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 / Sample Page

Sample Page

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 […]

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.

Releasing the Song Inside: Composing in Choral Classrooms

In this panel discussion, editors and contributing authors for the book Musicianship: Composing in Choir (2016) will lay the groundwork for engaging choral ensemble members in composing in choral classrooms. Acknowledging performance as the principal musical behavior in which choral ensembles engage, panelists will offer compelling arguments for including composition as a constituent of any […]

Lives of Song: Canadian and American Choral Music by Women Composers

The first day of this conference marks the 2017 celebration of International Women’s Day. Despite the significant contributions of women composers and conductors to the choral scene across Canada and the United States, programming continues to fall short with respect to female representation. This session seeks to inspire participants to more intentionally consider the rich […]

Composition Master Class

This session is an open forum with new compositions by runners-up of ACDA’s Brock Student Competition under the mentorship of Steven Sametz and Libby Larsen, exploring compositional choices and how to develop the young compositional voice.