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.

Interest Session

Discovering Talent: Strategies to Recruit New Students into the School Choral Program

As choral directors, we are always exploring ways to recruit singers and increase enrollment in our programs. At a time when students are inundated with a variety of courses and activities, how can we encourage them to try singing in a choir? This session will focus on identifying and developing recruitment efforts that appeal to […]

Chicago IL.
Jennifer Sengin



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



Beyond the Benefit Concert: Activism through Community Collaboration

In recent years, choirs have begun prioritizing community collaborations around social justice issues. However, these partnerships typically take the form of one-time benefit concerts, lacking meaningful connection between ensemble members and the community organization or social justice issue it may address. This session describes a collaboration between music and social work academics and a human […]

Chicago IL.
Elizabeth Fisher, Colleen Fisher



Building Strong Musicians in a Sequenced, Twenty-First-Century Way

This session will explore the sequenced approach of both the choral music and sight-singing curricula found within Voices in Concert. Participants will engage with pitch and rhythm activities before singing through choral music and sight-singing selections from across the four levels. Henry Leck will outline the pedagogical approach that serves as the foundation of Voices […]

Boston MA.
Henry Leck



VocalEssence Remix: Encouraging Breakout Musical Artists Who Write for Voice

This is a mentoring program of Vocal-Essence designed to discover emerging composers and songwriters and create innovative works in a wide range of styles through one-on-one mentorship.

Minneapolis MN.
Carol Barnett, Libby Larsen, J. David Moore, Timothy C. Takach, G. Phillip Shoultz III, Laura Caviani, Peter J. Durow, Jonathan Posthuma, Andrew Stermer



To Be or Not to Be

As directors, many of us want to write for our own choirs but struggle with the question “Am I a Composer?” Three of the country’s most respected conductor-composers share their stories about how they moved into composition from conducting, and offer strategies for getting started with your choirs.

Minneapolis MN.
Barlow Bradford, Steven Sametz, Dale Warland