When ensembles are evaluated, does it matter whether the conductor uses expressive gestures?

Apparently it does. A study published in the April 2009 Journal of Research in Music Education, “The Effect of Conductor Expressivity on Ensemble Performance Evaluation,” offers some interesting results:

• “The expressivity of the conductor had a significant and powerful bearing on how listeners judged the expressivity of a musical performance.”
   
• “More than half the variance of the performance evaluations” in this study was “attributable to conductor expressiveness.”
   
• Since musical performances are visual as well as aural events, conductors need to consider “appropriate nonverbal representation of the music as an explicit part of their responsibilities for the preparation and execution of a sensitive and accurate performance.”
   

The article described here, “The Effect of Conductor Expressivity on Ensemble Performance Evaluation,” was published in the April 2009 Journal of Research in Music Education (vol. 57, no. 1, pp. 37–49). The study has four coauthors: Steven J. Morrison of the University of Washington, Seattle; Harry E. Price of the University of Oregon, Eugene [soon to be at Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, Georgia]; Carla G. Geiger of Florida International University, Miami; and Rachel A. Cornacchio of Messiah College, Grantham, Pennsylvania. Of these, the first three are MENC members.

--Ella Wilcox, June 10, 2009, © MENC: The National Association for Music Education (www.menc.org)