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.

You are here: Home / Archives for Musical Advocacy

Musical Advocacy

An Introduction to ACDA’s Service-Learning Initiative

At the national level, ACDA is actively developing outreach initiatives to deepen our connections with diverse communities and better equip the next generation of choral directors to serve in settings that may be outside their previous experience. ChorTransform is a service-learning initiative that was piloted at the University of South Carolina, beginning in the fall […]

Louisville KY.
Alicia W. Walker



Sing On, Chicago: Panel Discussion with Chicago Conductors and High School Administrator on Urban Choral Challenges

This session is an open panel discussion relating to issues and challenges that elementary, high school, and college-level directors face while teaching in urban settings. This session will include a short presentation from the “Join Voices, Chicago! 2016-2017” festival, which developed out of a similar panel discussion at the 2016 Central Region Conference. Topics include […]

Chicago IL.
Grace Jeong



Composition in the Choral Music Classroom: Lessons from a Composer-in-Residence Songwriting Workshop for Elementary Choristers

For the past fifteen years, choral composer Jim Papoulis has traveled biennially to the Chicagoland area to engage the North Shore Country Day School Lower School Chorus in three-day songwriting workshops. Based on ethnographic research conducted during the 2017 Songwriting Workshop, this session will explore the process of collective songwriting in the choral music classroom […]

Chicago IL.
Sarah J. Bartolome



One Sky, Many Destinies: Collaborating across the Prison-University Divide

In a world where exposure to concert music is limited to few, it is critical to create access for those who are typically denied, such as the homeless and the incarcerated. In 2015, the University of San Francisco Choral Ensembles collaborated with the students in a Massachusetts prison music class. The culminating concert included choral […]

Minneapolis MN.
Rebecca Seeman, André de Quadros



Singing Therapy and Dalcroze in Russian Orphanages

In 2015 we traveled to St. Petersburg, Russia, to begin implementing an innovative new program of therapy based on music education for orphans with attachment disorders. The prevalence of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) among these orphans was eight times the worldwide aver-age. FAS links directly to attachment disorders, which surface at alarming rates among Russian […]

Pasadena CA.
Erica Glenn, Christa Saeger