Voice 46.1 - Fall/Winter 2022

Voice THE

Changing the Trajectory with Arreon Harley-Emerson To Repair Project Honor Roll

Making the First Administrative Hire

Vo l u m e 4 6 N u m b e r 1 Fa l l / Wi n t e r 2 0 2 2

The Brazeal Dennard Chorale Celebrates 50 years For half a century, Detroit’s own Brazeal Dennard Chorale has been committed to Remembering, Preserving and Discovering the music of African American composers and artists. Nationally known for its expressive renditions of African American music in the choral tradition, the Brazeal Dennard Chorale is one of the oldest organizations of its kind in America.

The Brazeal Dennard Chorale continues to maintain a value system that fosters bridge-building, innovation, collaboration, community, inclusivity and excellence. Through performances, commissions of new choral works and arrangements by African American composers, as well as recordings and engaging with communities across America, the Brazeal Dennard Chorale is continuing the tradition of African Americans who sang unaccompanied melodies which told of the pains of slavery, the yearning for freedom, and the hope of God’s salvation. Recently, the organization participated in a commission consortium through Chorus America.

The work is in memory of the Honorable John R. Lewis and is entitled “Make Some Noise, Get in Trouble (Good Trouble, Necessary Trouble)” composed by Roland M. Carter. The work was premiered by the Brazeal Dennard Chorale in April of 2022.

The Brazeal Dennard Chorale 269 Walker St. #905 Detroit, Michigan 48207 Brazealdennard51@gmail.com brazealdennard.com

Voice T he

Editor Liza W. Beth

Publisher Catherine Dehoney Art Direction DLG Design, Inc. The Voice is published by Chorus America, Washington, DC. Copyright ©2022

by Chorus America. All rights reserved.

ISSN 1074-0805. Reproduction or translation of any work herein without the express permission of Chorus America is unlawful.

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contents F E A T URES

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Filling Gaps and Fulfilling Dreams:

Making Your First

Administrative Hire

Subscriptions available through membership in Chorus America.

———— Advertising For information on advertising contracts, rates, and specifications, please contact Mike Rowan at mike@chorusamerica.org or 202.331.7577 x251.

———— Editorial The Voice welcomes your letters, commentary, photos, and article submissions by email.

Send to voice@chorusamerica.org or Editor, The Voice, address below.

———— President & CEO Catherine Dehoney Vice President of Communications and Membership Liza W. Beth

columns 3

From the President & CEO

Inspiring Gatherings and Expanding Partnerships

by Catherine Dehoney

D E P A R T ME N T S 4

Chorus Connections Member News, Events, & Announcements

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Journey with To Repair Project Continues

Executive Assistant Anthony Khong

10

Director of Member Services and Programs Christie McKinney

First Partnership Grant Projects Begin

21

Insights

Information and Digital Asset Manager Casey Cook Director of Finance and Operations Anne Grobstich Erps

Associate Director of Development KellyAnn Nelson Associate Director of Communications Mike Rowan Director of Grants Kim Theodore Sidey Membership and Grants Associate Vale Southard Communications Associate Eduardo Coyotzi Zarate

Changing the Trajectory: An Interview with Arreon Harley-Emerson

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2022 Honor Roll of Contributors Ad Index Board of Directors

2023

Chorus AmericA Conference San Francisco, CA May 31– June 2 LS DETAI On k Bac r! e COv ©uschools/istock photo

Programs and Membership Manager Karyn Castro

C h o r u s A m e r i ca

This publication is supported with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Chorus America 1200 18TH STREET NW, SUITE 1250 Washington, DC 20036 202.331.7577 Fax 202.331.7599 www.chorusamerica.org

On the Cover: 21V, a professional ensemble of soprano and alto voices of all gender identities, performed its inaugural concert Beyond Binary in San Francisco’s Taube Atrium Theater.

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Sing PASSION BELONGING ADVENTURE with BCI ANNOUNCING OUR 2023 SEASON

Lenox MAY 24-28

Blacksburg– Virginia Tech JULY 9-16

Seattle JUNE 18-25

Florence

JULY 30-AUGUST 6

Berkshire Choral International expands the horizons of singers through participation in exhilarating performances, enriching travel and cultural exploration, lifelong music education, and connection to an inspiring community of choral artists.

berkshirechoral.org

from the president & ceo

Inspiring Gatherings and Expanding Partnerships Returning to travel brings opportunities for building relationships—including one that has led to a partnership and a new program.

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s the pandemic has eased, it’s been exciting to return to traveling and meeting with Chorus America’s members and friends, as well as colleagues from peer organizations. The trips have done far more than feed my extrovert soul; they’ve been opportunities for rich discussions on rebuilding and expanding choral music audiences, leveraging the performing arts to help strengthen our democracy, and becoming better allies to communities marginalized by race. Most of these trips also included attending inspiring performances that expanded my awareness and understanding of critical societal issues and introduced me to fascinating BIPOC artists. I have been moved and heartened to witness commitment to meaningful action towards creating a more equitable, accessible, and inclusive performing arts ecosystem.

One of my first events when I began venturing out into the world for Chorus America this spring was the Bent, But Not Broken conference at the Choir School of Delaware. The goal of this extraordinary gathering was to amplify the contributions and accomplishments of Black composers and musicians, and I believe it far surpassed this goal. It was a profound experience, and I came away with a deeper understanding of the work and perspectives of these artists and of what it means for the choral field to become truly inclusive.

The conference organizers created a welcoming and brave space for discussion and learning. Renowned Black choral artists, educators, and scholars shared research and insights on the contributions of Black composers, the meaning and authentic presentation of gospel and spirituals, and leading inspiring choral concerts. From that important foundation came invaluable opportunities for dialogue about the inclusion of Black artists and the music of the Black diaspora more broadly from the classroom to the stage—and please, not only as the “closer”! Concerts brought these learnings

Lasting and widespread change in the choral field requires inclusive practices throughout our ecosystem— including in the administration of our organizations.

to life, including performances

by EXIGENCE, the Choir School, St. Thomas Gospel Choir, the American Spiritual Ensemble, and a powerhouse Honor Choir led by Alysia Lee and Maria Ellis.

Along with my friend Robyn Hilger, executive director of ACDA, I was honored to participate in a conversation session with attendees about how Chorus America and ACDA can help propel lasting and widespread change for a more inclusive choral field. And as a life-long singer, I was thrilled to have an opportunity to be part of the “Immersion Gospel Choir,” led by the inimitable Dr. Brandon Waddles. Being part of learning and singing this music I’ve long admired, surrounded by experienced Gospel singers, had me walking on air for hours afterward.

An even longer lasting outcome than my post-singing buzz has been getting to know Arreon Harley-Emerson, the director of the Choir School of Delaware and the founder of the Bent, But Not Broken conference. This outcome has a tangible impact for Chorus America and our members as well: We are thrilled that Arreon is now partnering with us to develop the Choral Executive Leadership Academy. This new program is designed to create executive career pathways for early-to-mid career choral leaders who identify as Black, Indigenous, or people of color.

Arreon is a leading voice in the work towards equity, diversity, and inclusion, not just in the choral field, but in arts and culture more broadly. I hope you’ll check out his interview with our director of programs and member services Christie McKinney (p. 21) to learn more about his career trajectory and the Leadership Academy.

In this interview, Arreon makes the case that lasting and widespread change in the choral field requires inclusive practices throughout our ecosystem—including in the administration of our organizations. I couldn’t agree more. It’s clear from our work that choruses know diverse leaders bring the diverse perspectives and experiences that are needed to serve communities more broadly and better. It’s also clear that BIPOC leaders and staff are still significantly underrepresented at most choral organizations in our membership. Chorus America’s “sweet spot” has always been our focus on chorus management, and I am excited to bring this expertise to our partnership with Arreon and our shared goal of changing this trajectory.

The Choral Executive Leadership Academy will launch in summer 2023, featuring a learning cohort meeting both in-person and online, mentorships, and a personal professional development plan for each attendee. It’s a privilege to be working with leaders like Arreon—and all of you—to more deeply embed ADEI into the choral field.

Catherine Dehoney President & CEO, Chorus America www.chorusamerica.org

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Premieres

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n September 15, Lorelei Ensemble (pictured below) and the Nashville Symphony presented the world premiere of Her Story by Julia Wolfe, co-commissioned by the Nashville Symphony, Chicago Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Boston Symphony, and National Symphony Orchestras. Her Story is a 30-minute immersive and visual performance that incorporates words of historical figures and key moments in history to pay tribute to women’s fight for equality in America and the ongoing struggle for equal rights.

The Crossing (pictured right) premiered A Cluster of Instincts by George Lewis on September 17 at their season-opening performance, Walking the Farm: A Progressive Concert. The

©Kevin Vondrak

M e m b e r

work draws from Mei-mei Berssenbrugge’s poem, “Fog,” and the performance incorporated a progressive dinner model that allowed the audience to sample local beer, wine, and food while exploring the venue, Kings Oaks Farm. u

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You may also post your concert and auditions announcements at bit.ly/ChorusAmericacalendar.

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The Voice, Fall/Winter 2022

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Multi-Year Journey With To Repair Project Continues With ACDA Presentation, Expanded Documentary

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fter giving the April world premiere of To Repair, a multi-movement work commissioned from Tesfa Wondemagegnehu, the University of Michigan Men’s Glee Club (UMMGC) has been invited to present the work and discuss the larger ongoing journey that the piece represents at the 2023 American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) National Conference in Cincinnati.

