2025 SC ACDA Fall Conference
Interest Sessions
New Music Reading Session
Ryan Main
Join us for a dynamic New Music Reading Session, where we will explore exciting new compositions across a variety of styles and voicings from Endeavor Music Publishing, one of the fastest-growing sheet music publishers.
Assessment In the Choral Classroom (expanding your assessment bag of tricks)
Sarah High
In this session attendees will learn about informal and formal assessment; low, medium, and high-stakes assessment in a choral classroom, and some creative ways to use these to measure students formally and informally.
From the Ground Up!: Body Mapping for Free, Healthy Singing!
Deidre Welborn
In this dynamic and interactive session, participants will explore the core principles of Body Mapping and discover their transformative impact on vocal performance. By gaining a clearer understanding of how the body is designed to move and function, music educators, choral directors, and vocal leaders will acquire practical strategies to help their singers perform with greater ease, freedom, and expressive potential. Applicable to any musical setting—classroom instruction, choral rehearsal, worship leadership, or private voice studio—Body Mapping enhances key elements of healthy singing, including body alignment and balance, breath management, tone production, and overall vocal wellness. Through hands-on activities and guided exploration, attendees will leave with actionable insights to support efficient, expressive, and sustainable singing in any vocal ensemble or learning environment.
Developing Tone in your Middle School Choral Program
Millie Shiflett
Have you ever watched a great middle school choir and thought "how do they get that sound?" In this session, we will discuss practical ways to build a healthy vibrant tone with your middle school singers while also navigating the voice change, and other common pedagogical issues that arise in working with the developmental voice. The goal of this session is to provide practical advice to adapt and fine tune exercises you're probably already using to maximize the sound quality of your choirs as soon as you go back into your classes on Monday!
Gold...in Your Own Backyard: The South Carolinian Roots of Negro Dialect in Concert Spirituals
Christopher Leysath
This session aims to uncover the intricacies associated with Negro dialect found in concert and vernacular Spirituals. Material will be drawn from settings of Spirituals for choral forces as well as solo, concert arrangements such as William Levi Dawson, Hall Johnson, Margaret Bonds, Uzee Brown, Richard Jackson, and other selected arrangers. The presenters will assess and demonstrate appropriate pronunciation of words and phonemes used in Negro Spirituals to encourage application and comfortability in performance/instruction in educational and religious spaces.
They Can and They Will: Musicianship Mindset in Action
Emily Bohl
Zoltán Kodály wrote “The characteristics of a good musician can be summarized as follows: 1. A well-trained ear. 2. A well-trained intelligence. 3. A well-trained heart. 4. A well-trained hand. All four must develop together, in constant equilibrium. As soon as one lags behind or rushes ahead, there is something wrong.” Musicianship can be a touchy subject in the ensemble rehearsal setting: our students are different ages and come from a variety of contexts, usually with differing ability levels. How can we improve their musicianship as individuals, while addressing the whole group and accomplishing necessary rehearsal goals? In this session, I will share engaging exercises and strategies for improving individual and corporate musicianship in the choral music context. This session will feature live demonstration by a cross-section of students from my high school choirs, as well as an opportunity for Q&A with these students about the role that purposeful Musicianship practices have played in their musical journey. The goal of this session is to shed light on the musicianship skills our students can gain through simple (and fun!) activities in the everyday rehearsal setting.
What's in a Program? Approaches to Meaningful Repertoire Selection for the Choral Ensemble
Andrew Huish
Have you ever found yourself scrambling to find that one last piece to round out your concert program? Or maybe you’ve finished a concert feeling like you’ve now used up all of the good pieces available and have no idea what to program for next semester? Perhaps you’ve chosen pieces that you think will work well for your singers, but have no idea how they fit together or in what order to program them? Come hear about the different aspects of choral programming—criteria for choosing good repertoire and where to find it, as well as considerations for constructing your concert program for maximum impact on student engagement and audience experience.
Choral Bluegrass: History, Repertoire, and Performance
Kevin Crowe
Choral Bluegrass: History, Repertoire, and Performance explores the intersection of American roots music and choral tradition, offering a vibrant spectrum of sound where Appalachian storytelling, folk harmonies, and bluegrass rhythms meet the structural beauty of choral performance. This session will trace the history of bluegrass and its evolution into the choral medium, highlighting how its raw, earthy textures and narrative traditions enrich and challenge traditional choral aesthetics. From sacred hymns and shape-note singing to contemporary bluegrass-inspired choral works, we’ll examine repertoire that bridges genres and generations. Special attention will be given to stylistic considerations in performance—vocal production, improvisation, instrumentation, and rhythmic inflection—to help choirs authentically engage with this uniquely American style. Attendees will leave with a deeper understanding of bluegrass’s cultural roots and practical tools for programming and performing bluegrass-infused repertoire.
