Conference reflections

First, thanks to Karen Fulmer, Tim Sharp, and the entire team of planners, volunteers and staff who made the convention possible. I thought it was a very strong conference and was so glad the weather cooperated (perfectly!) since one of the downsides of the Arts District is few restaurants and enough distance from hotels that finding food can be a challenge. The food trucks and glorious weather made it all workable, even if not ideal.

 

I saw a number of sessions and was so glad that Dale Warland was able to share his enormous experience, particularly with my younger colleagues. Dale is such a magnificent musician, yet so humble about his accomplishments, that it was a joy to hear his perspective on choral basics–and even though I’ve had many opportunities to learn from Dale, it does me good to hear those things again as well. I hope ACDA will continue to find ways to bring the icons of our art to conferences each year to share their experience and knowledge.

 

Concert performance levels were high–varied, as always, but generally very good. My first national was 1983, so I have a bit of perspective (although when your first conference includes the Swedish Radio Choir under Eric Ericson, the bar is set pretty high!).

 

As usual at ACDA conferences, there is too little historical music, so special thanks to those choirs who dared to do familiar, yet great music, as Westminster did, for example, with Bach.

 

And I cannot pretend to be objective, since I conducted the Choir of the West at PLU from 1983-2001 and Richard Nance is a very close friend, but I thought their performance was just stunning.

 

Venues were workable–the Meyerson is a world-class concert hall, although the Winspear Opera House is just that–an opera house–and not ideal for choral performance, although some groups sounded very good there. For example, the Phillips HS Cora Bella, sounded glorious there (and their performance was just beautiful). It was too bad that the “in the mind of” sessions had to be moved from Booker Washington to a small church. The City Performance Hall worked well for the sessions there, and also for the conducting competition. I understand why it couldn’t happen, but it would have been wonderful to hear the Tallis Scholars in the Cathedral, which is a nearly perfect acoustic space for them (they performed there last year on the Cathedral’s series).

 

I found it interesting that so many groups performed with singers standing very close together, even in the Meyerson. Giving space between singers makes such a huge difference in opening up the overall sound of the choir that I can’t imagine cramming singers shoulder to shoulder if I have another option (perhaps the subject of a future blog post!). A number of groups even put two rows on the same level, close together. I simply don’t get it. I can understand being slightly closer together at the Winspear, because it’s hard to hear on that stage (UNT did Handel’s Theodora there last year), but even there I believe the sound would be much better in the hall with more space between singers.

 

A special joy of these conferences is the chance to see and re-connect with friends and colleagues from across the world. I couldn’t see everyone (and because I tried to see many, I couldn’t get to everything I would have liked to), but loved the time I was able to spend with friends. Needing downtime and wanting to see many friends meant missing some concerts and sessions I’d like to have seen. I look forward to when the concerts will be online. Will sessions be online, too, I wonder? Again, having the opportunity to see Dale’s session (just as one example) would be wonderful for those who couldn’t see it or be there.

 

I think it was a very successful conference–kudos to all involved.