NW ACDA Convention (Vancouver) 2008

This past week I spent Thursday at the NW ACDA Convention in Vancouver BC, which is a beautiful city. For being an ACDA student member it was my first time going to a divisional convention, and it was amazing. Before this convention I had only been to the 2007 Summer Institute in Tacoma WA which was held at the University of Puget Sound. Going to the convention in Vancouver was beneficial not only myself, but my friends and fellow students that attended the convention learned alot.

As the WWU-ACDA student chapter president, I was excitedly-happy for all the students that got to attend the Convention, since some of them couldn't afford it without the club. Through the club I applied and obtained a grant through the Associated Students of Western for $1500 to pay for all of the hotel costs to all 10 WWU-ACDA members and 2 alumni that wanted to attend the convention. I had told them all year that this convention was something that they could not miss, for they would learn alot about the choral education/performance field, and they did. All of the WWU-ACDA members that went had a great time, attended workshops, received music packets, and some even performed at the convention.

One of my friends that attended was Matt Bell, who is a music major at WWU with me, but doesn't quit know yet what he wants to do, whether it is composition, vocal performance or music education. I think he has a great talent in leading a group, especially his accapella group that sings mainly barbershop music. I took Matt to a conducting workshop with Dr. Hilary Aplestadt from Ohio State University, and Matt really liked what he learned while there. We also attended a concert session that featured a middle school choir called "Mad Jazz" (no they didn't sing jazz, its just a name), and after their amazing performance, they got a standing ovation for over 5 minutes. All the choirs that followed did not get such an enthusiastic applause. After seeing Matt this week, he is now thinking about being a music education major (choral of course), so he could teach middle school students.

I on the other hand only got to be at the convention for Thursday only, but it went from Thursday Feb 21 thru Saturday Feb 23. I had to leave to go back to Seattle for some Family stuff. But, I would have to say the whole highlight of my convention experience was being within 5 feet of a conducting LEGEND, Rodney Eichenberger.(http://www.rodneyeichenberger.com/) He has taught doctoral students at the University of Washington, University of Southern California, and Florida State University. His past students include great conductors like; Dale Warland, Dr. Richard Sparks, Dr. Gregory Vancil, Dr. Lawrence Kaptein, Dr. Jo-Michael Scheibe, Dr. Jerry Blackstone, Dr. David Dickau, and many more. Knowing who Eichenberger was, I wanted to introduce myself, but he was surrounded by dozens of people, and by the time the crowd left he was leaving with his colleagues. So I never got to meet Eichenberger and tell him about all the stories or choral lessons I had learned from his former student Dr. Greg Vancil. I do hope I get the chance to meet him again at another convention.
Another experience I had during the convention was when Matt and I were in the Conducting Workshop with Dr. Aplestadt. The piece we worked on during the workshop was If Ye Love Me by Thomas Tallis. Now other than Matt and myself, there were 25 other college students (all undergrads) and about 5 teachers (these ones were sitting in to sing). Much to my surprise when Dr. Aplestadt asked "how many of you have sung this piece or know this piece?", I was the only person in the room to raise my hand (other than the teachers), not one of the other undergrads had sung it, and some did not know anything about this choral standard. At that point I was thinking, why aren't these students learning about the standards of choral literature, from Renaissance to 20th century. I mean I know that I study choral literature in my spare time (which makes me a choral geek), but these students were 1-2 years ahead of me in school and finished with music history, but some didn't know that Thomas Tallis was a Renaissance composer. So I thought to myself, why don't public colleges sing more sacred pieces. A great example of a few schools that sing more sacred pieces would be; University of Washington and Pacific Lutheran University. At WWU I believe the program focuses more on 20th century and 21st century choral music, since you will hear classical and baroque pieces only in 1 quarter per year. But, then again not all choral students grew up singing in church choirs like I did. I just wish that more choral students are exposed to the standards of choral music like I have, because they are great pieces and they are the backbone of Choral Literature.

Other than that, I loved the convention and all the choirs that performed were great! I cannot wait for next years 2009 Oklahoma City ACDA National Convention.

High School Tenors

On friday (Feb 8th) I got to c0-help lead a sectional rehearsal for High School tenors, who came to the school for a Men's choir festival. About 7 schools from across the state had their men's choirs show up to the festival. At the beginning of the rehearsal I noticed alot of the boys were standing with their hands in their pockets or wearing the sweater hoods. So as a choir member I asked those boys to take off their hoods and take their hands out of their pockets. Now after doing so in a polite way I still had to remind a few boys. Then I noticed that the few boys that I was asking to "stand in a proper singing posture" had an attitude look about their faces for the first 25 minutes of out 50 minute rehearsal.

We were working on Loch Lomond (arr. Ralph Vaughn Williams), then when we finished running the piece 3 times after all the corrections of vowels and unified english pronunciation. So we took a break and the boys sat down for about 3 minutes. During the 3 minutes I wanted to explain the background to the next song we were singing Rise-Up, which is a spiritual. So I was informing them of our pronunciation for the words; lord (lawd), and rise (roz).

After the breif break I had the group stand up and get some energy for the Rise up song. At this point I had them all do some "jump up downs" which is a great energy booster ( and you can play redlight-greenligh with it). Then we crouched down to the floor then jump as high as we could off of the ground 3 times, then the boys were ready to go to work on the song. This made great differences in their sound from Loch Lomond to Rise Up. During the second song all the guys had a great amount of energy and were smiling and asking great questions.

At the end of the 50 minute rehearsal we were not quite done with the piece and the boys were about to go to lunch, so I asked them if they would be willing to stay a few minutes longer to run the piece all the way through again, and all of them were really excited to stay and finish our work. I could see how proud they were about their rehearsal and their hard work. I think that even though it seemed to them as if I was playing the "mean guy" at the beginning, I am glad they realized I am a "good guy" and I was only trying to help their singing. After all of this the boys went off to lunch, and later I got to sit and chat with most of them during the lunch break, and they all were saying great things about the rehearsal.

Now I can understand how some teachers have to start out "stern" in rules and then lighten up alittle more, that way the students dont take advantage of the teachers or show disrespect. The rehearsal time with the boys was so much fun I wish that I could rehearse a Tenor section every day. I am now even more excited for my student teaching time.