Strategic Imperatives for ACDA

During this century of rampant causefusion, as entire industries such as banking, energy, communication, transportation, entertainment, health care, and virtually every segment attempts to come to grips with the changes taking place in the world, choral directors could be lulled into some sort of false security about our area of work.  After all, Petrucci could return tomorrow, and, in effect, be able to still use the same choral music delivery technology he created in 1501. He and Guttenberg would be amazed at every technology other than their own.

Like it or not, as we work in the 21st century, in every other way, music is NOT a universal language.  Accepting that it simply “is” does not cut it any longer. On the subject of style alone, every time I witness a choral reading session, I watch groups scurry into tribes of style and taste. When we measure the literacy rate among the people we work, we find rampant illiteracy. In Paul Hill’s recent research published in The Development, Implementation, and Evaluation of a Course Utilizing Hymns to Teach Basic Music Reading Skills to Adults (Shenandoah Conservatory, 2007), only one-half of the adults tested realized that the basic five-line, four internal space, music staff does not change from page to page.

While I do not believe that music is a universal language, I am absolutely convinced that music is one of the most universal of art forms representing a universal language, and that language is the language of life. Music eloquently speaks the language of what it means to live—the negative and positive dualism existing within all things. The vibrations and sounds available to almost all of us help us express and experience this language, and do so democratically through choral music.

This is the reason I believe we have such a great opportunity in the 21st century as choral musicians. We know no better physical, emotional, or intellectual mass participative experience than helping people find their voice, and giving opportunity, through choir, to express that voice. When we reflect on how we feel when we sing with others, conductors know we want to support that experience, or as ACDA’s first purpose states, “To foster and promote choral singing, which will provide artistic, cultural, and spiritual experiences for the participants.”

As ACDA works to advance four initiatives outlined for ACDA—to establish the opportunity for every child to sing in a choir; to become fully engaged in world choral initiatives; to set the research and publication agenda for the best thinking, past and present, in choral music; and to utilize the full extent of technological communication and other technologies for the benefit of our membership—we will do our work guided by two strategic imperatives.

The first strategic imperative is to recognize and embrace our interconnectedness with other choral music education and performance organizations. We simply cannot do this work alone. Former U.S. president Bill Clinton put it this way: “My simple premise is that the mission of the 21st century is to build up the positive and reduce the negative forces of interdependence. I’ll ask myself on any profound issue: will this increase positive interdependence or reduce negative interdependence?” In order to achieve our objectives for choral music, we must build up the positive music forces of interdependence.

The second strategic imperative for ACDA is to recognize and embrace the need for generativity in our ongoing work as choral directors. In other words, we must have a mindset of mentoring: mentoring those looking to us for choral expertise, mentoring each other, and mentoring those that follow us.

These two imperatives—one outward looking, and the other inward looking—will go a long way in helping us achieve the purposes of ACDA in fostering and promoting choral music, but more importantly, they will help us perpetuate our ultimate goal of fostering and promoting the language of life.