As a result, the glee club is now expanding its plan for a full-length documentary, already in progress, which will chronicle the group’s experience with the project and illuminate the broader context of To Repair. The documentary’s timeline will extend at least through the ACDA National presentation in February, with an increased focus on the project’s lasting impact on the individuals who will be engaging with it for over a year by spring 2023.

To Repair is a musical reflection from Wondemagegnehu on what is required to bring repair to Black communities in America. To seek his answer to this question, Wondemagegnehu embarked on a 60-day pilgrimage to over 40 U.S. cities in the summer of 2021, visiting Black historical sites and neighborhoods, and talking to community leaders, activists, and everyday residents. Their stories became the musical material of To Repair.

UMMGC began laying groundwork early to prepare for such a major undertaking and work around scheduling hurdles. As the plans for the commission were still taking shape, UMMGC conductor Mark Stover started to hint to student leadership that something big was coming. Then in the fall of 2021, while away for a planned absence, Stover was able to share some thematic details about the project, though the musical material was still being developed by Wondemagegnehu. The students identified initial steps they could take to deepen their engagement even before they had a full understanding of what the final musical work would look like.

During his February residency, Tesfa Wondemagegnehu facilitates conversation about his composition To Repair with students of the University of Michigan Men’s Glee Club.

“We knew no matter what this work was going to look like, we were still able to establish a framework,” says Jeremy VandenHout, UMMGC’s DEI chair for the 2021–22 academic year. This approach meant not making too many specific moves that were based on assumptions about a composition that was still being written, VandenHout explains.

“We knew that we would have to educate clubbers.

So what’s the best way to communicate and inspire?

Not specific resources—but do we want to give them videos? Do we want to bring in speakers?”

This planning led the club to establish a practice the group called “music reflections.” Once they started learning the piece, members had the opportunity to share with the full group how the music related to their own personal journey. The club also wanted to collaborate with a community organization as part of the project, leading to a partnership with Urban Neighborhood Initiatives, which provides opportunities for youth development, education, and land and economic development in Southwest Detroit.

A central part of the experience was Wondemagegnehu’s four-day residency in February 2022 to rehearse the work and vividly bring to life the impact of his 60-day journey for the glee club. “Tesfa is his own brand,” says VandenHout. “He has such a gift for bringing us into that story and making us feel like we were there as a part of his journey.”

Reilly Buckley, UMMGC’s 2021-22 assistant publicity manager, recalls that the media efforts for To Repair began as a series of smaller projects to promote the performance and generate some social media content—beginning with capturing the residency—and kept expanding as his team collected so much inspiring footage. “We will not be doing the whole project justice if we just reduce these to social media promos,” recalls Buckley. After the premiere, the plan was to finish a full cut in the summer of 2022, consisting of 50 minutes of storytelling followed by a full concert performance of the piece—but with the ACDA invitation, the project will evolve once more.

Through the entire process of composing and rehearsing the work, Wondemagegnehu has consistently emphasized that the message is empty if it does not culminate in action beyond the concert hall. “This music is just a vessel,” he says. “Community is only possible if we sit down with each other and truly listen, and do it over and over and over again.”

Read the full article online for more on To Repair: bit.ly/CA-ToRepair. More of Wondemagegnehu’s journey can also be found on the To Repair Facebook page at bit.ly/FB-ToRepair.

The University of Michigan Men’s Glee Club at their April 9 performance of To Repair at Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Mike Rowan is associate director of communications at Chorus America. Now based in Detroit, Rowan is also an alumnus of the University of Michigan Men’s Glee Club where he sang from 2004–08.

www.chorusamerica.org

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chorus connections The newly formed Arizona Women’s Chorus premiered Mark Haye’s work, As We Sing We Live in May. The composition speaks to the importance of singing and finding rest, peace, and inspiration amid challenge.

The Dessoff Choirs presented the North American premiere of works by the first known published Black composer,

Vicente Lusitano (1520-1561) on November 5. The Portuguese composer and theorist’s motets and madrigals helped launch The Dessoff Choirs’ 2022–23 season.

Ember Choral Arts premiered Voices of the Holocaust by Michael Shapiro on November 9. The oratorio based on Sephardic poetry of the Holocaust remembers and uplifts the voices of those murdered by Nazis and their collaborators. n

Awards

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Mid-Year Professional Development Day

he American Prize announced its 2022 national winners, and Chorus America members received recognition in various categories. Among the winners in choral performance were the Jacksonville Children’s Chorus, which received an award in the youth/school division, the Los Angeles Master Chorale, which received an award in the professional division, and Canterbury Voices from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, which received an award in the community division. Pacific Chorale from Orange County, California received first-place honors in the virtual performance category, and John Muehleisen and Josh Fishbein were named co-winners in the composition for social justice category.

On November 4, Roland M. Carter (pictured right) was honored at a street dedication ceremony at University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC), where Carter is a professor emeritus. UTC named a street on its campus to pay tribute to Carter, a former Chorus America board member.

An online event for Chorus America members

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Stay tuned for more details

The Voice, Fall/Winter 2022

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Wednesday, March 15 12–5pm EST

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he Brooklyn Youth Chorus participated in the send-off celebration for Little Amal, a 12-foot-tall puppet of a 10-year-old Syrian refugee girl who visited New York City from September 14–October 2. Little Amal has traveled over 9,000 km and visited 12 countries raising awareness for migrants and refugees.

Jake Runestad’s Earth Symphony received a Rocky Mountain EMMY Award for Musical Composition/Arrangement. The award-winning performance, recorded and produced by Arizona PBS, was given by True Concord Voices and Orchestra. n

Releases

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n September 27, The Thirteen released Scott Ordway’s The Outer Edge of Youth. The choral opera shares the story of two boys on the cusp of maturity who discover they can understand the birds in a magical forest.

The new work was commissioned by The Thirteen and premiered in May 2022.

The Crossing released John Luther Adams’ Sila: The Breath of the World on September 23.

The recording came together in partnership with JACK Quartet and musicians from the University of Michigan. u

T

he 12th annual World Singing Day global sing-along was held on October 14. Singers of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds from Boulder, Colorado (pictured) to Brighton, England and beyond came together to sing with their communities. Singers also joined WSD’s virtual choir to sing the 2022 WSD Song of the Year “Sing With Me,” sung to the tune of Dona Nobis Pacem (Grant Us Peace). Next year’s World Singing Day celebration will be held on October 21, 2023.

EXCELLENCE CURIOSITY COMMUNITY

graduate choral & orchestral conducting program co-directors James Bagwell and Leon Botstein All students receive ample podium time working with community, collegiate, and professional ensembles including: Bard Conservatory Orchestra Bard College Community Orchestra Bard Chamber Singers

Bard Conductor’s Chorale Bard Symphonic Chorus Conductor’s Ensemble

The mission of the Bard Conservatory is to provide the best possible preparation for a person dedicated to a life immersed in the creation and performance of music.

845-752-2409 bard.edu/conservatory conservatoryadmission@bard.edu Photo by Chris Kayden

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chorus connections In Memoriam

J

ames H. Litton, a former director of the American Boychoir, passed away on November 1 at the age of 87.

Litton’s career in the choral field spanned over 60 years including 16 years as music director at the American Boychoir School from 1985–2001, where he was also named music director emeritus following his retirement. Chorus America board chair Anton Armstrong, a Boychoir School student in 1970 when Litton stepped in temporarily, shared, “Jim won the respect and hearts of all of us who had the honor to be led by him. For over 50 years he has been a teacher, mentor, colleague, and friend.”

Cappella Romana released Heaven on Earth on October 14. The release features the world premiere of Heaven and Earth: A Song of Creation, which Cappella Records describes as a weaving of “Renaissance counterpoint, Slavic harmony, Georgian polyphony, and more around a central Byzantine melodic line.”

The Drive to Sing, a documentary film that tells the story of the “driveway choir” phenom-

enon that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic, premiered at the Bedford International Film Festival on July 3. Early in the pandemic, musicians Bryce and Kathryn Denney experimented with using car stereos to sing together safely from their driveway and began convening larger groups across the region to keep singing communities connected. The film has since been a part of multiple international film festivals. n

Appointments and Retirements

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he Seattle Girls Choir (SGC) welcomed Sarra Sharif Doyle (pictured) into the role of artistic director. An alumna of SGC, Doyle has taught in public educational settings for over a decade.

Northwest Girlchoir appointed Karen Bruno (pictured) as its new artistic director.

Prior to joining NWGC, she spent 25 years in Appleton, Wisconsin as the artistic director of the Lawrence Community Girl Choir Program and director of the Community Music School at Lawrence University’s Conservatory of Music.

The Commonwealth Chorale in Massachusetts announced the appointment of

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The Voice, Fall/Winter 2022

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States + DC

30+

Ensembles

1300+ Singers (55+)

©Kyle Picha Photography

Michael Driscoll (pictured) as its artistic director. Previously serving as the music director of the Andover Choral Society and the Boston Saengerfest Men’s Chorus, Driscoll assumed the position with the 2022–23 season, following the retirement of David Carrier (pictured). Carrier stepped down after 43 years leading the Chorale.

