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Attend the national convention
As your Washington State ACDA President I want to encourage you today, if you have not already signed up, to attend the 2007 National ACDA Convention in Miami Florida March 7-10 2007. You still can! There is nothing like going to a National convention to encourage, inspire and create excitement and opportunity in your own program. Here are a few reasons you should attend and come back to the state of Washington and your program inspired and rejuvenated!
Have a great New Year of enjoyment in singing! Linda Hamilton
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Dear Friends and Colleagues, It is an honor and privilege to begin my two year term as President of Washington State American Choral Directors Association. I have HUGE shoes to fill as our wonderful past president, Leslie Guelker-Cone steps aside. Leslie has been an incredible mentor and friend who continues to set the standards very high for our organization. Thank you Leslie for your wonderful contribution to our organization. ACDA is extremely blessed to have a group of high quality, professional, dedicated and talented leaders in our state. I never realized the hours of commitment and hard volunteer work it took to keep this organization alive and successful until I got involved with the board. The people I met, the conventions I attended, and the choirs I heard inspired me beyond measure. They gave me the energy to continue working in the classroom and eventually get involved with ACDA leadership. I feel fortunate to be able to introduce you to your 2005-2006 Washington ACDA Board. Use their expertise, get to know them, and maybe someday you will want to be a part of our ACDA family. The Past President is Leslie Guelker-Cone who I already mentioned. Once again, thank you Leslie for your leadership and tenacity on this board! You are fantastic! We have Leora Schwitters who is our President-elect for 2005-2007. Leora is a fantastic choir director who is extremely organized. She is going to do a great job as WA ACDA President and she will also be planning, organizing and running the annual WA ACDA Summer Institute. Next on our board is our Treasurer Rob Dennis who has kept us fiscally sound for the past many, many years. Thanks Rob for your continued support! Our newsletter editor, webmaster and note-taker at board meetings is the ever incomparable Ken Pendergrass. He is witty and fabulous at what he does. Watch for our “on-line” version of the WA ACDA newsletter that Ken puts out every quarter. Marc Hafso is new to our board this year as our Eastern Liaison and we are so excited! He is the director of choirs at Whitworth College and immediately added some new and exciting ideas to our board. We welcome Marc to our board. Another newcomer to our board, but certainly not to teaching is the fabulous Joel Ulrich, who has taken over the R & S position for High Schools. A seasoned director and professional, we are so fortunate to have him on board! Russ Seaton, our Multicultural guru continues on in his second term. Russ always brings fascinating ideas and suggestions to our board and we look forward to that area continuing to grow and inspire others. Diane Johnson begins her first term as the 2 year College R & S. Diane is a committed and dedicated professional in the area as well as a fantastic singer and musician. We are very happy to have her on our board! Steven Zopfi continues on our board for a second term. He is the R & S for Student Activities and is extremely helpful and supportive to others on the board when it comes to projects and activities. We are glad that Steven has continued on to serve again. Our Men’s Choir R & S is Tim Fitzpatrick. Tim always brings energy and enthusiasm to our board meetings and is always available to help out. Ron Mallory will be joining our board this year for a first term as the Music in Worship R & S chair. Ron is from Shepard of the Valley Lutheran in Maple Valley. Dawn McCormick brings lots of energy to our board meetings as our new Jr. High/Middle School R & S Chair. Dawn teaches in Cashmere, Washington and we welcome her to the board. Judy Filibeck continues on as our Jazz R & S Chair. Judy is recently retired from public education but is a fabulous jazz choir contact person. Our College and University R & S representative is Kathryn Lehman who teaches at PLU. She is in her second term at this R & S position and loves to work with this level! John Hendrix is new to the board this year as the Community Choirs R & S Chair and will bring great insight and experience to this area. And then Janet Reiter continues on the board as our Western Liaison. Janet teaches at Clark College and brings a great love of choral music to the table. As you can see we have a fabulous board of creative, talented, busy professionals! We all are busy but we all know how important it is to keep our organization alive and thriving. We look forward to serving you as your board and please feel free to contact your specific area of interest. If you are wanting information to get involved you can contact Linda Hamilton at piko@msn.com. |
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Attitude Adjustment Time Spring
can be such a trying and discouraging time for those of us in the trenches
of public school music! We’re recruiting like crazy with
extra performances, field trips, phone calls, e-mails, etc., trying
to prepare for solo/ensemble and/or large group contests, making spring
tour arrangements and still trying to keep a viable curriculum going
while trying to not let disappointing registration numbers for next year
get us down ..........Oh, and did I mention, trying to stay connected
with our families...... Leo Buscaglia |
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| Dear Colleagues By Joel Ulrich, WA State R & S Chair, High School |
