As mixers become more powerful and digital, there are a lot more special tools choral directors have access to that are built into these units. We’re going to look for a few of these tools and how they can help you in your choirs, musicals, and pop music programs.

Handout

This past year my 6th grade choir has been small. And I mean 11 kids small. Although this frustrated me at first, I soon realized the tremendous opportunities there were working with this smaller group. We can spend more time on individual focus on their voices, trust within the ensemble, stronger part independence, and simpler voice testing. There have been so many great things about having this small choir I’d be excited to share at the conference.

Google Slides Presentation

One of the best ways to get students involved in your music program is to create a brand behind it. Not only a brand but to make sure that your music program is rooted deep into the culture of your school. As a long time user, I have been able to do this by utilizing the well known program called Canva. Using Canva I have developed a brand and recognition of the choir program in our school. This has also been a tool that has helped grow skill for the students as well.

In this session I will go over how to create your own free educators Canva Pro account, Basic skills needed. I will show 9 years worth of examples of how this program has been used in multiple facets of my daily job. There will even be time for everyone to design and create their own things as well for their programs.

This session will discuss the components of the audition for the Indiana All-State Honor Choir, details of participating in the group, and upcoming changes to the choir.

Canva Presentation

This presentation is designed to provide choral directors with detailed understanding of vocal health and wellness principles, both for personal knowledge and integration into individual programs. First, an overview of laryngeal anatomy and physiology as related to speech and singing production will be discussed. Following, participants will be introduced to evidence-based vocal wellness principles, including strategies for maintaining optimal laryngeal hygiene, mitigating phonotraumatic behaviors, and implementing efficient voice use techniques within the speaking and singing voice. Finally, a review of common vocal fold injuries prevalent among singers and professional voice users will be provided and enhanced with real-life stroboscopy images/videos. Emphasis will be placed on discussing potential management options and the pivotal role of interdisciplinary collaboration between the medical voice care team, choral director, and patient. Join us as we harmonize efforts to safeguard vocal health and resilience in the choral community.

Getting your students to work hard and do what we need them to do can be tricky, especially with middle school students! In this session you will be given some practical ideas to help you gain and maintain control in your classroom. This ultimately will allow you to develop your choirs to their highest level of excellence.

Playful, gentle musical and movement exercises to free up even the shyest song leader. Moira’s known for her arrangements and compositions with body percussion, and for bringing an authentic, embodied approach to her own singing and her choral pieces.  Here are some of her tools for feeling confident as a singer-mover.

A panel of retired Indiana Choral Directors and past participants in ICDA share their vast knowledge and wisdom as well as important life lessons learned throughout their careers as well as through their involvement in ICDA. They will also share how retired educators can contribute to the choral music community.

In this workshop I’ll walk (in some cases, literally!) us through my various processes of writing choral music. From choosing text, to getting an authentic, from-the-heart melody, to creating polyphony and chords, I’ll share the central aspects of making the sounds I love hearing and seeing in other voices.

– Sing The World Awake SATB

– Refugee SSATB w/BP

– Stand In That River SSA + SATB

– How Can I Cry SAATB w/BP

– Oh, Watch The Stars SSA + SATB

Choral Music Education upperclassmen and early career choral music educators from various parts of the state (approximately 5) will share their thoughts on the areas where they need support from experienced choral practitioners. They will offer ideas how ICDA can support them. A brief discussion will follow about how ICDA can offer mentorship to support new choral educators.

While there are a plethora or church choir cantatas available, often times not every piece is a winner. Many times not every piece will work for your group. Putting together your own program/cantata doesn’t have to be scary. We’ll look at pacing, things to think about outside of the music, and more.

Do you need fresh ideas to motivate your singers and develop musicianship skills along the way? Both singers and teachers need inspiration and meaningful experiences to create beautiful music together. Come learn new techniques on being inclusive, building self-esteem, working as a team and using songs to spark new joy in your ensemble! Choral octavos presented in this session will be focused on matters of the heart and each participant will receive a sampler from the Indianapolis Children’s Choir Publishing House.

Choral educators recognize the impact of physical posture on singing, and many use a variety of general instructions for teaching posture to singers. However, the expectations placed on the choral program can sometimes cause formal posture instruction to be overlooked in favor of repertoire and performance preparation. The Body Mapping method includes instruction regarding postural balance that may be easily incorporated into a choral music curriculum, strengthening both breath activity and vocal output.

We can save valuable rehearsal time by training our choir members to respond to gestures that communicate our desire for such things as phrasing and dynamics. With rehearsal time at a premium, why waste time writing in all the details that could effectively be communicated through our conducting gesture? What if we can fix intonation and other issues with our gestures? We’ll explore the philosophies of Rodney Eichenberger and Gary Bonner.

In this session, attendees will be given tips on how to help their students to be successful in the sight reading portion of the ISSMA Organizational Festival, from an adjudicator’s perspective. Since most directors do not get the opportunity to watch other directors’ methods, this session can be especially helpful for less experienced directors. Time will be given for those in attendance to share tips.

Featured Composers:

• Sarah May
• Anastasia Damick
• Leeann Starkey
• Daniel Watson (presented by Dan Andersen)

I have been considering and reworking the way I approach vowels in my rehearsals as a matter related to our work for diversity and inclusion. There’s a philosophical side that relates to the cultural values we have historically placed on vowel sounds. It shows up in hierarchical terms like “pure” vowels, and also when we preference “British” vowels vs. “American.” Carrying that further afield, it becomes more difficult for us, then, to advocate for the appropriate timbres associated with music of, say, Eastern European or Southeast Asian traditions, because we have 1) marked those sounds as “weird” or undesirable, and 2) failed to practice them on a regular basis. So, I’m developing value-neutral language and practical rehearsal methods that are more inclusive of vowels as cultural signifiers.

Dr. Carmen-Helena Téllez (1955-2021) was a force of nature in the world of conducting. During her years of teaching at both Indiana University-Bloomington and the University of Notre Dame, she provided her students with a wealth of techniques and strategies that prepared them for remarkably successful careers. This presentation provides an overview of Téllez’s teachings, consisting of the following six principles:

1. “Tempo is affect; duration is drama,” which pertains to the importance of tempo for a performance.
2. An exercise that assists conductors with showing rallentando, accelerando, and subdivisions.
3. Téllez’s preparation of the score, including micro- and macro- markings.
4. The number of preps needed to start a piece.
5. Using facial expressions to convey emotion in conducting, i.e. “conducting charades.”
6. An analysis checklist of a major choral composition, consisting of an in-depth historical, structural, and harmonic analysis of the musical material.

I use several compositions in my presentation as examples of how Téllez’s teachings provide a practical impact on the real-time work of the conductor. It is my hope that attendees can take some of these techniques and use them in their own conducting practice, and perhaps share these with conducting students of their own. I would also like to note that this research will appear in a forthcoming issue of Choral Journal.

Prezi