Ayanna Woods (pictured) was appointed as resident composer

by The Crossing. The Philadelphia choir will premiere a new choral work by Woods during its 2023–24 season.

Los Angeles Children’s Chorus shared the news of Lee Taylor (pictured) as its director of development.

Chor Leoni Men’s Choir based in Vancouver, British Columbia welcomed Carrie Taylor (pictured) as its new educational coordinator.

Taylor is also the conductor of the MYVoice program, coordinator for the B.C. Provincial Honour Choir, and one of the directors of Vivo Children’s Choir.

Key Chorale in Sarasota, Florida announced

the promotion of Zachery Stockman (pictured) to the role of production manager, Betsy Dane’s (pictured) appointment into the role of grant consultant, and the hiring of Kaela Coye (pictured) as education support/chorus librarian.

Corbin T. Pinto (pictured) was appointed in June by the Virginia Children’s Chorus as the second artistic director in the choir’s 30-year history. Pinto is also the director of Choral Activities for the Visual and Performing Arts Academy High School in Virginia Beach, Virginia, as well as an alumna of the chorus. Pinto’s appointment follows the retirement of the founder and now artistic director emeritus, Carol Thomas Downing (pictured).

Malcolm J. Merriweather (pictured) was announced as the director of The New York Philharmonic Chorus. Merriweather is also music director of The Dessoff Choirs, associate professor at Brooklyn College, and artistic director of Voices of Haiti. October 26 marked the chorus’s debut. u

Chicago Children’s Choir updated its name to Uniting Voices Chicago.

The evolution reflects its 65-year-long ongoing commitment to bringing voices together across the globe and is meant to better represent the organization’s mission.

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New School Year, New Opportunities: First Projects Funded by Partnership Grants Begin

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or many of us, the phrase “back to school” brings back memories of new classes, new friends, and singing in school choral music programs. Unfortunately, these opportunities are not available for all.

Chorus America’s Music Education Partnership Grants program was created in response to these inequities. This spring, the program distributed over $900,000 in grants to fund projects designed to increase access to choral music and promote non-arts learning and cultural literacy while upholding the principles of access, diversity, equity, and inclusion. Grants were awarded to support collaborations during the 2022-23 school year.

While all projects and partnerships vary in scope and design, they share common characteristics.

Every project demonstrates the following core values of the program: • Community Co-Creation. Students, parents, and school play a valuable role in co-creating music opportunities and collectively developing the artistic product.

• Fostering Cultural Exchange. Projects foster mutually beneficial and long-term relationships between communities to share cultural and musical traditions through singing.

• Working to Repair Damages Caused

by Historical and Systemic Racism.

All projects reflect a commitment to equity and seek to address the inequities in music education that have been perpetuated by a history of systemic racism.

Many of the funded projects embody these values by expanding or redefining types of musical opportunities available in the elementary general music class. At McAuliffe Elementary School in Oceanside, CA, all students will have access to vocal music for the first time through a partnership with Ka Hula O ‘Ilima, educators of Pacific Islander music, movement, and storytelling.

The Bi-National Arts Institute is prioritizing the music of migrants from around the globe and

10 The Voice, Fall/Winter 2022

preparing students on the Arizona-Mexico border in Naco, AZ, for A Concert Without Borders.

COMPAS in St. Paul, MN, is partnering with Nanilo, a women’s singing trio that specializes in music from the Balkan, Gujarati, Yiddish, and Eastern European traditions.

Singing can be a powerful form of expression for family connection. A multigenerational approach is present in many of our grant partners’ projects. The Arts & Revitalization Corporation in Bluefield, WV, is working with Mercer County schools to provide intergenerational singing opportunities for grandparents and other caregivers to sing with young people.

In Minneapolis, MN, VocalEssence is partnering with a school for pregnant and parenting students so that parents and their young children have opportunities to connect with their culture by singing together.

All projects demonstrate strong community involvement and collaboration with authentic culture bearers. In Vancouver, Indigenous leaders and youth mentors are facilitating a free music education program for newcomer and refugee students in partnership with the Vancouver Youth Choir. In Mesa, AZ, Desert Sounds Performing Arts is utilizing grant funds to provide vocal training in the mariachi style and participation in after-school mariachi ensembles.

And the Augusta Heritage Center in Elkins, WV, is implementing a year-long singing course to introduce students to Appalachian, Cuban, and Black Gospel culture bearers.

This is just a small glimpse into the full roster of impactful projects. We look forward to sharing more updates on how our partners are increasing access to choral music education within their communities. To learn more about the program’s core values, visit chorusamerica. org/music-ed-grants.

Kimberly Theodore Sidey is the director of grants at Chorus America. After launching the inaugural Music Education Partnership Grants program as music education grants program officer, Sidey now leads Chorus America’s work with foundation grants in this new role, in addition to overseeing our music education grant program.

Access, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Resources at ChorusAmerica.org

C

horus America has published a growing collection of ADEI resources on our website to help choral leaders build their understanding of ADEI and more deeply incorporate it into their singing ensembles.

Find in-house content and other recommended materials from partner organizations by visiting bit.ly/CA-ADEI. We will continue to update our ADEI Resources page and invite you to share resources with us by emailing voice@chorus america.org.

chorus connections Christin Sears (pictured) was announced as the choral conducting fellow for the Cincinnati May Festival’s 150th anniversary season in 2022– 2023. Sears served as a school choral director in the Houston area for 12 years and is currently a first-year doctoral student in choral conducting at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM).

Jen Rogers (pictured) was announced as the new executive director of the San Diego Master Chorale. Rogers previously served as the president and CEO of the Phoenix Chorale.

Buffalo Philharmonic Chorus appointed Madeline Harts (pictured) as executive director in July. Harts holds ten years of experience as a performing artist and prior to promotion, she held the role of associate director of development and administration.

New England Conservatory announced the hiring of Sara Stern (pictured) as chief communications officer, Richard Giarusso (pictured) as dean of academic affairs and Daniel Hart (pictured) as associate vice president for institutional advancement. n

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Filling Gaps and Fulfilling Dreams:

Making Your First Administrative Hire

The Alexandria Harmonizers took home a third place medal from the 2022 International Barbershop Harmony Society Convention last summer in Charlotte, North Carolina.

12 The Voice, Fall/Winter 2022

Hiring an administrator is one of the most significant steps volunteer-run choruses can take to support their organization’s growth and development. During the height of the pandemic, most organizations were too busy staying afloat to make that kind of move, but recently a number of choruses have decided they are ready for the plunge. The five organizations represented in this story are facing today’s hiring challenges by relying on strategies that evidence an increasing willingness to think big.

BY DON LEE

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s a longtime leader in the choral field, Jen Rogers has observed first hires from multiple perspectives. After 13 years with the Phoenix Chorale, more than five of them as CEO, she launched her firm Sound Management Consulting in 2021.

She feels fortunate to have worked since then with a broad cross-section of choruses considering or actively seeking new administrative leadership. But she is well aware that their task can be challenging.

Budgets are typically limited, and workplace demands are seemingly endless. The person you hire, whatever the role, will “have to be able to do a lot of things. We’re always looking for this unicorn person,” she says. “The need is really great.” Rogers herself has just filled one of those needs.

This November, she joined the San Diego Master Chorale (SDMC) as its first fulltime executive director.

Deciding It’s Time to Hire For reasons that are easy to understand, the decision to hire an administrative leader or support person is often a reactive one for volunteer-run organizations feeling

the pressure of maintaining operations.

Inevitably, volunteers move on, sometimes with little notice, and sometimes because the workload has burned them out. Dealing with turnover can be a constant challenge.

At Angel City Chorale in Los Angeles, executive director Winifred Neisser quickly learned why she’d been hired. “There were people who were doing essential jobs, and nobody was overseeing them,” she says.

But the decision to hire administrative help is also a strategic one. Angel City began to think bigger about the organization in 2018 after getting national TV exposure on America’s Got Talent. The board sensed potential for the chorus to grow, but to do that “it became clear to us that we needed more of an infrastructure,” Neisser says.

“There was nobody looking at the fact that maybe we were spending money that we

didn’t need to spend, or maybe things weren’t being done in the most efficient way.”

Right from the time he founded his Bay Area treble ensemble 21V in 2021, Martín Benvenuto (pictured) planned to hire an artistic administrator to help him with daily operations and establish structure for his new enterprise.

The move was important not only to allow him to focus on the music-making, but also to signal his ambitions to his professional singers and to potential supporters. “Obviously there’s a lot of volunteerism that is involved in any of these endeavors,” he says, “but having some structure from the get-go I think helped portray us as serious.”

For nearly three quarters of a century, the Alexandria (Virginia) Harmonizers hewed to the traditional, fraternal model for chapters of the Barbershop Harmony Society, but in the past few years, board member and volunteer executive director Randall Eliason says the Harmonizers have been aiming to transition to an “outward-looking community choral organization,” one that would involve multiple singing groups.

“Anyone who comes to the door who wants to sing, we’re going to have a place for them,” he says. To move toward that goal, the chorus adopted a strategic plan in 2018, and one of its goals was to hire its first paid staff. General manager Susan Fitzpatrick came on board this past spring.

A culture shift in the SDMC board about five years ago led to Jen Rogers’s hiring. Some new board members, including current president Julie Ann Sih, felt the organization should move away from the “shoestring budget model” that was then in place. u

“The good news and the bad news about being the first one is that you have to invent or re-invent systems.

