Rochester Broadcast - Canal Chorale Learning Tool

Rochester Broadcast is a spatial symphony composed by Eastman School of Music's Howard Hanson Visiting Professor Lisa Bielawa.

Rochester Broadcast will be performed on Saturday April 18, 2026 at 12pm and 2pm (rain date Sunday April 19, same times), at Parcel 5.

Multiple groups, from community musicians to Eastman student groups to youth choirs, orchestras and bands, will take part, with over 200 musicians participating in a joyful and fun gathering. 

The Canal Chorale is a pickup choir with just ONE REHEARSAL on Friday April 17 from 6:30-8:30pm at the Ray Wright Room at Eastman School of Music, located at 26 Gibbs Street (includes an optional walk-through of Parcel 5 from 6:30-7pm).

You can join! Come and sing!

If you can't make the rehearsal, or if you want to prepare at home in advance, you can download the music and/or the texts here, and use the Learning Tool audio below. Come raise your voice!

Hello Canal Chorale and welcome to your LEARNING TOOL!

Here are the parts you can sing. Lee Wright, director of the University of Rochester Chorus, will be your conductor, and Nick Culver will be your French horn leader, and he will be in charge of knowing when to start and stop, how many times to play things, and playing along with you of course.

We recorded some very basic audio tracks to help you prepare for our big day together!

Following along on your PDF score or song sheet:

At 01:30 in Letter A is our opening CHORAL CLOUD:

Then after a rest we have our Letter B CHORAL CLOUD 2:

Then you rest again briefly before you sing Letter C CHORAL CLOUD 3:

…and from there, straight into Letter D, CHORAL CLOUD 4, where you can sing any of the pitches that Nick is playing. And after around 30 seconds you can start adding some shouted words and sounds!

…and from there, straight into Letter E, VERB NOODLING which we will do THREE TIMES:

At Letter F we have our SNOW BALLAD, in two, like this (treble voices and low voices separately and then together):

At Letter G we start with our RIVER QUESTIONS, then a minute later Nick will lead the CALL & RESPONSE:

We walk during Letters H and most of Letter I, but at 13:30 we sing our CALL & RESPONSE short words:

Then at Letter J we join up with the Klezmer group, the Eastman Youth Chamber Singers and the Rochester Mandolin Orchestra to sing the MY STREET song, multiple times over several minutes, always cued by the violinist leader of the ECYS:

At Letter K we will sing version 2 of the MY STREET song only once (!!) getting faster and faster at the end:

At Letter L we will sing this short slow phrase:

…and after a short pause we sing our next chorus, MORE RIVER QUESTIONS, Letter M. There are two parts which you can sing in your own range:

After another short pause we sing Letter N, MY VOICE v.1, each phrase cued by horn:

Then we walk for a couple of minutes and spread out into a single line to sing Letter P, MY VOICE v.2, which you can sing in any octave and then end in a 20-second-long super-slide on Ah. After sliding, the horn will give you a new pitch and you can sing “my voice” one more time:

At the very end, you can join the large group of people singing and playing the final CANON and join in!

That’s the whole show! Let us know if you have any questions, and happy practicing!