Jessica Nápoles and Vincent Oakes have been selected by the ACDA National Board to be the two candidates for the 2025 ACDA National President-elect election. The election will be held January 7-January 30, 2025. All ACDA members with voting rights will receive an email ballot to cast your vote. The term for President-elect begins July 1, 2025. The person selected by the membership will become the ACDA National President in 2029.
In the coming weeks, you’ll have the opportunity to learn more about each of these wonderful ACDA leaders. Stay tuned to your e-newsletter, Choral Journal, and the ACDA podcast for upcoming insights to help inform your vote in January.
Meet the Candidates:
Jessica Nápoles is Professor of Choral Music Education at the University of North Texas. She teaches undergraduate coursework in choral methods, conducts the Concert Choir, and mentors graduate students in research. As an administrator, Dr. Nápoles served as Interim division chair for Conducting & Ensembles, Interim division chair for Music Education, and Interim division chair for Voice Studies. A native of Florida with a Cuban-American background, Dr. Napoles taught middle school chorus in the public schools of Miami and Orlando, FL. She received her Bachelor of Music Education, Master of Music Education, and PhD in Music Education from the Florida State University. Prior to her appointment at UNT, she taught at the University of Utah for 11 years.
Dr. Nápoles is an active choral conductor, clinician, and adjudicator, frequently engaging in guest conducting opportunities locally, regionally, and nationally. She has conducted All State and honor choirs in 25 states across the United States. She has conducted the Southern, North Central/Central, Eastern, and Western division honor choirs for the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA). In 2019, Dr. Nápoles was conductor for the WorldStrides OnStage Honors Performance Series in Carnegie Hall. She was asked to return in 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and in 2024 conducted the National Youth Choir.
In addition to her identity as a choral conductor, Dr. Nápoles is a well-known researcher, with numerous publications in journals such as the Journal of Research in Music Education, Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, Journal of Music Teacher Education, Update: Applications of Research in Music Education, and the International Journal of Music Education. She served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Research in Music Education, the premier research journal in music education, the International Journal of Research in Choral Singing, and the Journal of Music Teacher Education. Her research interests center on testing practitioner practices empirically, expressive conducting, burnout, perfectionism, and teacher talk. She has presented at conferences on these topics nationally and internationally. She is presently serving on NAfME’s Executive board of the Society for Research in Music Education.
Dr. Nápoles is meaningfully engaged with the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) at the national level. She is currently the Chair of the Research & Publications Standing Committee. Additionally, she served as Assistant Conference Chair for the 2019 and 2021 conferences, the Honor Choir Coordinator for the 2015 and 2017 conferences, and she is currently the co-chair of the 2025 Dallas national conference. Dr. Nápoles led the writing team of the ACDA COVID-19 task force that drafted a document to assist choral directors at all levels during the pandemic. At the state level, she was on the executive boards of ACDA Utah and Florida ACDA, as R&S Chair for Ethnic & Multicultural Affairs.
Vincent (Vic) Oakes is in his twenty-second year as Artistic Director of the Chattanooga Boys Choir, a music education and performance organization founded in 1954 which now includes over 120 choristers ages 8-18 in five ensembles. Featuring innovative performance opportunities and collaborative community initiatives, the CBC maintains a performance calendar of thirty appearances annually, as well as a technology-based music education and choral musicianship curriculum for its participants. The choir has performed and toured extensively under Mr. Oakes’ direction, including performance tours to Europe, Canada, and Cuba, as well as significant domestic appearances under his direction at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival, St. Louis Cathedral, Duke University Chapel, and Carnegie Hall. The CBC represented the United States at the Festival Internacional de Coros por la Paz in Costa Rica in June 2019 and was the first American children’s choir to perform in Cuba in nearly half a century in their 2013 performance tour to Havana. Recording opportunities for the CBC have included commercially released recordings with Stephen Curtis Chapman, Casting Crowns, and the GRAMMY®-nominated NAXOS recording of Maurice Ravel’s L’enfant et !es sortileges with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra. Under his direction, the CBC has made appearances at state, regional and national conferences of the American Choral Directors Association, the National Association for Music Education, the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies..
