Latvian and Estonian diction in choral music: a conductor's guide

Abstract

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a tool that can help choirs achieve a unified pronunciation that honors the language tradition in which they are singing. Achieving accurate diction is but one step in the process of preparing a choir for performance, yet this step is vital. In the Western musical tradition, English-speaking singers typically train and sing in five standard languages: English, French, German, Italian, and Latin. Most English-speaking musicians who study voice or choral conducting are expected to have some amount of familiarity with the sounds of these five languages and their relevant IPA symbols. In the interest of broadening the cultural scope of music that choral musicians perform, I have created this guide for the choral conductor featuring two other languages: Latvian and Estonian. This guide outlines the IPA symbols that represent the sounds of Latvian and Estonian, and it includes suggestions for how to introduce and to model phonemes (individual sounds represented by the IPA) to a choir. In addition to providing the spellings of sounds, both orthographically and in the IPA, I reflect on my experience teaching four choral pieces, as well as on common problems I encountered and how I corrected them. The four choral pieces are “Rotaļa” by Juris Karlsons, “Sudraba Mēness” by Laura Jēkabsone, “Talve Öö” by Pärt Uusberg, and “Tantsulaul” by Veljo Tormis.