It is exciting, but it is also time-consuming and terrifying.”

–Winifred Neisser

www.chorusamerica.org 13

©Gary Payne

The San Diego Master Chorale performs during “The Best of Times: Meghan Hilty Sings Jerry Herman,” a July 2022 performance with the San Diego Symphony Orchestra, Broadway star Meghan Hilty, and guests.

Making Your First Administrative Hire Their thinking was guided by the analysis of a nonprofit consultant, which concluded that one of the chorus’s primary challenges, retaining active members of its working board, stemmed from a previous board’s decision to eliminate a half-time executive director position and divvy up that work among board members. “It’s difficult to recruit people to serve on a working board with no admin support if they don’t already know and love you,” she says. The consultant’s proposed solution? Invest in a professional executive director. Jen Rogers took over November 1 from Sih, who had been serving in that role as a volunteer.

Finding the Means At the time it adopted its strategic plan, the Alexandria Harmonizers board started setting aside enough money to cover the general manager’s salary for the first year.

At that point, they intended that the position would be “completely self-funding, or at least would become close to selffunding,” Eliason says. The Youth Chorale

14 The Voice, Fall/Winter 2022

of Central Minnesota (YCCM) used a similar strategy, says artistic director Garrett Lathe. He notes that there was “a good amount of funding” in place to cover executive director Robyn Hennen’s salary when she started in June, and the job description stipulates that she will lead at least two fundraising campaigns each year.

To determine an appropriate salary level, Lathe says YCCM consulted Chorus America surveys and looked at comparable positions posted by Minnesota nonprofits and other online resources.

In the current job market, Sih feels it’s important to show “you’re willing to pay somebody for the level of experience you’re asking for.” Coming out of the pandemic, the SDMC had enough reserves on hand to

get through the new E.D.’s first four to six months, but Sih says they wanted to extend the timeline to three years. The board contracted with a professional grant writer, whose pitch to a local foundation yielded $50,000—less than requested, but Sih says an individual donor stepped up with a matching grant that took them to their goal.

A chorus such as 21V can only dream of the donor base the SDMC has built in its nearly 60-year history. “Many funding sources are not available to new organizations,” Benvenuto says. But in his fundraising conversations, he has learned plans to hire staff can be a selling point. It sends the message that the chorus is serious about sustainability, “putting the organization in a better place to pursue grants.”

“The important thing is to find somebody with the soft skills, because hard skills are trainable.

Learning QuickBooks is much easier than learning how to deal with difficult parents.”

–Garrett Lathe

Defining the Job No matter how much money you have set aside for that first hire, it will never be enough to pay someone to take care of every administrative need you’ve identified.

So designing the position and deciding on a title become a matter of meeting as many needs as you can within the parameters of your budget. Broadly speaking, options range from clerical support to operations management to executive leadership.

Benvenuto and a consultant he hired to help launch 21V started by describing the support they wanted most and considered several titles to capture it, including administrative assistant. Eventually they settled on artistic administrator. It felt like the right choice for a professional group, says Benvenuto, “because a lot of it had to do with managing singer contracts and documentation, venues, and production logistics.”

The job posting did not require a constant presence on site, and as a result, Benvenuto heard from several remote applicants. The person hired, Jungmee Kim, lives in Milan, Italy, and will make biannual visits to the Bay Area, ideally around the group’s concerts, Benvenuto says.

The Harmonizers’ new general manager is focusing on communications, marketing, and development, while Eliason will remain the organization’s volunteer executive director. Creating a mid-level position may not be your chorus’s ideal, but it can be a sensible compromise. “It’s a great way to bring somebody in,” says Rogers, “a way for them to grow into being an executive director.”

At the same time, Rogers advises choruses not to lose sight of their long-term vision.

While she understands that even basic admin help can provide welcome relief, it’s often a reactive move—a response to where the organization is at this moment. Instead of focusing on “what it is you’re trying to offload,” she argues, “build a position based on where you’d like to be. Look at your assets and resources and try to project where you’d like the organization to be in the future.” From previous experience, Lathe concluded that a position titled “business manager” was not enough for the YCCM. He feels an executive-level leader is essential for organizational development and fundraising and as a complement to the artistic director, someone who becomes “the face of the organization to the business community, to the arts community.” u

Long-term Planning for a Hire

E

ven if your chorus has only just begun talking about its first administrative hire, it’s not too soon to start taking action. Here are some steps you can—and, in several cases, should— take now to get ready for a move that may be a few years away.

the position you’ve created. Once you’ve strengthened your board, “you’re really poised to support that leadership position,” Rogers says, and you’ve helped to create “a good package,” one that strong candidates will find attractive.

Identify your greatest needs and biggest hopes

Very early on, you need an answer to the question, How are we going to pay for this new position? Your challenge is to “build a path to increasing revenue,” says Rogers. That path may lead ultimately to a position “that’s almost self-funding,” as Eliason puts it, where part of a new leader’s job is to generate the necessary additional income. But, as he acknowledges, “that’s not going to happen right away,” so the first steps—big ones—must aim toward enough revenue to cover the initial years of the new hire’s tenure. As described in the accompanying article, the San Diego Master Chorale had success finding grants and donor contributions to accomplish that goal. The Alexandria Harmonizers reached their target by budgeting for it three years out, “setting aside a portion of the salary money every year,” says Eliason.

Planning long-term gives you the time to take a hard look at where your chorus is now and also to dream about where you’d like it to be. The Alexandria Harmonizers began narrowing their job description early on, says Randall Eliason. He recommends homing in on your greatest weaknesses, the areas that cry out for professional help, as well as opportunities to “really step up your game,” he adds. Having just launched a brand-new chorus, Martín Benvenuto felt inclined to start with an “ideal scenario”: What would it be like to have all the help you want? “We artists are used to imagining and dreaming,” he says. “Taking the time to ideate generates conversations,” he has found.

Then, when it’s time to face the reality of the budget, “you match your dream with what is actually possible.”

Assess your board and strengthen it where necessary Is your leadership structure working?

Do you have effective committees?

Do current board members have the skills and experience necessary to support a new hire? Does your board meet regularly? Are term limits in place?

To help you answer questions like these, Jen Rogers recommends a board assessment, noting that resources to guide you are available from organizations such as BoardSource (formerly the National Center for Nonprofit Boards) and, adds Julie Ann Sih, Chorus America.

Sih observes that in some organizations, support for board development is lacking, but “it’s important, at minimum, to do your reading on the role of a nonprofit board and what the role of an executive director is supposed to be,” if that’s

Find the money

Seek help from outside your organization When she joined the board of Angel City Chorale, Winifred Neisser says her fellow members were all singers in the chorus. It was an “insular organization,” she says, and now, “when we need something done, we still have a tendency to look first to our members.” She finds that learning to look outside has been “a difficult cultural hurdle.” Neisser would no doubt agree with Lathe’s number-one recommendation: Choruses considering their first hire should “reach out to other organizations who’ve gone through the same process,” she says.

At 21V, Benvenuto notes that colleagues in the field have been a great help. “It’s not as though we’re inventing anything, we’re adapting templates to our specific needs and resources.”

www.chorusamerica.org 15

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Making Your First Administrative Hire Preparing to apply for the grant that will support its new executive director’s salary, the SDMC board learned aiming too low might be counterproductive. Asked to look for lessons from a similar, unsuccessful, grant application a previous board filed several years ago, a person familiar with the potential grantor said the request “should have been more ambitious,” according to Sih. Fearing it couldn’t afford an executive, the previous board scaled back the request, asking only enough to hire a development director. “The bigger ask would have actually looked more sustainable to the foundation. That was what we needed,” says Sih.

“Build a position based on where you'd like to be. Look at your assets and resources and try to project where you'd like the organization to be in the future.”

Learn more and apply: berkshirechoral.org/programs

– Jen Rogers

~ The Toilet Roll Music Reader ~

Once you build a position based on where you’d like to be, you may end up with a job description like Eliason’s. The Alexandria Harmonizers board “started off making a list of things we wanted the general manager to do and sent that around to a few people,” he says. It was a long list. “The universal reaction was, ‘This is more than a full-time position, and you’re advertising this as a half-time position, so you need to pare it back.’”

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16 The Voice, Fall/Winter 2022

Ian Bullen, President

Conducting the Search and Making the Hire Naturally, the realism you apply in designing and advertising the position needs to carry over into the selection process. “The pool of qualified, interested, and passionate candidates is probably pretty small,” Rogers cautions.

Lathe says the YCCM’s full-time E.D. opening this year attracted fewer applicants than the chorus received in two previous hires for a

part-time position. The low unemployment rate has made it harder for Angel City to hire for project jobs, Neisser has found. And it’s true all over, says Rogers. “It’s just really tough to find folks right now.”

You are unlikely to end up with a finalist for your opening who both resonates with your mission and possesses all of the experience you seek. “The important thing is to find somebody with the soft skills,” Lathe believes, “because hard skills are trainable.”

The YCCM’s new executive director does not have much financial background, but she has “a wealth of experience in constituent management,” he says. “Learning QuickBooks is much easier than learning how to deal with difficult parents.” The SDMC strategy involved assessing finalists’ strengths and lining them up against the chorus’s greatest needs, one of which Sih identifies as marketing leadership, especially developing and diversifying the SDMC audience.

