Last summer, I found myself dealing with the travel challenge of going half way around the world for a choral event, only to need to travel even further away for each succeeding event. It became apparent I would be traveling more if I came back home between destinations, than if I just kept traveling east. The solution resulted in my first trip around the globe—from OKC, to Houston, to Newark, to Amsterdam, to Athens, to Shanghai, to Los Angeles, to Dallas, and back to OKC. I asked for a window seat.
I determined that a literal trip around the globe would result in new insights, so, positioned in my window seat, I was ready to write those insights down. Unfortunately, after the scenery below became unrecognizable and clouds took over the airscape, the only insight that came was sleep. However, it was on the last part of the journey that the anticipated epiphany came: “The World is Big.”
Having been a child of the 1964 New York World’s Fair era when “It’s a Small World” was invented and unleashed, and having been brainwashed with that tune since my childhood, I suppose the notion of a small world had seeped into my unconscious. This summer, I realized that the opposite is the truth: the world is very, very large. However, my real conclusion and transformational insight came upon my return: The world is large, but we have to work to make the world small.
The American Choral Directors Association has set out to make our choral world smaller. We are making our world smaller at our upcoming 2011 Chicago National Conference with sessions such as Face-to-Face button-hole meetings where individuals have the opportunity to meet one-on-one with composers, leaders, and other conductors for dialogue. We are making our world smaller with individual Repertoire and Standards Resource Areas in the Exhibit Hall, giving us opportunities to meet with our R&S Leaders and to hear about specific repertoire and choir-area resources chosen from best practices to help us in our unique choral work. Whether your focus is middle school choir, elementary, high school, college, church, or community choirs, ACDA will be “making it small” in Chicago for you.
There are a total of 14 Resource Areas to explore, up close and personal. We are making ACDA smaller by hosting specific choral area Round Table discussions about our unique areas of work, all intentionally focused on practicality as well as inspiration. We are making ACDA smaller by focusing on Jewish choral music in worship, Christian choral music in worship, and music from a variety of world cultures in interest sessions and demonstrations.
The American Choral Directors Association is making the choral world smaller by hosting an impressive number of international choirs at our 2011 National Conference in Chicago. The world will shrink a little more as we hear choirs from Canada, Taiwan, Latvia, China, and Norway, and as we hear Interest Sessions with a focus on choral literature from China, Latin America, and other cultures. We will learn about new ways we can make the world smaller as we hear about the World Choir Games scheduled in Cincinnati in July of 2012, and as we learn about the exciting World Choral Music Symposium sponsored by the International Federation of Choral Music in Argentina next summer. ACDA continues to work with, and through, IFCM and INTERKULTUR as we take advantage of every opportunity to bring choral music of the world to the United States.
ACDA is becoming smaller as we continue to build Communities on ChoralNet (www.choralnet.org/list/group). At present, there are seventy-five Communities in residence on the ChoralNet Communities pages. Communities allow users to communicate regarding particular sub-topics of choral music and to self-identify as a member of a unique area of choral interest and performance. If a Community does not exist for you, you can create a new Community of interest. ChoralNet is ACDA’s social and professional net- working online resource, making the gigantic world choral community a smaller place.
The American Choral Directors Association is making the world smaller as we build active ACDA Chapters in states throughout the country. As we strengthen our resources and networking through the ongoing and growing benefits of ACDA membership, we strengthen our work within our own singing communities. Choral music brings individuals together under the banner of choral beauty within community; this makes the world a smaller and better place.
Tim Sharp says
Estelle Cole says