Directing volunteer choirs necessitates building choral sound, solving vocal problems, enhancing musicality, and motivating singers. But how should we get started? This session will introduce Michael Kemp’s new book, Innovative Warm-Ups for Volunteer Choirs, which provides a stimulating approach to building choral skills with volunteers, with twenty-two innovative warm-ups,each with useful presentation ideas for directors. […]
Sample Page
Honoring the 50th Anniversary of Chichester Psalms by Leonard Bernstein
This will be an interactive session with recordings, conversation, and study of the ageless Psalms and the psychological power of healing and hope using the three movements set by Leonard Bernstein in 1965 for the Chichester Festival in England. Focus will be placed on melodic contour, rhythmic numerology (Gematria), orchestration, and the use of the […]
Fifty Shades of Grading: Implementing Assessment in the Choral Rehearsal
Whether novice or veteran, today’s music educator is increasingly faced with implementing accountability strategies in their classrooms. This session will introduce you to and help you familiarize yourself with a variety of assessment models that allow for individual student evaluations that benefit the entire choral program. Implementation of these methods is easy; they work well […]
The Evolving Voice: The Senior Years
Voices change and evolve throughout a lifetime. As an ever-increasing number of amateur and professional “Singing Seniors” look to choirs as a rich and edifying activity during their senior years, choral directors will benefit from a deeper understanding about the older, evolved vocal instrument. Through a multimedia presentation, anecdotes, and common sense, we will consider […]
Developing Critical Thinking Skills with Singers
Choral directors constantly work to balance performance challenges with the delivery of academic content in school programs. By sharing rehearsal leadership responsibilities with chorus members, directors can build an ensemble of critical listeners and thinkers, choral musicians can learn to develop critical thinking skills and musical independence. This session will provide ideas to help ateendees […]
Creating Safe Space: LGBTQ Singers in the Choral Classroom
In the past five years, highly publicized suicides among LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, questioning) youth reached epic proportions. The choral classroom is well established as a harbinger of change—an environment that cultivates understanding between divergent ethnic and cultural traditions. This workshop will explore ways in which the visionary dialogue and tolerance fostered by the […]
