and NJ. Since 2011, I have been the Upper School Vocal Music Teacher at Friends’ Central School in Wynnewood, PA, a co-educational Quaker independent school for Nursery through Grade 12. I conduct the Upper School Chorus and Quaker Noats (auditioned a cappella ensemble). Additionally, I teach courses in Music Theory, Musical Theater, World Music Drumming, Fundamentals of Singing, and Sixth Grade General Music. Highlights of my tenure at FCS include five performances with Distinguished Concerts International New York, in which my students performed in Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, a collaboration with local composer Suzzette Ortiz to help commission a new work through Chorus America, and bringing Grammy-nominated New York Polyphony to campus for a workshop and performance.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

Society can support artists by supporting arts education in schools. The students I work with feel safe and at home in their arts classrooms and rehearsal spaces. They can be their authentic selves there. The arts are an integral part of a holistic education.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

Singing builds community. A pivotal experience for me as a singer and music educator came in 2014, when I attended a Circlesongs workshop led by Bobby McFerrin at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY. Bobby is nothing short of genius, a source of light, a vessel channeling music from some source out of reach to most of us. This experience changed the way I teach. I learned about making more time for play in rehearsals with my students. I introduced circlesinging to them. We create completely improvised songs, sometimes with me leading and sometimes with one or more of the students generating the melodies, rhythms and harmonies. We lead our audiences in circlesongs during concerts. It’s all very freeing! Welcoming others into the circle is a gift and recognizing the we all have the power to make art as a community is quite wonderful.

Chestnut Street Singers has had some generative conversations about our mission and vision, and we realized that a big part of our mission was to sing together simply for the joy that it brings us as a community of singers. We included a Bobby McFerrin circlesong on our November 2024 concert and welcomed our audience to join us.

“Breathe” and “inspire” have the same Latin root. The idea of breathing together in song is certainly inspirational in the context of singing as a community-building activity.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.chestnutstreetsingers.org, www.friendscentralschool.org
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chestnutstreetsingers/ https://www.instagram.com/friendscentralschool/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/friendscentral/ https://www.facebook.com/chestnutstreetsingers
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@chestnutstreetsinger https://www.youtube.com/@FriendsCentralSchool

Image Credits

Friends’ Central photographs by Jay Gorodetzer Photography

Chestnut Street Singers photographs by Conrad Erb and Jonathan K. Slingluff