The CAVE Project: Collaborative Approaches to Vocal Education

Vocal education takes place in a variety of settings: private studios, small groups, classrooms and vocal ensembles of many sizes, types and genres. The benefits of such experiences have been documented at length, but little has been achieved in collaboration between the various factions. While most conflict appears to exist between vocal teachers and choral directors, classroom experiences and small group tuition models are worthy of investigation, as they may provide solutions to nexus that exists between rehearsal-based, large-group experiences and studio teaching processes. This paper seeks to review the existing literature from choral, small group, classroom and studio-based sources, to present insights based on recent fieldwork and offer some suggestions as to how collaboration might be progressed more effectively in the future.