Individual preparation time between rehearsals? What's that? Haven't found very many people who actually do that. Volunteer choir members tend to be a rehearsal + Sunday only type of people. Nothing I say or do actually gets them to practice on their own. Those who always did will continue to do so and those who don't never will.

I don't see any particular trend with my choir. We don't take the summer off, but people take vacations whenever they want, so it's not like it's a high pressure thing. We do have a week off after Christmas and Easter, but there's no significant drop-off. There do tend to be more vacations, graduations, etc., this time of year, but those absences are more to do with the return of nice weather and important family events, not burnout from the choir.

I dealt with that at first...

I have a choir of ~24 volunteers.

The issue I faced was that, prior to my arrival, there were two choirs that rotated every other week. So they would only sing 2 times per month on average.

Due to a variety of reasons, we combined choirs in fall of 2023, and moved to an "every week" schedule in February of this year. Overall it has gone well, but I have been a broken record in talking about "communication" and "commitment", reminding people that it's not necessarily about their decision to be gone, but they have a higher calling to serve the Lord in the Mass if this is how they wish to be involved. Being in a choir is more than just singing on Sundays..... Mercifully, the choir has taken well to that Catechesis and formation, and have stepped up.

I ask alot if them, but at the same time remind them to not feel bad about being gone when they desire to go and spend time with their family (and they, in turn, remind me of the same!!).

If choir is just one more ministry, and it's just about getting together to sing nice music then there isn't much impetus to go above and beyond, and there isn't really a call to holiness and to holy living (and giving of one's self and abilities back to God)...

Formation is key to consistency. I don't think I have found this to be untrue in any of my other positions...

A lay person's call to holiness is first and foremost within the domestic church, for most, this is in their family.

To my mind, family needs always come before communal worship or preparation for it.

I'm grateful for whatever people can do, and trust that the Holy Spirit will provide people when and where they are needed.

I think spring is hard for many reasons. Spring means a lot of new things are added to the routine: school activities, sports, etc. Whether your choir members are participating in these events or attending their children’s events, spring has a lot of different activities that take time up the time that they might’ve had in the winter. Spring also means the end of school, and people are thinking of vacations. Minds are elsewhere. I’m a teacher, and this time of year is hard for all of us. So many things going on.

September is usually a “fresh start” type of time where everyone’s ready to start anew, and you regain that focus with the choir.

Les us all remember that even the mighty J.S. Bach had to draft in friends to play for free, and often was so short of musicians that he had to rewrite parts or deal with less than half strength at most times!

I came into my Cathedral job expecting a choir that would sing until Corpus Christi. That worked for the first 2 years, but with most of the singers past retirement age, they like to travel, and so the numbers got thinner and thinner as Easter wore on, so there was nearly an empty loft for Corpus Christi.

This season is even worse. Confirmation is today and after that seemingly all of them are committed to whatever else in their lives that the Pentecost liturgy I told them about for months is going to become just a cantor/organ liturgy. But that's better than having a sparse choir.

Definitely make Pentecost your cut-off unless you realistically think you can make it into June.

And next year Easter falls on 20 April, and Pentecost on 8 June with Corpus Christi on 22 Jun.

Oh man. I hadn't looked this far ahead...that's really late.

Today we had, almost the full choir
Sopranos x2
Altos x2
Tenors x2
Basses x2
plus and organist and a cantor.

Next week we have the new normal number...
Soprano x1
Alto x1
Tenor x2
Bass x1
plus a cantor

Those that have access to our choir programme will see a problem...

I haven't noticed burnout. Yes, there are allergies, medical leave, school things. But that's different from burnout.
Things that are different here:
We sing 52 weeks a year
We only sing on Sundays (thanks to Arthur Roche and his boss). So no Triduum. And I can well understand how a cathedral would be different.

I'm maybe feeling a little burnout though.

In 2027 & 2032, Easter will fall on 28 March.

In 2035 and 2045, we will have the Western version of Kyriopascha: when the fixed (but of course not observed) date of Annunciation and Easter coincide on 25 March.

It's grueling, but if not for the money, sex, and glamour, we wouldn't do church music.

