In this session we will discover the rich heritage of the Polynesian choral arts and uncover the canon of Polynesian communal singing from the islands of Hawaiʻi, New Zealand, and Sāmoa from pre-western contact up to the present day. This hands-on session will provide insight and methods on indigenous pedagogies, oral traditions, and performance practice […]
Minneapolis MN.Repertoire
Jazz Choral Music for Kids!
Looking for great repertoire to acquaint your younger singers with jazz but struggling to find exactly what you need? While the body of jazz choral repertoire for mixed voices is growing, appropriate, quality repertoire for younger voices may be a challenge to find. Additionally, young singers often do not have experience or background with jazz, […]
Minneapolis MN.Joy Hirokawa
Got a Mind to Do Right: Approaching, Discussing, and Performing Spirituals Respectfully
This session will aim to inspire directors and choirs to prepare and perform arranged spirituals in away that recognizes spirituals for the life-affirming art they are. The panel will take as its point of departure a dialogue about race, power, representation, and consent that took place in the Swarthmore College Garnet Singers surrounding the programming […]
Minneapolis MN.Joseph Gregorio
Creating Safe People: Honoring LGBTQ Singers in the Choral Classroom
Though they are not always openly acknowledged, singers bring their gender and sexual/affectional identities to the process of rehearsing, interpreting, and performing choral music. More can be done to explicitly value, honor, and respect singers’experiences and identities. This session will introduce practical tools for how choral conductor-teachers can become such people by providing research-based findings […]
Minneapolis MN.Joshua Palkki
Big Voice: Creating Symbiosis between Warm-ups and Repertoire Question-and-Answer Session
Have you ever wondered how other high school choir director shave found success? Big Voice is an eighty-three-minute documentary that chronicles a challenging year in the life of a determined public high school choir director. Jeffe Huls pushes his students to achieve a high level of artistry and become “one big voice,” despite many obstacles. […]
Minneapolis MN.Randi Grundahl Rexroth, Varda Bar-Kar
Beyond “Getting Ready to Sing”: Creating Symbiosis between Warm-ups and Repertoire
Singers learn more effectively and perform more musically when choral warm-ups relate to the music being rehearsed. When conductors identify the important musical problems in the repertoire, they are able to design musical solutions to teach in the form of warm-ups—before their singers ever encounter them in the score. The clinicians will use choruses from […]
Minneapolis MN.Jason Paulk, Ryan Kelly
