I figured since we've been talking about children's choirs it might be nice to find an example of a good one.
The director did a nice job of accommodating the different ages and voices she had. The low section never goes that low and it still sounded in the head voice of the kids singing. It wasn't too forced or "belty." Consequently, the high parts felt comfortable as well, though the interval on "laugh" always seemed to surprise them a little bit. However, for the most part it was light and bright, a perfectly placed. Their vowels helped them with this. Most of them were tall with significant space. It seems a little funny that their pronunciation of words was faintly British sounding; the word laugh is the one that caught my attention. This could've been for a number of reasons, maybe the conductor is British, maybe English isn't the children's native language and the British pronunciation was easier. Having the yawn like "ah" vowel as opposed to the vowel in "cat" keeps the sound from spreading. In a young choir like this, I think substituting the [ae] for the "ah" was probably a wise choice. I also thought the [i] of "tree" and "be" got a bit spread. Except for the last note, I thought the blend was pretty good. There was some tonal wavering on the last note that probably had to do with it being just a bit high for some of the altos.
I like these arrangement. It is simple, fun, up tempo and a familiar song. They had a nice contrast between clipped and legato sections especially at the end of the piece. However, you wouldn't be able to tell that by looking at the choir. While they sound engaged, they don't look it. In the close-up shots they don't look like they are having fun at all.
There is a great blend in this choir. I agree that the children seem to be singing in a comfortable head voice, nothing too low or high for them. They have a fine ear for the mixolydian tonality present, notably the ostinato section after the unison part. I could hear all of the harmonic lines with ease, making it, in my opinion, probably the best version of this song that I've heard. The tonality really added color to this folk song. I did find it a little odd to hear a fine children's choir that expresses no emotion physically however. It looks like its something of a chore to them. When I see performances like these, to me, it says something about the process that the singers go through while rehearsing the song...
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