Rogers also believes ADEI goals belong at the center of the hiring process, and that recruiting more diverse job candidates is particularly crucial. “It’s becoming more and more of a focus area,” she has noticed,

The Youth Chorale of Central Minnesota

but “I would say it’s not at the depth and breadth that we would all like for it to be.”

In all the recent hires represented in this story, choruses report that they included welcoming statements in their job postings.

In its notices, 21V described itself as “a

professional ensemble of soprano and alto voices of all gender identities that seeks to bring change in a traditionally non-inclusive industry. We particularly welcome those who bring the gifts of diversity to the organization,” says Benvenuto. The SDMC u

www.chorusamerica.org 17

Equitable Hiring Resources

F

or additional guidance on centering ADEI in your hiring practices, here is a list of resources that Chorus America staff refer to and have used to inform Chorus America’s hiring practices. If there are resources you have found helpful that are not listed, please send them to us at voice@chorusamerica.org.

Finding the Keys: Antiracist Approaches to Radical Recruitment in the Arts This online workshop from art and activism organization artEquity focuses on actionable steps to operationalize equity values in recruiting and hiring practices. https://www.artequity.org/finding-the-keys Nonprofit AF Blog Written by nonprofit leader, consultant, and blogger Vu Le, this blog covers topics like “Crappy hiring practices that need to die, and some new ones we need to adopt” with humor, insight, and an ADEI-centered approach. https://nonprofitaf.com Ten Ways to Improve Equity and Increase the Effectiveness of Your Hiring Process This article from online magazine Blue Avocado is a comprehensive introduction to equitable hiring at nonprofit organizations. https://blueavocado.org/hr-andemployment-issues/ten-ways-toimprove-equity-increase-theeffectiveness-of-your-hiring-process Inclusive Recruiting in the Arts This article from Advisory Board for the Arts covers the hiring process from defining the position through conducting interviews and links to many additional resources. https://www.advisoryboardarts.com/ inclusive-recruiting-in-the-arts Interviewing Best Practices for Inclusive Hiring This article from Arts Midwest suggests interviewing and decision-making practices that uncover hidden bias and provide equal access. https://www.artsmidwest.org/resources/ ideas-hub/interviewing-best-practicesinclusive-hiring

18 The Voice, Fall/Winter 2022

Angel City Chorale’s appearance on America’s Got Talent encouraged the organization to explore growth opportunities like hiring an executive director.

Making Your First Administrative Hire advertised for candidates who have the ability to make connections with one or more of San Diego’s multicultural communities, says Sih. Listing a salary range when you post a job, which Rogers flags as an important “best practice” to follow, also makes for a more equitable hiring process. Not only do candidates in general value this kind of organizational transparency, research shows that it promotes trust and reduces gender and racial wage gaps.

Among this group of choruses, progress toward ADEI goals was mixed. The Alexandria Harmonizers, whose board was once all-male, hired a woman as its general manager. Others reported challenges with outreach, like Lathe who found that in central Minnesota, “there just isn’t the infrastructure to try to recruit candidates from diverse backgrounds.” Rogers says she understands the challenges, but she believes ADEI must be near the top of the priority

list in the hiring process. “I’ve seen firsthand that it’s an initiative that is critical to keeping this music relevant,” she says.

Making the Transition Successful Fellow board members asked Winifred Neisser to step in as interim executive director of Angel City in 2018 and, after a competitive search, hired her a few months later. At the time, there was no real onboarding process at the previously all-volunteer organization. She could rely to some extent on organizational skills developed over nearly two decades as an executive in a major for-profit corporation, but to her, the first couple years still felt like “the choir was always moving, and I was running after it.”

“The good news and the bad news about being the first one is that you have to invent or re-invent systems,” she says, and early on she didn’t have much guidance.

“It is exciting, but it is also time-consuming and terrifying.” Four years after she began, the operation has gotten more efficient, she feels, thanks largely to a reorganized committee structure and support from board members with experience running nonprofits. No doubt, some of that success is also due to the commitment Neisser brings to the position. “This is not a job that you take just because you need a job,” she says. “It really has to be something that you are emotionally attached to it to make it work.”

But that level of attachment can also work against your transition. New leaders “laser focused on trying to achieve” may be reluctant to ask for the help they need, says Rogers. “It’s really hard to be in charge and have everybody look at you and want the answers, and for you to have to raise your hand and say, ‘I need support.’” Anticipating that need, Lathe says the YCCM has built a thorough orientation process, one that includes a tool that tracks mastery of hard and soft skills so its new E.D. can “see what they’re needing to accomplish, have a timeline, and be able to ask for help when it’s needed.” Eliason and general manager

“It’s difficult to recruit people to serve on a working board with no admin support if they don’t already know and love you.”

– Julie Ann Sih

Fitzpatrick touch base in a weekly call to discuss her immediate plans, he says, and attending rehearsals, performances, and other events has helped her become familiar with chorus history and culture.

To help manage the SDMC executive’s workload, Sih says the chorus’s directors will remain a working board—in the short run, at least—so volunteers will continue to provide administrative support. A move like that makes volunteers happy too, as far as Neisser is concerned. For a largely volunteer organization like Angel City to be successful, she believes “members have to feel like they own it.” That goes for

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professionals too, according to Benvenuto.

He says the singers in 21V have agreed to share responsibilities for the music library, setting up for rehearsals, editing program books, and more.

Because no hiring process is perfect, no orientation system has all the answers, and no candidate checks all the boxes, hiring always involves a leap of faith. Even with clear benchmarks in place, gauging a new hire’s effectiveness can be challenging, says Rogers, especially if that person is the only paid administrator. “I’m always encouraging organizations that you have to trust that they’re going to do the work,” she says. Nonprofit work is difficult, she adds, and it evolves over time. The answers seldom come quickly, especially for new hires with executive responsibility. Those lessons and others have taught her that “starting out with trust is really important.” n Don Lee is a media producer, editor, writer, and amateur choral singer who lives in St. Paul, Minnesota. At NPR in Washington DC, he was the executive producer of Performance Today.

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Save the Date!

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Connect and learn with colleagues through inspiring sessions, thoughtful conversations, vibrant performances, and more!

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Changing the Trajectory: An Interview with Arreon Harley-Emerson Conductor, administrative leader, and scholar Arreon Harley Emerson’s personal and professional development weaves together many different strands into a singular story. As the director of music and operations at the Choir School of Delaware, Harley-Emerson leads an organization with a legacy of serving Wilmington’s youth and families that dates back to 1883. As an equity coach and nonprofit strategist, he consults with arts and cultural organizations to center diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in their work.

H

arley-Emerson and his company Equity Sings are partnering with Chorus America to develop the Choral Executive Leadership Academy, a new program designed to create executive career pathways for early-to-mid career choral leaders who identify as Black, Indigenous, or people of color. In advance of launching program applications in January 2023, he spoke with Chorus America director of programs and member services Christie McKinney about evolving into an administrator, the inaugural Bent, But Not Broken conference hosted at the Choir School in April 2022, and how investing in leaders of color benefits the whole choral ecosystem.

Christie McKinney: Let’s start with your journey at the Choir School. I can’t believe you’ve been there since 2013—almost a decade! How has your role there evolved over time and what it’s like now?

CK:

“I have had many crises that have taught me a lot. Not every mentor is a person; sometimes a mentor is a crisis.

Learn from that crisis and take that pearl of wisdom.”

Arreon Harley-Emerson: I had done my masters in Delaware and then I was teaching in the school district of Philadelphia. I had a colleague and friend who sang at the Choir School as one of the adult members because the Choir School is an intergenerational ensemble. At that time, they were looking for a new artistic director and they were not really sure what was going to happen. The cathedral that the school was affiliated with [the Cathedral Church of Saint John] was closing and the organization was asking internally: What’s the next chapter for us?

I saw the posting but thought ‘Well, they’re looking for someone with a doctorate.’ So I didn’t even really consider it as an option. But this friend of mine said, ‘You are perfect for this job.

You love teaching in the inner city. You love working with Black and Brown populations. You should really apply.’ And so I sent my materials in and the rest was history.

AHE:

So you were hired as the artistic director. And now you are the director of music and operations. How did that evolution come about?

The staff was tiny—about two and a half people when I AHE: came. After about a year of being there, I was growing the program and just kind of living into that executive director role of attending meetings and representing the organization. The Choir School was an independent nonprofit before I came but, because of the structure of the church, it was more relaxed. It wasn’t really a fully developed and fully functioning nonprofit. So when I came in I said, ‘Okay, we need to set up some structures,’ and I spearheaded that. And the board said, ‘Well, you’re basically our executive director.’

But I didn’t want to go through with the executive director title because I still wanted to stay in touch with the music. I came in through that artistic side and that is what fuels me. Fortunately, the board members were okay with that, and they then began to build out the organizational infrastructure that would support me.

We’ve grown a lot—there are eight of us now at the Choir School, which is huge! We basically have two divisions of staff.

We’ve got our administrative arm of the organization: folks doing marketing and audience development and fundraising. I’m kind of both, as well as our deputy director. But then everyone else is on the social service side. We consider music to be part of the social service side because we feel that it is inherently a need.

Everyone needs to engage with music.