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Dear Colleagues, I’m now scrambling to complete this article before my deadline, feeling a little like the proverbial “mosquito in the nudist colony—where do I begin?” If it’s really true that a good education is really more about learning to ask the right questions than getting all the right answers, maybe a good place to begin is by asking you a question: “What books have influenced you as a practitioner of the choral craft?” While taking classes and getting degrees can be of great benefit, our mentors have most likely had the greatest impact on our professional growth. Mentors include not only those with whom we’ve spent actual weeks and months but also those we’ve known from the printed page. Let this serve as an open invitation to share with us your thoughts and reflections about your mentors and their influence on your life as a choral practitioner. In terms of “choral technique”, perhaps there really is nothing new, but certain aspects become “new” to each of us at certain times and then there comes a time when we forget those aspects and then need to be reminded—a form of discovery, renewal. This is one of the reasons we belong to ACDA, MENC and our other professional organizations—not because we’re always looking for “something new” (although that may happen) but because we also need to be reminded of what we forget. Send your own thoughts and reflections and I’ll include them in future Unison editions—what’s new or “re-newed” to you will also be “refreshing” to many of us. Our “professional growth” is really an ongoing “conversation” at many different levels about our craft—concerts, conventions, festivals, tours, rehearsals, etc., etc. So take some time right now, put your thoughts on your screen and send them—this is “our” organization and it serves us best when “we” are making it happen. To get the conversation started, and having just attended the Northwest Convention in Portland, I’ll go first while James Jordan is fresh on my mind. My first introduction to him was through his book, The Musician’s Soul. His thinking resonated so strongly in me because my important in-the-flesh mentors, from college forward, were and are real people who shared their lives as well as their expertise freely with their students, and this is crucial to meaningful music-making in the choral craft. He says, “As I observe the conducting profession, specifically the choral music genre, I have seen many fine teachers and “conductors.” Their choirs sing beautifully with impeccable intonation. I have taught many conducting students who possess technical conducting gifts; that is, their hands work well. Coordination and symmetry of pattern is seemingly effortless. Yet, whether it be a children’s choir or an adult professional chorus, many times there is something missing in the sound: that something which provides a brilliance of color and accuracy of pitch that is unmistakable, if one is listening. What is missing? What is missing to those who really listen is a humanness to the sound—a sound that is born because of the conductor’s selflessness and understanding of human love through music.”(1) Further in the book, he shares: “Most conductors believe that as they conduct, the following paradigm is in operation: Conductor--------------------------->---------------------------->Choir Choir----------------------------->--------------------------->Conductor “In this paradigm, the choir is held accountable for supplying the energy and soulful synergism in the music-making process. The conductor then actively reacts to their spontaneous human spirits. The choir creates the music, and the conductor actively reacts and evokes from the singers sounds that are born out of their soul. It has been my experience that if the choir is given this responsibility, and is asked to commit to the process in the most profound way, they will accept that responsibility and sing beyond expectations. Such performances then become centered around the lives and souls of the singers and not the ego or personality of the conductor. In such performances, the composer (i.e. the song) is then given an opportunity to speak.” (2) This concept reminds me of another mentor, Parker Palmer. In his book, The Courage to Teach, he says, “As the debate swings between the teacher-centered model, with its concern for rigor, and the student-centered model, with its concern for active learning, some of us are torn between the poles. We find insights and excesses in both approaches, and neither seems adequate to the task. The problem of course, is that we are caught in yet another either-or. Whip lashed, with no way to hold the tension, we fail to find a synthesis that might embrace the best of both. Perhaps there are clues to a synthesis in the image of the community of truth, where the subject “sits in the middle and knows.” Perhaps the classroom should be neither teacher-centered nor student-centered but subject-centered. Modeled on the community of truth, this is a classroom in which teacher and students [conductor and choir] are focused on a great thing, a classroom in which the best features of teacher- and student-centered education are merged and transcended by putting not the teacher, not student, but subject at the center of our attention.”(3) Alright, just one more quote for now. In her book, How Can We Keep from Singing, Joan Oliver Goldsmith writes, “Ira Chaleff, in his 1995 book The Courageous Follower, takes the image of great followership further. The picture I get when most people talk about leading and following is that of a cluster of dots (the followers), connected by lines to a single leader dot off in the distance. Chaleff posits an equilateral triangle. At one corner of the base are the followers; the leader resides at the other corner of the base. At the apex of the triangle, the focus of both leader and followers, is a common purpose. “The process of clarifying purpose…is a critical act of strong leadership and courageous followership,” says Chaleff. Leader and followers exist in those roles not because they are the boss and bossed, but because, by playing those roles well, they can best serve the common purpose.” (4) So obviously, nothing new here—conductors and singers both serve the subject, the common purpose, the music. We all know this. Problem for me, and as I listen to other choirs I often sense the same problem, is that what we know with our heads often doesn’t translate to the rehearsal room/concert hall, and I end