News

The first part of the World Choir Games concluded Sunday night with the Champions Concert that included one American choir. The World Choir Games boasted twelve competitive categories this past week.  Choirs performed their programs for judges over the course of the week, and they were judged on that performance.  On Monday morning, prizes were awarded.  Men in Blaque, conducted by former Western Division President, Joseph Huszti, scored 80.13 points, taking a gold medal as they were named the World Choir Champion of the Male Chamber Choir Category. 

The World Choir Games begin this week in Shaoxing, China, with choral participation from around the world. Choral directors, choirs, and other leaders from the American Choral Directors Association will be significantly represented at this year's international event. The World Choir Games were created to inspire people to witness the beauty and strength of cultural interaction through the choral art.

The television series The Choir premieres on American television through BBC America July 7. Choirmaster Gareth Malone creates choirs in Britain in the most unlikely settings. In the two-time BAFTA award-winning series, The Choir, Gareth sets his sights first on the Northolt High School--a school with no music program, then on Lancaster School--an all boys school where sports dominates the landscape, and lastly on South Oxhey--a blue collar community.

One of the initiatives of the American Choral Directors Association is to provide the opportunities that would allow every child in the United States to be able to sing in a choir.

Debra Spurgeon, Chair of the ACDA Women's Commissioning Consortium Chair has announced the compositions from the chosen composers, Elizabeth Alexander of Minneapolis and Ola Gjeilo of New York City.

On June 29, ChoralNet Communities will be unveiled in Chicago at the Leadership Conference of the American Choral Directors Association. A "Community" will combine the many features of various online communication and networking activities that are currently in use. Want a blog? It is there. A forum? It is also there. A website? It is there, too, complete with multi-level page creation. Want an online library for file sharing? It will be there. Even better, as part of ACDA ChoralNet, any community will be tied into the vast archives of past discussions and links to resources that reside in ChoralNet and ACDA's website, and any of these resources can be accessed and linked at will.

This year’s winner of the Julius Herford Prize is Kevin C. Leong.  His pioneering dissertation, “The Hymn Settings of Ludwig Senfl’s Liber vesperarum festorum solennium, D-Mbs Mus. Ms. 52, was accepted at Boston University and directed by Jeremy Yudkin, Ann Howard Jones, and Martin Amlin. 

Dr. Leong is in his sixth season as Associate Conductor of the Harvard-Radcliffe Choruses.  He conducts the Harvard-Radcliffe Chorus and co-conducts the Harvard Glee Club, the Radcliffe Choral Society, and the Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum.  Dr. Leong also holds a PhD in Biophysics from Harvard University and a bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from Princeton University.  He has studied voice with Martha Elliott.

The American Choral Directors Association has released its new logo, which offers the name of the association through colors that connect with its past, a fresh font that reflects the forward looking posture of the 21st century association, and an iconic image that showcases the work of the membership.