American Choral Directors Association

The mission of ACDA is to inspire excellence and nurture lifelong involvement in choral music for everyone through education, performance, composition and advocacy.

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Angel of the East

The work sets part of John Donne’s poem Good Friday, 1612. Riding Westward, explaining the spiritual context the poet rides out on business on a Good Friday, neglecting his meditations on Christ’s death. He Journeys away from Jerusalem and the crucifixion, which lies due east, moving the opposite direction to which his mind automatically turns. […]

Dallas, TX
Graham Lack



Making Music Inside-Out: Text, Context, and the Gift of Self

This session will use music of Randall Thompson, Tomas Luis da Victoria, and George Frederick Handel to assist conductors in finding the inner clues often hidden in the musical notation that provide some insight into how the music should actually sound. While the repertoire for this session is written for mixed voices (soprano, alto, tenor, […]

Winston-Salem
Paul E. Oakley



From the Cloister: An Introduction to the Choral Music of Isabella Leonarda

Isabella Leonarda (1620–1704) entered an Ursaline Convent at the age of 16. During her many years at the convent, Leonarda composed and published 200 compositions making her the most published female composer of the Baroque era. This session will introduce choral musicians to her music using examples from several of the forms listed above. In […]

Winston-Salem, NC
Bradley L. Almquist



Beyond Salmo 150: The Unaccompanied Choral Music of Ernani Aguiar

Brazilian composer Ernani Aguiar (b. 1950) has established himself as one of the most influential names on the contemporary Latin American musical scene. Although more of his compositions begin to gain international visibility through recent performances and publications, his name continues to be almost exclusively associated with his famous unaccompanied setting of Psalm 150. While […]

Providence, RI
Mariana Farah