We’ve built out the structure such that folks are engaging with music, but they’re also doing social services, and are also parent advocates, and also do other sorts of trainings. We use something called the whole family approach, which acknowledges that social services have been fragmented. Our thought is that we don’t have to be the experts in every area, but we can be this community u CK:

www.chorusamerica.org 21

insights center that just so happens to sing, and we can connect you to all of these critical social services, including music.

I have to say, you strike me as a very natural administrator. But you didn’t necessarily start in that space at the Choir School. How did that evolution go for you?

I would say that the evolution is still AHE: in process! My philosophy for my own musical professional growth and my administrative professional growth comes from a voice teacher that I had in college.

Her name is Serafina Digiacomo, and she passed away within the last year.

She was about to retire and I was just distraught. And she said, ‘You know, Arreon, you have to go to different teachers. Because each teacher is going to give you a pearl, and it’s your job to find these different teachers, so that you have all of these pearls such that you have this necklace at the end of your journey.’ It was a beautiful way of talking about how we need to collect and seek out experiences that are going to be additive to who we are and the work that we do in the community and self-fulfillment.

I’ve had many people who have provided mentoring, many people who have provided lessons. I have had many crises that have taught me a lot. Not every mentor is a person; sometimes a mentor is a crisis.

Learn from that crisis and take that pearl of wisdom.

CK:

I love that pearl necklace analogy.

Those are the kinds of things from our mentors that we really remember.

Were there other kinds of support or things that you experienced in your career building process that were helpful to you along the way?

Yes, I attended lots of workshops, lots AHE: of conferences, and lots of training sessions. We have a fairly robust offering for nonprofit executives here in Delaware.

We also have a support system through the Delaware Division of the Arts, which is our state arts agency.

Quite frankly, I wish I had done more of that. I wish I would have had some intensive training on budget management and audience development very early on. I wish I knew more of the offerings that Chorus America had for choir administrators, and I think that I could have figured out things CK:

22 The Voice, Fall/Winter 2022

Harley-Emerson working with students at the Choir School of Delaware

more quickly had I known. Because with a training that’s specifically for choir administrators you’re going to get that nonprofit foundation that you need and you’re going to get the contextualization of how that works in an artistic community. It’s also automatically going to give you a network of folks who are already choral adjacent.

Beginning to develop and build that social capital is also important.

Now you’re doing your PhD work at Temple University. Can you talk a little bit about your focus and your research there, and how it is benefiting your professional development?

At Temple University they do not AHE: offer a DMA [Doctor of Musical Arts] degree. The philosophy is that we all come to this work of choral conducting as an educator, whether we are working with students or whether we are working with adults or professionals. We have a responsibility to continue the educational growth of the singers in our ensembles.

Inclusion and diversity are at the core of what I’m doing. Many of my classes are not even music related at this point. I’ve earned a couple of certificates in facilitation and HR management, leading with an ADEI perspective and diversity, leadership, and higher education. I’m really grateful for the opportunity to be able to learn from those non-musical content areas and bring that work over to what I’m doing. It has definitely informed my work here at the Choir School.

CK:

I will be done in the spring of 2025.

And I will be doing a triple study dissertation with three different studies. One is on creating and sustaining equitable choral communities. Another will be related to culturally relevant content being incorporated in teaching practices, particularly Music Learning Theory. How do we bring in relevant content, such as gospel and spirituals, and use that as a way to help singers develop and students develop as well? And then the final one is specifically on the professional development experiences of Black and Brown choral directors.

What is the “BIPOC burden,” as I like to call it? How do we begin to measure in a quantitative way the additional weight that rests on the shoulders of music educators and choral executives of color?

That’s a beautiful transition to my next question, which is about Bent, But Not Broken. This is a fantastic first of its kind gathering that amplified the musical contributions and accomplishments of Black and Brown choral artists. What were your goals for this event? What was it like watching them come to fruition?

It was so exciting and I can’t wait AHE: to do it again. I think about all the different strands of my work over the years, and it felt like everything was coming together in this one conference. I had never been at a conference where there was this amount of Black excellence in one place. It was really the honor of a lifetime.

CK:

The title, I think, says a lot. This is an idiomatic expression from the Black church where people talk about palm trees and how strong palm trees are. One part of Blackness is that resilience. When storms come, even though you’re being bent, you never actually break. One of the goals was to celebrate that resilience of the Black community. But it was also to show that this is just the beginning.

One of my colleagues says all the time that Bent, But Not Broken is not a conference—it’s a movement. It’s a new way of contextualizing Black art. It’s a way of expanding what we think of as the choral ecosystem as well. It was about having spaces where we could have uncomfortable conversations. There was intercultural dialogue and intracultural dialogue.

I also wanted to bring folks to Wilmington specifically. Wilmington was one of the original Brown vs. Board of Education co-plaintiffs. This is the same ground that Harriet Tubman ran through and stopped in Wilmington on countless trips on the Underground Railroad. This is the same place where Thomas Garrett was helping to assist folks on the Underground

“When we make investments in diversity, equity, inclusion, and access, we are not just investing in leaders of color.

We are investing in everyone.

We are all going to reap the dividends of this investment.”

Railroad. So there’s a lot of rich history here in Wilmington that has to do with the Black experience.

So version 2.0, you’ve got it coming up. How is it going to evolve?

We’re expanding the Honor Choir AHE: experience. I feel that there is not enough emphasis on conferences for youth.

We have the Honor Choir experience, but we don’t really have other educational opportunities for them.

So at Bent, But Not Broken, that was one thing that we wanted to address. Why can’t we have the Honor Choir experience, as CK:

well as pour into the students all this other great information that they need to have?

They have an amazing openness when they are having these real artistic mountaintop kind of moments and it’s a great opportunity. So we’ve developed a track for students, a real conference track for students who are also part of the Honor Choir.

You chair ACDA’s National Diversity Initiatives Committee, and I know you’ve been doing that for a while. Where do you see opportunities for Chorus America and ACDA to intersect on ADEI work?

With ACDA, we’re looking at the AHE: choral experience of what’s happening in the rehearsal room and performance space. What repertoire are we singing?

Who is singing that repertoire?

I think where Chorus America is leading is around questions like: What do our chorus administrators look like? What do our policies and practices look like? And that’s important work too. Both have to coexist in order for us to have a healthy and thriving ecosystem. Both are really, really, really important, because we have to leave no stone unturned. u CK:

www.chorusamerica.org 23

insights When it comes to inclusion, this is not a pivot like we spoke about during the pandemic. It’s a migration. A new way of doing things, a new way of existing and engaging that we’re called to. This time compels us and convicts us to do better.

Yes, absolutely. I feel like we are living into that in our partnership with you and your company Equity Sings on the Choral Executive Leadership Academy. The program design for the Leadership Academy has really drawn on your experiences running Leaders of Promise, a program for nonprofit administrators in Delaware. Can you share a little bit about how that program came to be?

Leaders of Promise began in 2019 AHE: out of some conversations about how tough it is out there for Black executive directors, and for other executive directors of color, and for women executive directors as well. We began to think through: What are the skill sets needed? What resources do people need so that they can live into being executive directors?

What we learned was that most people, particularly people of color, become executive directors because they are leading successful programs or they are starting an organization. We have some folks who go through MBA programs or go through arts admin programs, but because of many other inequities a lot of Black and Brown folks are not enrolled in those programs.

So we created Leaders of Promise to talk about everything from how to write effective minutes for a meeting all the way through to budget management to HR. It has to be accessible to people.

This program that we’re doing together with Chorus America is very much in that same vein. It uses what we call resource- or asset-based pedagogy, meaning that folks are not coming in as blank canvases. People are coming in with lived experiences—as leaders, as administrators, as artists, as fill in the blank. We are going to be looking at those strengths and that cultural identity first and foremost as an asset to inform all of these other areas where there’s potential to continue to learn and grow.

We want to have more leaders of color as administrators in the choral ecosystem.

CK:

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24 The Voice, Fall/Winter 2022

Harley-Emerson conducting the Honor Choir at the 2022 Bent, But Not Broken conference

If we want to have different outcomes, if we want to have these metrics of diversity that we see as important, it can’t only be that we have composers of color. It can’t only be that we have conductors of color.

We absolutely must have executives of color. We must have administrators of color. These people are going to bring a different perspective into their decisionmaking. If you don’t change the decisionmaking mechanism, you cannot expect a different outcome.

When we make investments in diversity, equity, inclusion, and access, we are not just investing in leaders of color. We are investing in everyone. We are all going to reap the dividends of this investment. And that’s going to be really transformative for the whole ecosystem.

I wanted to end by asking you a personal question: As you go through the day-to-day grind of being the director of operations and doing your artistic magic, what brings you joy and inspires you?

Being part of an intergenerational AHE: community is magic. I feel like the greatest blessing of my work is having the opportunity to see people grow over a period of time. It brings me joy to see transformation, to see change. To know that we are changing the trajectory of lifelines and bloodlines is just magic. n CK:

Choral Executive Leadership Academy applications will open in January 2023.

This program is supported in part by a gift from presenting partner Cathedral Choral Society.

