Sessions

Michael Hanawalt

Tucker Biddlecombe

Community and symphonic choruses bring together singers across generations and backgrounds, creating ensembles that reflect the communities they serve. This session explores practical strategies for auditioning and placing singers, planning rehearsals for large choral-orchestral repertoire, collaborating with professional orchestras, and supporting voices across a singer’s lifespan. Participants will examine ways to balance artistic excellence with […]

Alyssa Schott
Hilliard Bradley High School

The earliest years of our teaching careers are often the most difficult. As young teachers, we may have great ideas, but can struggle to put all of them into successful practice. We often have dreams and ideas of how we’re going to craft the ideal program but suddenly it’s the first day of school and […]

Brian Murray

Economy-sized seats, cars, and luggage can often be exasperating, but a sense of minimalism in your choral conducting gesture can exhilarate your rehearsals and performances. Bigger conducting isn’t always better; less often communicates more. Session attendees will explore the psychology of conducting and the application of economical conducting to preparatory gestures, stance, hinges, and use […]

Richard Carrillo
University of Nebraska Omaha

Frank La Rocca’s 2019 Mass of the Americas has been described as “The best piece of liturgical music for the Mass since Duruflé” (Dr. Michael Linton) and “Perhaps the most significant Catholic composition of our lifetime” (Michael Olbash, Music Director of Pope St. John XXIII National Seminary). Scored for SATB choir, organ, strings, guitar, marimba, […]

Beth Philemon

AI is moving faster than any previous technological shift, and paradoxically, it makes what we do more valuable, not less. This session places AI within the long lineage of technologies choral music has navigated, from the printing press to the phonograph, revealing a consistent pattern: each tool externalized a task, freed humans for higher-order artistry, […]

Rebecca DeWan
University of Maine

This session focuses on the collegiate experience of stress, burnout, and musicianship. Through smartphone-enabled full group brainstorms and small group break out sessions, participants will actively engage in applying presented research to their lived experiences as college musicians. The goals of the session are to: identify the ways stress and performance anxiety impacts the body; […]