An update: Our main adult choir had their final rehearsal before their summer break last night. I was preparing for the worst, thinking that I was going to have to cut some of the music that I'd planned. We still had the attendance problem that we've had this spring (all for legitimate reasons), but to my delight, every singer who was there was focused, receptive to my instructions, and they ended up sounding probably the strongest that they have since Easter. I couldn't have been happier with them. On top of it all, they presented me with a thank you card and gift, which was very touching and completely unexpected.

Even with all of the effort, stress, and sometimes consternation that goes into it, I wouldn't trade Catholic music ministry for anything in the world.

All for His glory.

Experiencing a similar thing myself. Rehearsal attendance has been dwindling week to week leading up to Corpus Christi (after which we recess). Only a third of the crew were present for our last rehearsal this evening. Does anyone else have issues with people not attending and also not giving notice of their absence in advance?

Most of my choir members are good about giving a heads up for planned absences. For unplanned ones, they are usually pretty good about notifying me, but those notices are quite often right before practice. In most cases, however, it is because they are delayed at work and wouldn't have had a way of knowing that would happen until later in the day anyway.

I

regularly receive a text message (if that) an hour before rehearsal. It’s very frustrating. I’m thinking of writing up a code of conduct for next season.

And if they violate the CoC, you ban them from choir? Sounds like a sure route to not having any singers left.

I get that it's frustrating. But when you have lay volunteers, and no one is going to die if they don't show up, then you need to be realistic, and grateful for what they can and do, do. A lay person's primary commitment is to the domestic church.

I sympathize with Serviam though, even as I firmly believe in the place of amateur singing in the church. People who go to school events, who have evening classes, etc. and of course who have lives elsewhere (work and family travel etc.) are, I think, usually capable of informing people with notice.

If you are upfront that your commitment to rehearsal may be an issue beyond let’s say 75% attendance for a year, that’s easier than having fluctuating attendance, IMHO.

And things happen! I feel like we have a last-minute wave of cancellations every six weeks or so… but traffic is bad (we practice at 6 PM to allow people with kids to be home at a reasonable hour), work goes to [words here], prople get colds and severe allergies (I had laryngitis last month!)… it’s exhausting, but what can you do?

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one in this boat. My situation is very much like the OP. Our season runs early September through Pentecost. We sing every other weekend. They have a break the week after Christmas, most of January after Epiphany, start up again late Jan, and a break the week after Easter. And then our attendance usually peters out between Easter and Pentecost. I get that people have families and spring activities, and as we are a wealthy parish in an affluent St. Louis suburb, they like to travel. This year we had a few new recruits in our post-covid rebound which was encouraging, so it has been better this year than in the past. But even still, the first ones who call out for whatever reason are also some of the first to complain about the numbers in choir. There have been some great ideas floated here that I"m anxious to bring to their attention in the fall.

I kept several simpler anthems practiced with the choir that could be done with fewer singers and at a moment's notice, if need be. I kept the more difficult pieces for when I knew I would have the full choir present. If worse came to worst, the congregation always seemed to appreciate a nice organ piece.

A few years I tried a summer-off rehearsal schedule. It didn't work for us since it seemed that in the fall the choir was having to relearn too much.

I said I’m considering a code of conduct, not that I was interested in banning or disciplining anyone.

If you're going to have a code, then you need to establish consequences for not sticking to it.

If you don't want consequences, then it's not a code. It's just a choir handbook or somesuch. That can be a very good thing to have, especially to let new people know how things work.

Either might work. But you need to think thru how items and content will be perceived. Especially things like modest dress, which is hugely culturally laden.

I confirm this is still true in 2025, lol. It's the way things just sorta dribble out toward the end.

Christmas is like being hit by a bullet train. >>WHAM<< and then it's over.<br />
Easter is like being run over by an extremely heavy, long, slow steam engine that just keeps going, it never stops running you over.