C h o r u s

A m e r i ca

2022 Honor Roll of Contributors Chorus America is honored to receive support each year from hundreds of generous individuals, organizations, businesses, foundations, and the U.S. government. Each gift represents the depth and breadth of our membership, our geographic reach, and the myriad entities that work with, for, and within the choral field. Below you will find an alphabetical listing of each generous donor and partner, as well as special recognition lists that highlight Chorus America’s giving communities and unique funding opportunities. Chorus America recognizes with appreciation all those who contributed essential support for our programs that benefit choruses everywhere between September 1, 2021 and August 31, 2022.

Amanda Adams-Barney Albany Pro Musica Inc. John Alexander* Esteban Alvarez Sean Ambrose Linda and Michael Anderson Anonymous Hilary Apfelstadt❖ Apple Anton E. Armstrong❖ Susan Astington Atlassian Mary Ann Aufderheide Babylon Chorale Ann Meier Baker and Robert Baker Carol Barnett Jamie and Jeff Barnett❖ Alexis Barron* Amanda Bauman Delores and Wayne Bauman Pat Becker Donna M. Beestman Nicole Belmont Charles Berardesco and Jeffrey Thurston❖ Berkshire Choral International Elizabeth Wall Biggs Harold G. Black Margaret Blackwell

Alexander Lloyd Blake Liam Bonner Watson Bosler Judy Bowers Paul Boykas Ryan Brandau Leela Breithaupt Maggie Brooks Andrew Brown Martha W. Brown Gwen Brubaker Carolyn and Philip Brunelle* Marie Bucoy-Calavan❖ Andrea Burgoyne Russell Bursch and Lee Mauk In Honor of Mike McCarthy Dashon Burton❖ Cache Children’s Choir Paul Caldwell* Joan and Mark Calonico Cape Fletcher Associates Dallas Caples Karen Carp Lesley Carter Lucinda Carver Cathedral Choral Society Charlie Cerf Chattanooga Choral Society for the Preservation of African American Song

Elizabeth Chavez Children’s Chorus of Maryland Lillie Ann Claitt Judith Clurman Jill Clymer Rick Coffey* Teresa Coffman Colburn Foundation Linda Sharon Coleman Collegium Vocale Community Chorus Jennifer Collins Fran Collmann Columbia Pro Cantare LTD CONCORA Connecticut Choral Artists Casey Cook Melissa Cook Tom Cooke Megan and Robert Cooper* Carlos Alberto Cordero Timothy Corlis Emily H. Crocker Mea Daum Mary Ann De Barbieri

Dedham Choral Society Inc. Catherine Dehoney and William Hill Mary Deissler* Richard Dellheim Kathryn Woods Denney Iris Derke❖ Rollo Dilworth❖ Dominick DiOrio III* Distinguished Concerts International New York (DCINY) Walter B. Doggett Dorothy Cotton Jubilee Singers Inc. Mary Doughty Mauch❖ Joy and Chester Douglass* Jean Dowdall* Susan G. Duncan* Sheila Dunn Kara and Michael Dwyer Susan and Michael Eanes John G. Earls ECS Publishing Morna Edmundson* Emily Eichenhorn Ellie and Tom Elkinton u

Chair’s Circle The following individuals, foundations, corporate partners, member organizations, and the U.S. Government contributed gifts of $5,000 or more to support the work of Chorus America. We share our special appreciation and highlight their generous support that uplifts the entire choral community.

Anonymous Jamie and Jeff Barnett❖ Charles Berardesco and Jeffrey Thurston❖ Cathedral Choral Society Colburn Foundation Rollo Dilworth❖ Distinguished Concerts International New York (DCINY) Joy and Chester Douglass* George Frederick Jewett Foundation East John C. Griswold Family Foundation

Anne B. Keiser❖ Kiplinger Foundation Mary A. Lyons* Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies Kay and Mike McCarthy*+ Steve Neiffer❖ John Nuechterlein❖ Gayle and Tim Ober* Dianne Peterson❖ Peter Platt Duain Wolfe❖

* = former board member, ❖ = current board member, + = deceased

www.chorusamerica.org 25

2022 Honor Roll of Contributors Bradley R. Ellingboe Brandon Elliott Anne Erps Todd Estabrook❖ Kristen L. Fallon Floyd Farmer* Miguel Felipe and Aaron Gould* Corty Fengler* Mary Finch Brooks Firestone Laura Fischer Jack Fishman Sheridan Foster Steven J. Fox Catherine French Justin Fyala and Rich Fowler Joyce Garrett* Alex Gartner Judith Gary Robert Geary George Frederick Jewett Foundation East Grant Gershon* Peter Gontier Sarah Goodwin Jeremy Gosbee Graphite Publishing Peter Wood Gray Matt Greenberg Barbara W. Greene Greenwich Choral Society Joan Gregoryk Carolyn Gross Edward Grossman Erin Guinup Mark Hanke Amy E. Hansen Annie Hargraves Jeannette Hargroves Alan Harler* Julie Haydon David M. Hayes❖ Anne Heider* Elfrieda and Vern Heinrichs* Stephanie J. Helleckson Ryan J. Heller Barbara Heroux Shayla A. Hines Greg Hobbs Robert H. Holmes Joseph Holt Kay Holt Ralph M. Hooper Don H. Horisberger David Horiuchi Jeff Hunt Lisa Husseini Richard Washburn Hynson Brenda Marie Iacocca Indianapolis Symphonic Choir InstantEncore Robert Istad❖ Christopher Jackson

26 The Voice, Fall/Winter 2022

Joshua Jacobson Maria Lucia Silva Jaimes Patricia Jennerjohn Craig Jessop* John C. Griswold Family Foundation Craig Hella Johnson❖ David M. Jones Michael Judd Justice Choir Art Kaemmer Karen Keating Anne B. Keiser❖ Kettering Children’s Choir KI Concerts Wes Kim Corey Kinger Kiplinger Foundation In Honor of Dianne Peterson Brian Knapp Terry Knowles and Marshall Rutter** Shohei Kobayashi Joshua Krugman Anita Kupriss Robyn and Tim Lana❖ Mary and Bill Langsdorf Leanne Magnuson Latuda Mark W. Lawson❖ Alysia Lee❖ Danielle Lees Scott Lehmkuhl Diana J. Leland Jacob Levine Kenny Litvack Thomas Lloyd Cheryl Lower Mary A. Lyons* Carol Manifold Scott Marder Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies Mark Marotto Jameson N. Marvin The Maryland State Boychoir Master Chorale of Flagstaff Michael McCarthy Kay and Mike McCarthy*+ Whitney McColley Marguerite McCormick Christie McKinney Mitch Menchaca Mendelssohn Chorus of Philadelphia Nancy L. Menk Jonathan Miller* Marcela Molina❖ Marty L. Monson Rayvon T.J. Moore Emma and Patrick Moores David Morales In Honor of Albert McNeil David Morrow❖ Arthur Moswin

Annual Revenue Sources Advertising

Program Registrations

7%

13%

32%

Gifts

18% 30% Membership Dues

Grants

Gift Sources Recurring/Renewals Campaigns

6% 10%

29%

Chorus America Board Members

17% Sponsors

17%

21%

Gala

Director’s Society

Brian Moul Linda Moxley❖ Wendy K. Moy Kaneez Munjee and Hugh Davies* Will Munster MUSICFOLDER.com My Music Folders Steve Neiffer❖ KellyAnn Nelson and Christopher Eanes Frank Nemhauser Brian Newhouse❖

Robin Noonan-Price North Shore Choral Society John Nuechterlein❖ Elizabeth and Francisco Nuñez*❖ Gayle and Tim Ober* Mark W. Ohnmacht Eric Oliver❖ Matthew Dean Oltman Patrick Owens Richard A. Pace Jim Papoulis Alice Parker*

Christopher Parker Deborah and Jamshed Patel* Kyle Pederson Robin L. Perry Catherine Peterson* Dianne Peterson❖ Vince Peterson Pittsburgh Camerata Doug Platt Peter Platt Molly Pontin❖ Kenney Potter Marilyn Pryor Andrea Ramsey❖ Leonard Ratzlaff* Susan Erburu Reardon and George Reardon* Adam Reinwald George Reiss David and Mary Richards Dail and David Richie Meredith A. Riekse Earl Rivers* Mona Jones Roberts Eugene Rogers❖ Jen Rogers Rico M. Romano Katie and Jim Rowan Mike Rowan Peter Rutenberg Diana Saez❖ San Francisco Lyric Chorus Alisa and Ryan Saunders Jonathan Saxton Suzanne R. Schaeffer Jo-Michael Scheibe Robert Schroyer Nancy Schultz David W. Schwarz Pearl Shangkuan❖

Mark Shapiro Jane Shepherd Charlotte Sibley Kate Sibley Kenneth Sieloff Marianna and Robert Simpson* Sing A Mile High International Children’s Choral Festival Alison Skinner Katie Skovholt Jan Smith Steven Smith❖ David Snead Brad Spencer* Jenny Spring Jenni Stadtmiller Eric Stark Jan G. Strand Rana M. Strickland Frank Stubbs and Tom Lee* Robert and Averill Summer Barbara M. Tagg* Brooke Bandfield Taylor Linda Tedford Ann Temkin Temple University Boyer College of Music and Dance Carrie Michelle Tennant Kimberly Theodore Sidey Cynthia and John Theodore Karen P. Thomas❖ Ginny Thompson Jesse Thrall Ryan Tibbetts Marjie and Gary Toops Gale A. Townsley Anthony Trecek-King❖ The Trey Clegg Singers Inc. Kent Tritle Tucson Girls Chorus

The Impact of Generosity What Do My Dollars Do? ADEI Learning Lab Conducting Academy Choral Executive Leadership Academy Conference 2023: San Francisco

Support Member Access 7,000 People 800 Organizations

Eliminate Financial Barriers Scholarships & Financial Aid

Chorus Impact Study COVID-19 & ADEI Resources And more!