Since 2006, Mr. Oakes has also been the Director of Choral Music at The Baylor School, a grade 6-12 independent day and boarding college preparatory school in Chattanooga. Under his direction, the choirs have represented Baylor on performance tours, festivals, and outreach events around the country, added a faculty choir, and enhanced the campus through numerous service projects, cross-curricular collaborations, and community events. He was named to Baylor’s Glenn Ireland Chair for Distinguished Teaching in 2015 and appointed Chair of the Department of Fine & Performing Arts in 2019.
His professional involvement and leadership in the American Choral Directors Association includes service as President of ACDA Southern Region (2019-2021) and to the Tennessee chapter as President (2013-2015), newsletter and web editor, and conference chair. His term as region president was highlighted by a tribute to choral traditions of Historically Black Colleges & Universities, the inaugural Children’s Festival Choir (children/youth choirs performing choral-orchestral pieces and works by regional composers), and Cantare, a festival of Latin and Central American choral traditions. Additional service to ACDA’s Southern Region includes Repertoire & Resources Chair for Boychoirs (2006-2012), High School Honor Choir Chair (2010, 2012), Local Conference Arrangements (2016), and as interest session presenter on strategies for the adolescent singing voice, choral literacy, and singer engagement in the ensemble rehearsal. Additional ACDA Involvement includes service on the 2023 National Constitution and Bylaws Revision Task Force and as a U.S. representative in the ACDA International Conductor Exchange Program, highlighted by a residency with Coro Exaudi de Cuba in Havana.
As a conductor/clinician, he has conducted numerous honor choirs, clinics, and festivals, including recent ACDA and NAfME honor choirs throughout the United States (including West Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, South Dakota, Florida, New York, and Mississippi in the 2023-2024 season) and regional honor choirs in ACDA’s Western and North Central regions. Additional recent conducting engagements include the Bangkok International Choral Festival, North Carolina Summer Institute for Choral Arts, and the VOCALIZZE Choral Festival in Lisbon, Portugal. His research interests have led to professional presentations on working with the adolescent singing voice, effective rehearsal pedagogy, culturally responsive programming, and teaching musicianship and music literacy in the choral setting. A lifelong advocate for music in worship, he has served churches in Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee and as a clinician/conductor for children and youth choirs at Lake Junaluska, Massanetta Springs, and Montreat church music conferences.
In 2021, Oakes was awarded the Belz-Lipman Award for Excellence in Holocaust Education by the Tennessee Holocaust Commission for work with the Jewish Federation of Greater Chattanooga and the Chattanooga Boys Choir in commemorating Yorn Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) through poetic, musical and artistic expression from the Holocaust. In 2023, ArtsBuild of Greater Chattanooga recognized him with the Ruth Holmberg Arts Leadership Award, which is awarded to individuals who have made significant contributions to the arts in Chattanooga as “Arts Builders” actively engaged in the cultural life of the community, exemplifying ArtsBuild’s mission to build a stronger community through the arts through demonstrated artistry and leadership.Mr. Oakes earned the Bachelor of Music Education degree from the University of Florida and the Master of Sacred Music degree in Choral Conducting from Emory University. He has contributed articles to ACDA’s Choral Journal and ChorTeach and authored chapters in the textbooks Choral Pedagogy (3rd edition) by Robert Sataloff and Brenda Smith, Class Voice: Fundamental Skills for Lifelong Singing by Ron Burrichter and Brenda Smith, and Start Singing’ published by Choristers Guild. He is also the editor of the Shaping Young Voices choral series from Hinshaw Music, featuring musically enriching repertoire for young and developing voices. An advocate for choral and community partnerships, Mr. Oakes has founded several initiatives in the Tennessee Valley region, including the annual tenor-bass festival, regional middle school choral festival, a biennial ecumenical community hymn festival, and the SafetySing music project for preschool-aged children. Vic and his wife Dawn are the proud parents of two sons (and choir members), Brandon and Luke.
Stay tuned to your ACDA e-newsletter for more information. The election period will open in January 2025.
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