Practising Virtuosity

Abstract

This chapter discusses how heavily invested all stakeholders in this field are in, what I refer to as, the choir’s ‘pedagogy for virtuosity’. I do this by exploring the investments made in virtuosity by the teachers, the mothers and the boys. A prominent theme in relation to the processes of embodying the dispositions of this habitus is ‘discipline’. A central aim of this chapter is to illustrate the necessity of considering discipline as a possible agential capacity and not necessarily a subjugative, negative force as is the common stance in educational discourses. This education occurs through the disciplining of the boys’ ‘choral bodies’ which capacitates the boys with high degrees of self-reflexivity.