History of ACDA

When the thirty-five choral conductors sat together in Room 400 of the Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City, Kansas in 1959, did they have any idea of the history they were making or of the remarkable organization they were founding? This group of leaders met on that cold February day to create what was to become the preeminent choral directors’ association in the United States. Their decisions built the foundation that shaped what was to become the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA).

This founding group decided to represent all types of choirs through the work of the proposed association. As a result, today ACDA is home to children’s choirs, university and college choirs, church and synagogue choirs, community choirs, and jazz and show choirs. The founders wanted to foster choral excellence, so they built conferences that encouraged and showcased this excellence through performance, reading sessions, interest sessions, and panel discussions. These elements are present in today’s ACDA conferences. This founding generation, living in a time of social and political upheaval, was at the forefront of the movement in understanding the role of quality choral practice and performance. These values continue to be upheld today throughout ACDA where choirs are chosen to perform based on their quality rather than on what they represent socially or politically. These early leaders understood that American choral music must be part of a worldwide choral music movement; their international initiatives reflected this understanding. The first and foundational generation of ACDA leadership set a high bar for its members, and subsequent generations have honored and raised that bar.

In the early 1970s, leadership transferred hands from one generation to the next. The second generation of ACDA grew the organization and gave it independence and a broader voice. This group of individuals created independent divisions, which resulted in divisional as well as national conferences. These leaders began to invite international groups and world renowned conductors to perform, teach, and conduct. This new generation elevated the standards for conference performance by choosing premiere concert halls for performance. They understood that funding for the arts and arts advocacy is important and must be a hallmark of ACDA. To that end, they created the advocacy statement that is still evoked in each issue of Choral Journal.

The second generation of ACDA leadership never forgot the lessons of the first. They expanded the ideas of their teachers and mentors. They created a solidly academic Choral Journal; they refined a choral conducting and research curriculum throughout America’s colleges and universities; they established policies and procedures for choral repertoire and standards; and they set out on an educational and performance agenda that gave solid direction to choral conducting students, leading to even stronger directors and academicians. They gave opportunities to youth and college students to sing under the direction of the world’s greatest choral directors. They provided many opportunities for choir directors to observe and learn the best in choral arts practice through workshops and conferences. This generation understood the mission of the founders and used that foundation to adhere to and deepen those values.

As ACDA entered the twenty-first century, legendary status was conveyed to the founding members and the noted choral educators, writers, researchers, and conductors who built ACDA. The choral art had earned its place alongside the most revered of the classical art forms. With the death of Robert Shaw in 1999, ACDA said goodbye to its first truly marquis choral conductor who infused professionals with the enthusiasm of amateurs, and amateurs with the skills of professionals. His magic was more spiritual than technical, and he became a patron saint for choral conductors in the United States.

The ACDA leadership that had professionalized and energized choral music education and performance, and that had established the highest standards of practice, had now passed the baton, literally, to a new generation of choral scholar/teacher/performers. This new generation can be found engaging in a grassroots effort to increase membership. They are reaching out to members and non-members alike in their various states and divisions to spread the purposes of ACDA, and inspire yet another generation to aspire to excel in the choral arts.

This new generation of ACDA choral directors now enters the twenty-first century connected to a world performance arena influenced by choral sounds from around the globe. Today, ACDA realizes more fully the prophetic international intentions of its founders by the inclusion of international choirs at its conferences, and its leadership in the International Federation for Choral Music (IFCM). The choral program exchanges of the 1950s now take place digitally through catalogued video choral performances and concerts observed through real time streaming video. Printed journals and newsletters are now accompanied by ever-emerging, ever-updated searchable digital media. Discussions are shared worldwide through listservs, blogs, and other electronic outlets. Choral tonal models have moved beyond provincial homogeneity to a world palate of vocal sound.

In 2009 American choral directors celebrated their 50th Anniversary as a professional choral Association, the largest of its kind in the world. Thousands of choral professionals continue to gather in celebration of the choral art in biennial conferences, with the 50th Anniversary Conference in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, a very short distance from where the movement began in Enid, Oklahoma in 1959. Once again, a wide variety of choir types, representing the best choral music making in the United States and around the world perform for each other and for the world’s choral leaders. They all come together primarily for the inspiration that comes from the very sounds that they have mastered in their home settings. It is hard to determine if inspiration comes from giving, or from receiving these sounds.

ACDA’s new face and new voice is international, multicultural, and technological, and it inherits a legacy and a soul that is inspirational, professional, and totally enamored by the choral art. We will forever be the only directors of a musical art form that is able to deliver a text to an audience through harmony by a living community of artists. We will forever be striving to deliver those sounds in a clearer and more perfect voice.

ACDA was created to help us with that task.