Latest Blog Posts

Article submissions are now being accepted for a “Special Focus Issue” devoted to technology for ACDA’s “Choral Journal” for publication in or around May 2012.  I’ve been asked to put together an issue devoted to technology for the choral musician and I am reaching out to the broader choral community for help.   For this […]

An astounding factoid if true: “And while the proportion of tenure-track teaching faculty has dwindled, the number of managers has skyrocketed in both relative and absolute terms. If current trends continue, the Department of Education estimates that by 2014 there will be more administrators than instructors at American four-year nonprofit colleges. A bigger administration also […]

Paul Carey has a great blog post up containing rehearsal insights from Rick Bjella, Randal Swiggum, Nick Page, Larry Doebler, Lucy Thayer, Tim Bruneau, and Patty O’Toole.   Really great stuff: Student investment and ownership: have students develop their own text interpretations use story telling (composers, personal experiences relating to the text, communing with nature, […]

The American Choral Directors Association will sponsor a record twelve conferences in 2012, featuring the Association’s signature Divisonal conferences, along with five additional intensive events for specific repertoire and interest areas including Children’s Directors, Middle School/Junior High Directors, Composers, American Choral Research, and International Choirs. The seven ACDA Division conferences feature the best of choral […]

The situation:   1.  An incoming student, passionate about choral music, wasn't scheduled to attend orientation until the day before school started in August. 2.  Auditions were scheduled to be completed at the end of June.   The solution:  a skype audition   It worked very well!   I had heard about voice teachers using […]

A fascinating video about how musicians communicate expressivity, discussed here on the website “brainpickings.” The interplay between music and emotion, which we explored on Monday with 7 must-read books on the subject, is undeniable. But if most of us ordinary people are so powerfully affected by music, we can only imagine what that experience must […]

International award winning University of Maryland:    

Two American University Choirs did very well in the 2011 Florilege Vocal de Tours Competition last week:  The University of Maryland and the University of Houston.     Maryland was directed by Edward Maclary who also won the prestigious "Prix du Chef de choeur" – an award given to a conductor for his expert direction […]

This is a great idea for taking notes at conferences or for students in your classes:  using one google document with multiple editors.  I just read about this on the Chronicle for Higher Education Website, but I’ve advocated it for a couple of years: Just minutes before my lightning talk, I created a relatively simple […]

I was in New York City over Memorial Day and stumbled upon a terrific concert of Bach cantatas by Julian Wachner and the Trinity Choir from Trinity Wall Street church.   What a concert!  They were superb – excellent singing, crisp diction, outstanding orchestra.   They are putting on a series called Bach @ One […]