up sensing something’s “missing”. Even when notes are in tune, well sung and rhythmically well articulated, my heart is often unmoved. Jordan, Palmer, Goldsmith—and so many of you, my colleagues—remind me to get out of the way so the music can become central. One of the ways this can happen is for me to be real with my singers, and to allow the rehearsal room to be a safe space where singers are empowered and not overshadowed by me and where together our hearts as well as our voices are given free reign to participate in the song. No matter how well I know this and how hard I work at it, I never seem to completely get there. Yet once and while and now and then by God’s grace I get a glimpse or two, just enough to remind me that even though I never quite get there, better things happen when I’m at least headed in the right direction. And as leaders in this endeavor, we need to be in relationship with each other to keep each other headed in the right direction. Now it’s your turn. I want to hear from you, and we’ll keep this conversation going. Gratefully, Joel Ulrich (1)The Musician’s Soul, James Jordan, GIA, 1999, p. 8; (2)The Musician’s Soul, p. 50; (3)The Courage to Teach, Parker Palmer, Jossey-Bass Inc., 1998, p. 116; (4)How Can I Keep from Singing, Joan Oliver Goldsmith, W.W. Norton & Company, 2001, p. 71. |
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Summer Institute Update—You
must come! |
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Next year,
the national ACDA convention is being held in Miami, March 7-10, 2007. If
only someone had told me how wonderful these were years ago! I attended
the national convention in San Antonio in 2001, missed NYC in 2003 because
of other commitments, and went to Los Angeles in 2005. If at all humanly
possible, I hope to never again miss one, and I urge all of our members to
prioritize this event. If you decide to attend, many school districts
will help with some or all of the costs, so start filling out the paperwork,
etc., before the craziness of a new school year begins again and the
budget is used up on other things.
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Meet our 2006 WA-ACDA
Summer Institute headliner: a conversation with Sharon J. Paul |
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Sharon J. Paul will be the guest clinician at the 2006 WA-ACDA Summer Institute in Tacoma. She will present two sessions entitled “Brain-Friendly Rehearsal Techniques: Tips for Increasing Student Engagement” that explore research on how the brain learns, retains, and recalls information and how it can be applied to teaching and rehearsal techniques for singers and students of all ages. Her second session, “Life After Notes: Finding the Magic Beyond the Page,” investigates interpretive possibilities such as weight, duration, phrasing, and color in a wide variety of choral literature. Dr. Paul is the Chair of Vocal and Choral Studies and Director of Choral Activities at the University of Oregon, a position she has held since 2000. She earned her D.M.A. in choral conducting from Stanford University, an M.F.A. in conducting and performance practice from UCLA, and a B.A. in music from Pomona College. From 1992-2000, she was the Artistic Director of the San Francisco Girls Chorus (SFGC) and represented the United States at several international choral festivals and conferences. In June 2000 the SFGC was the first youth chorus to win the Margaret Hillis Achievement Award for Choral Excellence, presented by Chorus America. From 1984-1992, Dr. Paul served as director of choral activities at California State University, Chico, teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in conducting, choral literature, and the humanities. Dr. Paul was awarded the Outstanding Teacher Award at CSU, Chico in 1991. It was in her second year of teaching at Chico State that Dr. Paul first became interested in the topic of brain research and its applications. Hoping to inch closer toward tenure, she agreed to teach a humanities class. She realized that, in order to teach the class successfully, she had to figure out how to teach a lot of information in a short amount of time. Dr. Paul found answers at a lecture given by a bio-psychologist who talked about brain research and education—that is, how to teach based on how people learn. For Dr. Paul it was a “life-changing hour.” Dr. Paul has made it her mission as an educator to “empower the singers to bring everything they can to the music.” It’s easy for singers, she says, to be passive and only do what the conductor tells them to do. For Dr. Paul, the key question is, “How do you teach students to give 100%…to bring all of their interpretive as well as physical skills to the music before the conductor even says anything?” Dr. Paul was inspired to become a choral educator by Donald Brinegar, whose first year of school teaching was Sharon’s last year of high school. He was the teacher who “lit a fire” in her and helped her to fall in love with choral music. Dr. Paul has been teaching for twenty-two years, and she’s “still learning how to do things better.” She advises both new and experienced teachers to be “patient with the process” and to know that “we’re all still learning.” At whatever developmental level your students are, she counsels, “make the best music you can.” Although Dr. Paul misses her work with the San Francisco Girls Chorus, she enjoys the challenge of working at the university level with graduate students and advanced ensembles. The singers in her 24-voice Chamber Choir, for instance, use only tuning forks in rehearsal and “never touch a piano.” The Chamber Choir will perform at the ACDA Northwest Division Conference in Portland in March 2006. In addition to conducting three choral ensembles at the University of Oregon, Dr. Paul teaches conducting, advises graduate students, oversees the vocal studios and choral program, and performs “crisis management” as needed. Dr. Paul appears frequently as an adjudicator, clinician, and honor choir director through the United States. Recently she as conducted the Northwest Division Treble Honor Choir in Boise, Idaho, and directed All-State Choirs in Hawaii, California, and New York.
