High School Honor Choir II Special Update for 02-20-2009

ACDA High School Honor Choir II - Updated Reminder for you!

Welcome to the ACDA High School Honor Choir II!

This will be the only email we will send to you for this Honor Choir...this was first sent to you and your teacher on January 29..updates for 2/24/09 are in red for you.

We already think you must be the best singers in the nation as you are singing in a National Honor Choir…even if we had a bit of a hiccup getting started! It is an expensive honor to sing in this choir and we are happy you have chosen to do so. We have great plans for you! We have arranged for several composers of the repertoire you will be singing to work with you…. an additional learning experience and an honor.

First rehearsal: Note screening

To make sure we are the “best that we can be” we want to assure that every singer respects every other singer and respects our wonderful conductor. Therefore, we will have a note screening prior to the very first rehearsal. We will arrange you, standing within your section, every other row, and we will have our section leaders walk between each singer while we run through each piece. You may use your music for this screening. We bet you will be absolutely prepared on your notes – we are not concerned about pronunciation at this time - but we will listen to notes. If you know your music you will sail through the screening and we will all be ready for the first rehearsal. Everyone will breathe a sigh of relief!

If there is some doubt about your note mastery we will allow you to move into a separate area and demonstrate your knowledge, solo. Again, you control this process…if you know your notes, no problem. Unfortunately, if you do not know your part or cannot convince us you have mastery…we will invite you to become an audit…which will only mean you can attend rehearsals and LEARN from the conductors and the experience but you will not be allowed to sing with the choir on the concert. We’d rather not have any drama for this "OK Chorale"…. Once more, you control this portion of the process…so do your best to learn those notes! Don’t wait till the last minute to do it!

Your wonderful conductor, Dr. Tim Sharp, has prepared rehearsal notes which appear on the website. Print them and go over them carefully! Together we are going to make the experience of your lifetime. We look forward to meeting you very soon!!

Memorization of repertoire and Concert Folder

As in past National Honor Choirs, this honor choir will perform without printed music for the concert. We feel if you are note knowledgeable when you arrive, the memorization will occur as we rehearse...but we wanted to let you know this is an expectation and to bring a black music folder to house your music for rehearsals. We will provide you with souvenir pencils for marking your music.

Section leaders and choir coordinators
You will have four professional choral conductors who will conduct section rehearsals. They are: Dr Martha Shaw, Spivey Hall Children's Chorus and Shorter College, Georgia, Dr Carolee Curtright, retired University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Dr William Cutter, Boston Conservatory and MIT, Marshall Butler, Sanderson High School, Raleigh North Carolina. Your coordinator for this choir ( and this will be her third National Honor Choir) will be Marta Force, retired, Grimsley High School and North Carolina Summer Institute in Choral Art,Greensboro NC. Registrar for this choir will be Mrs. Dottie Carruthers also of North Carolina. You may continue to send questions regarding this choir to the ACDA national office in Oklahoma in the manner you have before and those questions will be forwarded to the team above as necessary.

Cell Phones

Please do bring your cell phone....but we will ask that you turn it off during rehearsals when it may distract you or others. We will ask that you program the hotel phone number and your chaperones cell phone number into your phone - we will do this at registration.

Different Hotel:

We have had information that two singers have ( for various reasons) chosen a different hotel than the hotel in which the rehearsals will take place. The Biltmore is quite a distance from the other convention hotels and I am told there are issues with downtown traffic. On all information given to you once accepted it was stated that you were required to stay in the Biltmore Hotel. If you are currently registered somewhere else please know that if you are late to any rehearsal you will immediately become an audit.

Chaperone Meeting and T-Shirts

We will have a small number of extra t-shirts on sale for chaperones who did not order t-shirts initially.
There will be a MANDATORY meeting of all chaperones during the screening on Wednesday morning. At this time information will be passed out to chaperones regarding various supervision and convention opportunities for chaperones.

Photo and DVD information

Order forms for group photo's and DVD's of your performance will be placed in your registration packet.

Future updates for you

You are responsible for keeping up with updates regarding this choir posted on the website. Don’t forget to check the ACDA website for updates. There is now a memo concerning Concert Attire. Please do your best to bring performance attire to closely match the photo's. This may involve some detective work on your part..there is no suggestion that you purchase a new dress - a simple plain conservative black dress should be relatively easy to find in your community. Seek the advice of an adult in your search. Updates regarding this choir it will be posted by the end of the day each Tuesday, so you only have to remember to check late on Tuesdays or early on Wednesday's. Here's the address: http://acda.org/conventions/2009/choirs/highschool2

We're all looking forward to seeing and hearing you!

Marta Force

ACDA HS HC II Coordinator