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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Warming up Your Adolescent Voices: A “How-To” Guide

In this “nuts-and-bolts” session,we will explore the issues and challenges of the adolescent voice. We will discuss such topics as why we warm up, a basic warm-up outline, and some common mistakes we all make. We will examine and sing through exercises that address a variety of vocal challenges. We will also explore which keys […]

Vocal Jazz Improvisation for New Improvisers

Have you ever wished you could improvise or teach your singers to improvise? Does improvising in front of others or the thought of teaching singers to improvise scare you? This session includes a set of strategies and ideas that Sharri VanAlstinehas learned, used, and developed in the last six years to understand and vocal jazz […]

Uniting in Song through the Lens of Inclusion

Do you find yourself reflecting on inclusion and diversity when selecting repertoire for your choir? Do you ever wonder what questions other choral conductors ask themselves when programming concerts? This panel discussion offers a safe conversation about programming repertoire through this lens. We will hear from a respected group of panelists about what diverse and […]

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 […]

Phoning it In: Using Technology for Effective Assessment

In order to allow our choristers to progress musically, we need to have a clear understanding of what they know and what they can do. This session will offer practical, technology-based solutions for individual and group assessment of sight-singing, repertoire, and music theory knowledge that can be used by any choir director during or following […]

Making Musical Theater Musical

There are many instances where the choral director also serves as the music director for musicals in their school of any size and grade level. A how-to for uniting styles, this session will discuss how to use classical vocal training as a basis for teaching healthy vocal techniques required for musical theater, Disney, and other […]