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 Sharon J. Paul |
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Welcome to spring! |
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STRESS! Stress is being blamed for almost everything that goes wrong these days – in
our homes and in our society. The pity is, stress is really a
very simple thing to control. There’s an old joke: “How
many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?” Answer: “Just
one, but the light bulb really has to want Same goes for stress. We can talk about it until we’re blue in the face, and we can blame others for it until we drop in our tracks, but we can’t reduce stress in our lives until we really want to. So, if you’re sick and tired of being sick and tired, this information is for you. Read it and reap!
And here’s my personal favorite:
Have a successful rest of the school year.
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Just over a week to go - but it's not too late to get
a registration in for
ChorPodium: the joint conference of the Association of Canadian Choral
Conductors and the British Columbia Choral Federation, to be held
in
Victoria, BC, May 18-21.
Keynote speakers: Louise Rose & Simon Carrington
Seminar sessions include:
Dr Linda Rammage (Pacific Voice Clinic) offering sessions on the
Young/Adolescent Voice with Bruce Pullan and on the Aging Voice with
Dr
Victoria Meredith, who will offer repertoire for senior choirs
Linda Beaupre & Eileen Baldwin offering insights into "A Young
Singer's
Voyage"
Carol Beynon & Ken Fleet (Amabile Young Men's Choir) on "Getting
Young Men
to Sing"
Panels on children's choir growth, on youth-directed programs, and
on
auditioning techniques
Composer sessions with Alice Parker, Imant Raminsh, Eleanor Daley,
Stephen
Smith and Mark Sirett
Choirs performing will include the National Youth Choir of Canada
under the
direction of Richard Sparks, the BC Youth Choir, directed by Bruce
Pullan,
and the BC Children's Choir, directed by Barbara Clark, with feature
concerts by a variety of invited choirs
The singers' side of the conference is overflowing, but there are
still a
few spaces for registrants to the Podium stream for conductors.
Please check the website at www.chorpodium2006.ca
We'll hope to see new friends in Victoria next week!
Brigid Coult
ACCC President
brigid@uniserve.com
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Greetings and Happy New Year to all of you! 
Towards
the end of the NWACDA convention in Portland last month, I was talking
to a friend and colleague of mine. He was saying that just a few
days before, he had his yearly conference with his evaluating administrator,
and she had remarked that he was about to attend this convention. He
responded enthusiastically that he couldn’t wait; he was going
to get to visit with friends from across the region, hear some fabulous
choirs, and get excited all over again about what he does. He then
said something about how she, as an administrator, must have events like
this that she looks forward to every year. Her response was less
than enthusiastic, and caused him and those of us at the table to reflect
on how blessed we are to have these organized events with others who
share our passions. I, too, look forward to all ACDA events with
eagerness. There is something magical about spending time with
others who have similar goals, joys, and frustrations. I am not
normally a conversationalist in other crowds, but somehow rarely feel
at a loss with choral colleagues. What a resource we all can be
for each other!
Welcome to spring – probably the busiest, most challenging part
of the school year. As festivals, competitions, the WASL schedule,
tours, and “spring fever” arrives – our lives, as music
teachers, become even more stressful. I hope you’ll glean
some helpful hints for you to use, not only in your teaching, but also
in your everyday lives. The subject?