Interest Sessions
New Music Reading Session
Ryan Main
Join us for a dynamic New Music Reading Session, where we will explore exciting new compositions across a variety of styles and voicings from Endeavor Music Publishing, one of the fastest-growing sheet music publishers.
Assessment In the Choral Classroom (expanding your assessment bag of tricks)
Sarah High
In this session attendees will learn about informal and formal assessment; low, medium, and high-stakes assessment in a choral classroom, and some creative ways to use these to measure students formally and informally.
From the Ground Up!: Body Mapping for Free, Healthy Singing!
Deidre Welborn
In this dynamic and interactive session, participants will explore the core principles of Body Mapping and discover their transformative impact on vocal performance. By gaining a clearer understanding of how the body is designed to move and function, music educators, choral directors, and vocal leaders will acquire practical strategies to help their singers perform with greater ease, freedom, and expressive potential. Applicable to any musical setting—classroom instruction, choral rehearsal, worship leadership, or private voice studio—Body Mapping enhances key elements of healthy singing, including body alignment and balance, breath management, tone production, and overall vocal wellness. Through hands-on activities and guided exploration, attendees will leave with actionable insights to support efficient, expressive, and sustainable singing in any vocal ensemble or learning environment.
Developing Tone in your Middle School Choral Program
Millie Shiflett
Have you ever watched a great middle school choir and thought "how do they get that sound?" In this session, we will discuss practical ways to build a healthy vibrant tone with your middle school singers while also navigating the voice change, and other common pedagogical issues that arise in working with the developmental voice. The goal of this session is to provide practical advice to adapt and fine tune exercises you're probably already using to maximize the sound quality of your choirs as soon as you go back into your classes on Monday!
Gold...in Your Own Backyard: The South Carolinian Roots of Negro Dialect in Concert Spirituals
Christopher Leysath
This session aims to uncover the intricacies associated with Negro dialect found in concert and vernacular Spirituals. Material will be drawn from settings of Spirituals for choral forces as well as solo, concert arrangements such as William Levi Dawson, Hall Johnson, Margaret Bonds, Uzee Brown, Richard Jackson, and other selected arrangers. The presenters will assess and demonstrate appropriate pronunciation of words and phonemes used in Negro Spirituals to encourage application and comfortability in performance/instruction in educational and religious spaces.
They Can and They Will: Musicianship Mindset in Action
Emily Bohl
Zoltán Kodály wrote “The characteristics of a good musician can be summarized as follows: 1. A well-trained ear. 2. A well-trained intelligence. 3. A well-trained heart. 4. A well-trained hand. All four must develop together, in constant equilibrium. As soon as one lags behind or rushes ahead, there is something wrong.” Musicianship can be a touchy subject in the ensemble rehearsal setting: our students are different ages and come from a variety of contexts, usually with differing ability levels. How can we improve their musicianship as individuals, while addressing the whole group and accomplishing necessary rehearsal goals? In this session, I will share engaging exercises and strategies for improving individual and corporate musicianship in the choral music context. This session will feature live demonstration by a cross-section of students from my high school choirs, as well as an opportunity for Q&A with these students about the role that purposeful Musicianship practices have played in their musical journey. The goal of this session is to shed light on the musicianship skills our students can gain through simple (and fun!) activities in the everyday rehearsal setting.
What's in a Program? Approaches to Meaningful Repertoire Selection for the Choral Ensemble
Andrew Huish
Have you ever found yourself scrambling to find that one last piece to round out your concert program? Or maybe you’ve finished a concert feeling like you’ve now used up all of the good pieces available and have no idea what to program for next semester? Perhaps you’ve chosen pieces that you think will work well for your singers, but have no idea how they fit together or in what order to program them? Come hear about the different aspects of choral programming—criteria for choosing good repertoire and where to find it, as well as considerations for constructing your concert program for maximum impact on student engagement and audience experience.
Choral Bluegrass: History, Repertoire, and Performance
Kevin Crowe
Choral Bluegrass: History, Repertoire, and Performance explores the intersection of American roots music and choral tradition, offering a vibrant spectrum of sound where Appalachian storytelling, folk harmonies, and bluegrass rhythms meet the structural beauty of choral performance. This session will trace the history of bluegrass and its evolution into the choral medium, highlighting how its raw, earthy textures and narrative traditions enrich and challenge traditional choral aesthetics. From sacred hymns and shape-note singing to contemporary bluegrass-inspired choral works, we’ll examine repertoire that bridges genres and generations. Special attention will be given to stylistic considerations in performance—vocal production, improvisation, instrumentation, and rhythmic inflection—to help choirs authentically engage with this uniquely American style. Attendees will leave with a deeper understanding of bluegrass’s cultural roots and practical tools for programming and performing bluegrass-infused repertoire.
