Conducting my choir in the Netherlands from Germany

[Maarten Siebel]

Since December 2021 my soprano (in Gouda, the Netherlands) and I as pianist (in Berlin, Germany) have developed a near perfect musical cooperation with Sonobus as the audio & Zoom as the visual software. Our Sonobus connection point is in Gouda. That means that for my soprano, latency is no issue, she sings when my piano tones arrive in Gouda. As long as I (try to) ignore the music that comes back, I'm OK as well). Thus, we work together as if there are no 660 km's between us.

Since September 2022 the other 7 members of the choir (8 people total) have joined us. I now conduct and accompany the choir in Gouda from Berlin. Just accompanying is the same as accompanying one singer, i.e. latency is no issue. BUT conducting is a problem,  in that my manual indications arrive - by default - too late for the choir, latency being the culprit. I even am not able to let the choir start precisely together.

MY QUESTION: did anyone ever come up with a solution to or even a way around this problem? If so, we would love to learn from it.

Thanks for any good hints that may help out.
Maarten Siebel

DIT WIL IK GRAAG UITPROBEREN ADRIE.