For us, Holy Week, as the initial impact of the train, is a little over-the-top. Palm Sunday, with a sung Passion and lots of other choral work (we're singing the final chorus of Bach's St. Matthew Passion as the recessional on Palm Sunday), then two days of rehearsals, then Holy Wednesday Tenebræ (2-3 hours of continuous singing/conducting), Holy Thursday (which feels easy after Tenebræ), Good Friday (which starts with 8:15 am Morning Prayer, 9:00 am - 12:00 noon rehearsal, 12:00-12:30 Stations (Latin), 12:30-1:30 Seven Last Words (English preaching); 1:30-3:30 Passion Liturgy (with a fully-sung St. John Passion, using my own setting), 3:30 procession with the image of the dead Christ and sorrowful Mother, 3:45-5:00 rehearsal for Spanish events, to take place later on, 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm second English Passion Liturgy (again, with fully-sung St. John Passion), 7:00 pm Spanish Stations of the Cross, 7:30-9:30 Spanish Passion Liturgy (with fully-sung St. John Passion in my own setting, but in Spanish; for all three sung Passions I'm conductor, organist, and evangelist [narrator]); then one more procession, in the dark, with the image of the dead Christ and sorrowful Mother, haunting beyond description; then everyone passes out. Holy Saturday, I give morning prayer to others so I can sleep till noon, then noon onward there are various meetings and rehearsals with servers, OCIA, etc., and then 5:00 pm call with the brass quintet, 6:00pm-7:30 pm rehearsal with the Cappella Musica, 8:00 pm - c. 11:30 pm Easter Vigil, and then Sunday is a full Mass schedule starting with the usual 6:30 pm Mass. I do the 11:45 rehearsal, 12:30 pm Cappella Musica with Brass quintet, 2:00 pm Mass as organist and cantor (so everyone else can go home and sleep) with brass quartet, 4:00 pm rehearsal with the Schola Cantorum, 5:00 pm Mass with Schola Cantorum and brass, then I begin to hallucinate and get out of there, after a bit of cleanup, around 8:00 pm. Monday morning at 8:00 am, we begin proximal preparation for the Tallis Scholars concert coming up in two weeks, including several dozen publicity events. And it goes on and on like this till June.

I have never experienced the 'burn out' which some here describe, some rather colourfully. To be sure, there is much excitement and pressure involved in the months-long preparations, and a certain heart-felt joy knowing that all the rehearsals, study, practice, challenges, and worry, will spring forth in a satisfaction that all was worth the final gift of our work to God -that all the toil, patience, and learning bloomed forth in the best of our dreams and talents.

My usual feelings after all the holiday's pass are ones of great happiness for the whole process, and a certain sense of fulfillment, combined with a certain emptiness, and with a deep sense of 'whew!, what do I do now'? It is, surely, no accident that the second Sunday of Easter is called 'Low Sunday'! But Ascension, Whitsun, Trinity, and Corpus Christi await their due splendour, and after them, Christmas beams yet again over the horizon! (Then, not far off, another Lent and Holy Week again await us.) When all is said and done, I want to do it again - and meanwhile strive to make each Sunday 'a little Easter'.

Well, hope that the pope stays alive for one.

I am a big fan of non-HDO Masses with just chant and no sermon. I know that this pencils out differently for me in trad land; but we get most of the guys in just the schola to come, and it’s a relief! Our organist is like this is simple and peaceful. Yes.

It’s not your fault that the clergy wanted Mass, but some of those Masses needed to be without music and frankly the thanksgiving Mass? Te Deum and benediction. Thirty minutes in and out. And please do not beat yourself up for thinking that it’d be OK until it wasn’t. I did this to myself last year.

We also have a grueling spring, and in addition to Holy Week including three nights of Tenebrae we do the second feast of Saint Joseph, Ascension, Corpus, Sacred Heart, John the Baptist, the Apostles, Precious Blood; we try to do the Rogations). We used to do a Memorial Day Mass. I would like to nix that one.

@ServiamScores
I imagine that, due to inertia, you could get some pushback from TPTB regarding paring back music during Holy Week, even if it's pushing (some) choir members to the breaking point.

If you have to move in baby steps, I'd suggest making the music on Good Friday + Tenebrae quite sparse. I've done it with just a husband and wife team + me. They were very good musicians, so they could harmonize and dress things up a bit, plus could handle anything a cappella that I asked of them.

@ServiamScores
I imagine that, due to inertia, you could get some pushback from TPTB regarding paring back music during Holy Week, even if it's pushing (some) choir members to the breaking point.

Likely so. Worse still: we are a cathedral.

There was a discussion last year to not do Tenebræ on GF, but we did it anyway... and then it had a huge turnout and was very successful... so...

My hope is that, as we go into my third cycle as director, it will be easier for many choir members since we are starting to settle into a core repertoire. We didn't have this when I started, and it's been an uphill slog ever since. Hopefully the last two years' worth of work will begin to pay off a little.