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Published on 11/09/1998 All articles from this issue

Hitting the high notes

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By Joanne Griffith Domingue

Town Crier Staff Writer

Charlene Archibeque brings home the choral honors

Showing a sound

The 30 Choraliers sit in a rehearsal hall on the campus of San Jose State, seats arranged in a horseshoe, with Archibeque down in front.

She puts her hands on each cheek and pushes, with her mouth gently open.

"Ladies, you need more of this." She sings in an open voice that resonates richly.

They sing back. And it is better.

"The crescendos. Make them brighter and fatter."

Fat is not just a big sound, Archibeque explains the next day during an interview at her Los Altos Hills home, where she lives with Bob Melnikoff, a San Jose dermatologist. It's "a fullness of sound, a texture."

She talks about some of the different ways music can be loud and demonstrates on her grand piano.

"Angry." She pounds a chord. "Warm." A loud chord but played gently. "I believe." Somehow she adds a brightness, a strength to the loudness in that chord.

"There're a 100 different fortes," she said. And they're all loud. But not the same. Her special talent is the way she helps students with "getting the sound."

She works with the Choraliers on a chant they will perform during a Christmas concert. They have trouble getting the timing.

"I bounce it and feel those eighth notes. Pulse it," she directs. Then she gently bobs, bobs, bobs her body, as she continues.

"She just knows how to share every little thing, with her arms, her gestures," said Diana Rosett.

Rosett, 47, is working on her master's degree in choral conducting and commutes from Salinas.

"I just had to study with her," Rosett said. She first met Archibeque during summer workshops.

Rosett had already been directing her church choir for nine years. "But I felt like I was not able to help them to grow and needed to come and study to help me grow.

"She has the most energy of any woman I have every met. She knows what she wants, and she knows how to get it from her choir - what to do, what the gestures are, how to create a sound," Rosett said.

Giving 150 percent

Archibeque works her students hard. "I tell them I'm working 150 percent," she said. "And I tell them, 'I want you to be at least 120 percent.'"

Some have even described her as demanding.

"But she helps," said Vania Brandley, who is studying classical piano and accompanies the Choraliers.

She "shows a lot of compassion," Brandley said. "When there's a need in the group, she's very sensitive. I've seen her comfort people and give money to people, to students trying to meet a payment."

Each year Archibeque works with a new group of singers and melds them into another group of Choraliers. She begins by hosting a potluck in her home.

"That's how I get to know them. This is not just another class. It takes so much," Archibeque said.

This fall the group voted to go to Europe next summer and sing at the fifth triennial World Choral Symposium in the Netherlands.

Only two choirs will be representing the United States, Archibeque said. And the other one is a paid "professional choir," she said as she twitched her nose.

She took the Choraliers on their first European trip in 1971. Since then, they have been on 15 tours, eight of them to Europe. They've also sung in the Caribbean and the South Pacific, Mexico and Hawaii.

The summer trip will cost each student $3,000. So once the vote is in, they focus on raising money.

They give concerts. They offer a rent-a-carol program. Quartets sing at events for $125 and larger ensembles are available for $500. They sell tickets for their concerts.

Each student has a Choralier account, and money raised by a student goes into that student's particular account, "not to their pocket," Archibeque said. "And if they leave San Jose State, the money stays with the Choraliers."

Archibeque pledges to raise $500 for each student. "Bob says I walk around with my hand out," she said. She recruits people she knows to be "Friends" of the Choraliers.

Archibeque's legacy

Charlene Archibeque's choral career began more than 50 years ago when, as a sixth grader, she started singing with her church choir in a little town in Ohio.

Today this Los Altos Hills resident is a legend among choral directors. Students come from all over the country to study choral directing with her at San Jose State University, where she has been for 28 years and is director of choral activities.

Her singing group, the Choraliers, has been winning competitions around the world since 1973. She has directed high school honor choirs in 42 states and was named as one of the top 10 honor choir directors in America.

"I just can't stand to hear a choir that's wimpy," she said. "In my inner ear I hear the sound I want, and I'm not happy until I get it."

That's where Archibeque, or Dr. A as her students affectionately call her, works her magic.

She's a master of conducting techniques and knows how "to get them singing well by gesture alone," she said. "I show with my gestures what I want."

Archibeque has more than 70 who have studied with her for a master's degree in choral directing. And more than 100 have studied with her for bachelor's degrees in choral directing. They all are out in the world showing others how to make music with their voices.

One of the jewels in her crown is Mark Shaull, choral director at Los Altos High School for 16 years. He is the founder and director of the well-known Main Street Singers.

He studied with Archibeque, sang with the Choraliers and graduated from San Jose State in 1980 with a bachelor's degree in choral directing.

His Main Street Singers "is one of the biggest high school sounds of any I've heard," Archibeque said.

And she's heard plenty, as she travels around the country directing high school honor choirs.

"She inspires a love of choral music," Shaull said. "I was fortunate such a great program was there (at SJSU) when I went," he said.

Archibeque believes that the voice and tone quality "must reflect the text and be appropriate to the composer," she said.

And that's what Shaull said he values having learned from Archibeque: "Being true to the style and character of the music composer and period."

Tonight Archibeque will be honored by the San Jose-based Women's Fund, which has nominated her for a Woman of Achievement Award.

The Choraliers will be performing their 23rd annual scholarship concert at 8 p.m. on Dec. 4 and 5, at St. Joseph's Cathedral, 90 S. Market St., in downtown San Jose. Tickets cost from $12 to $50. For more information, call (408) 924-4332.