Latest Blog Posts

By Ramona M. Wis Rise Up! There shall never be another season of silence. Deepen your sympathy, then convert it to action. Pray every single second of your life, not on your knees but with your work. Think your best thoughts, Speak your best words, Do your best work. There is so much yet to […]

ChorTeach is ACDA’s quarterly online publication, designed for those who work with singers of all levels. A full annotated ChorTeach index is available online at acda.org/chorteach. Over 160 articles are organized into seventeen categories. For submission information, to view the index, or to read the latest issue, visit acda.org/chorteach. Following is an excerpt from an article in the Fall 2020 […]

A Choir Halloween Rehearsal can be festive and productive even when fully remote, hybrid, or live and masked. In fact, I believe our students need Choir Halloween more than ever. It’s something to look forward to and can be one of the most memorable rehearsals of the year. If well-planned, this special rehearsal can be productive, creative, and serve as a way […]

When we see and hear the Aeolians perform we impressed by the technical precision. We are in awe of the dynamic range, the tone, the diction and the phrasing. But we are INSPIRED by the emotional buy-in and engagement from the singers in the ensemble. This culture doesn’t happen naturally in choral ensembles. It is […]

“You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.” Ralph Waldo Emerson Throughout the month of October, we’re revisiting some of the staple issues of Choral Ethics. I’ve written a BUNCH about each of these subjects during the last few years. While most of us now […]

By Stuart Hunt Leadership is the ability to get extraordinary achievement from ordinary people.– Brian Tracy Never mistake activity for achievement.– John Wooden Have you ever pondered just what it takes to produce world-class results? Genetics . . . coaching . . . “the breaks”? Thirty years of research into this particular question produced detailed […]

Why you shouldn’t always tell your students the truth For more than half of my teaching career, I taught music & performing arts at elementary or K-8 schools – six of these schools in all, with a wide range of approaches to education between them. One common aspect among all my experiences at these schools, […]

The latest issue of Choral Journal is online and features an article titled “Unaccompanied Non-Idiomatic Choral Music of Black Composers” by Marques L.A. Garrett. You can read it in its entirety online at acda.org/choraljournal. Following is a portion from the introduction, including a list of pieces mentioned in detail within the article. ___________________ For the purpose of this […]

After 10 years of using Smart Music for weekly sight-singing homework assignments, I have officially moved on. I have slowly transitioned fully into Sight Reading Factory over the past 5 years but UNEXPECTEDLY decided to fully abandoned the Smart Music ship in late September. This was not planned, but it became a necessity. And once I did, […]

Dr. Weber, in my mind, is one of the legends of the choral profession due to the contribution of her body of work over many years and at all levels of teaching. I find the combination of her high level of music making, along with her experience in classrooms with young kids and everything in […]