Make Programs and Resources Possible

University of Notre Dame Glee Club Beverly Vaughn Joshua Vickery Gregory Wait Dale Warland* Jon Washburn* The Washington Chorus Anne Watson Born Trudy Weaver Miller* Lydia Weiss Wendy D. White Nathaniel M. Widelitz Chuck Wild Beth Corynn Willer Arlene Williams* Vina Williams Duain Wolfe❖ Michael Wu John Yankee

Continuo Society Members

We are pleased to recognize our current charter members of the Continuo Society, Chorus America’s legacy giving society. The Continuo Society was established to honor donors for their support of Chorus America through their estate planning, i.e., as a beneficiary under their will, IRS final distribution, pension plan, or insurance policy.

John Alexander* Ann Meier Baker and Robert Baker Catherine Dehoney Rollo Dilworth❖ Joy and Chester Douglass* Todd H. Estabrook❖ Floyd Farmer* Corty and Alf Fengler* Vance Y. George* Louise H. Greenberg* Alan Harler* Elfrieda and Vern Heinrichs❖ Anne B. Keiser❖ Terry Knowles and Marshall Rutter** Mary and Phillip Lyons* Kay and Mike McCarthy*+ Allison McMillan* Sandy and Jonathan Miller* Trudy Weaver Miller* C. William Moody, Jr.*+ Alice P. Parker* Deborah and Jamshed Patel* Dianne and Frank Peterson❖ Susan Erburu Reardon and George Reardon* Earl Rivers* Rosalind Rees and Gregg Smith+ Barbara M. Tagg* Judith A. Willoughby*

Duain Wolfe Fund

Chorus America is grateful to the following donors whose contributions are bringing to life the Duain Wolfe Endowed Fund to support the art of choral-orchestral conducting through Chorus America’s ChoralOrchestral Conducting Academy.

John Alexander Lucinda Carver Dominick DiOrio III* Corty Fengler* Anne Heider* Craig Jessop* Anne B. Keiser❖ Mary A. Lyons* Kay and Mike McCarthy*+ Leonard Ratzlaff* Eugene Rogers❖ Frank Stubbs and Tom Lee* Jon Washburn* Trudy Weaver Miller* Duain Wolfe❖

Ostinato: Chorus America’s Monthly Giving Community

We gratefully acknowledge the members of the Ostinato community who contribute monthly recurring gifts to Chorus America.

Susan Astington Mary Ann Aufderheide Delores and Wayne Bauman Martha Brown Lesley Carter Dominick DiOrio III* Susan and Michael Eanes Todd Estabrook❖ Sheridan Foster Justin Fyala and Rich Fowler David M. Hayes❖ Shayla A. Hines Lisa Husseini Marcela Molina❖ David Morales Steve Neiffer❖ KellyAnn Nelson and Christopher Eanes Frank Nemhauser Duain Wolfe❖

Director’s Society

We gratefully acknowledge the three-year pledges made by former members of Chorus America’s Board of Directors. These multiyear gifts help us build a predictable revenue stream so that we can respond to the changing needs of the choral field. We are grateful for the continued leadership of these committed members of the Chorus America family. u

www.chorusamerica.org 27

Chorus America Officers

Chair Anton Armstrong St. Olaf College (MN) Immediate Past Chair Brian Newhouse Minnesota Orchestra (MN} Treasurer John Earls May Festival Chorus; Vocal Arts Ensemble (OH) Secretary Marie Bucoy-Calavan University of Akron (OH)

Members of the Board

Hilary Apfelstadt University of Toronto (ON) Jeffrey Barnett Dorsal Capital Management LLC (CA) Charles Berardesco Baltimore Choral Arts Society (MD) Dashon Burton Professional Singer (NY) Iris Derke Distinguished Concerts International New York (NY) Rollo Dilworth Temple University (PA) Mary Doughty Mauch Conductor and Community Organizer (IL) Todd Estabrook Handel and Haydn Society (MA) David Hayes New York Choral Society (NY) Robert Istad Pacific Chorale; CSU Fullerton (CA) Craig Hella Johns Conspirare (TX); Vocal Arts Ensemble (OH) Anne B. Keiser Choral Arts Society of Washington (DC) Robyn Reeves Lana Cincinnati Youth Choir (OH) Mark Lawson ECS Publishing Group (MO) Alysia Lee Baltimore Children & Youth Fund; Sister Cities Girlchoir (MD) Marcela Molina Tucson Girls Chorus (AZ) David Morrow Morehouse College (GA) Linda Moxley Sarasota Concert Association (FL) Steven Neiffer Los Angeles Master Chorale (CA) John Nuechterlein Community Leader (MN) Elizabeth Núñez Young People’s Chorus of New York City; SoHarmoniums Women’s Choir (NY) Eric V. Oliver Zion Baptist Church; Loretta C. Manggrum Chorale (OH) Dianne Peterson The Washington Chorus; New Orchestra of Washington (DC) Molly Buzick Pontin Pacific Chorale (CA) Andrea Ramsey Composer, Conductor, and Music Educator (MO) Eugene Rogers University of Michigan (MI); The Washington Chorus (DC) Diana Sáez Towson University (MD) Pearl Shangkuan Calvin University; Grand Rapids Symphony (MI) Steven F. Smith Berkshire Choral International (MA) Karen P. Thomas Seattle Pro Musica (WA) Anthony Trecek-King University of Hartford (CT); Handel and Haydn Society (MA) Duain Wolfe Colorado Symphony Chorus (CO)

28 The Voice, Fall/Winter 2022

2022 Honor Roll of Contributors Carolyn and Philip Brunelle* Lynda Crane* Rick Coffey* Mary Deissler* Dominick DiOrio III* Susan G. Duncan* Floyd Farmer* Joyce Garrett* Grant Gershon* Alan Harler* Anne Heider* Terry Knowles and Marshall Rutter** Mary A. Lyons* Kay and Mike McCarthy*+ Kaneez Munjee and Hugh Davies* Gayle and Tim Ober* Alice Parker* Leonard Ratzlaff * Earl Rivers* Frank Stubbs and Tom Lee* Barbara M. Tagg* Arlene Williams*

In-Kind Gifts

Marin Alsop Anton E. Armstrong❖ Artist Travel Consultants Jamie and Jeff Barnett❖ Cantus Bob Chilcott Sasha Cooke Anthony Roth Constanzo Distinguished Concerts International New York (DCINY) Ellen’s Stardust Diner Todd Estabrook❖ JoAnn Falletta Dan Forrest GIA Publications, Inc. Ola Gjeilo Tom Hall*

Ways to Give Continuo Society Leading through Legacy

Special Donor Communities

Ostinato Chorus America’s Monthly Giving Community

Director’s Society

Former Board Members Continued Impact

Craig Jessop* Craig Hella Johnson❖ Anne B. Keiser❖ Tom Kelly Sara Langworthy Mackus Co. Illuminated Manuscript Linda Moxley❖ Jim Papoulis Alice Parker* Kyle Pederson Nicolas Phan Susan Erburu Reardon and George Reardon*

Adam Reinwald Rockefeller Center Diana Saez❖ Signum Records Steven Smith❖ Jeannette Sorrell The Swingles Danielle Talamantes & Kerry Wilkerson VOCES8 Virgil’s BBQ Jann Williams

Every donor is important to us. If we have not listed your contribution correctly, please let us know by contacting KellyAnn Nelson at 202.331.7577 ext. 241 or kellyann@chorusamerica.org.

Advertising Index ACDA.......................................................................C3

MyMusicFolders.com..............................................23

Bard College Conservatory of Music........................7

Piedmont East Bay Children’s Choir.........................9

Berkshire Choral International............................2, 16

Small World MUSICFOLDER.com Inc.....................16

Brazeal Dennard Chorale........................................C2

Sphinx Organization................................................19

Chorus America...................................... 6, 11, 20, 24 Cincinnati Youth Choir.............................................24 The Drive to Sing.....................................................17 Encore Creativity for Older Adults............................8 Indianapolis Children’s Choir....................................6 Moira Smiley...........................................................24

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To belong is to be heard, understood, seen, and valued—to be a thriving and vital member of the chorus of humanity. Join us in Cincinnati (in person!) to celebrate our diversity and our affinities, while we inspire each other to create a greater Place of Belonging.

HEADLINE CHOIRS The May Festival Chorus & Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra Juanjo Mena, conductor featuring a world premiere

by James Lee III The Jason Max Ferdinand Singers The Crossing Donald Nally, conductor featuring the premiere of the Brock Commission by Jennifer Higdon

CONFERENCE ATTENDEE IMMERSION CHOIRS Latinoamérica Immersion Choir Maria Guinand, conductor Black Diaspora Immersion Choir Donald Dumpson, conductor Indigenous People’s Immersion Choir Jace Saplan, conductor Jazz Immersion Choir Matt Falker, conductor

HONOR CHOIRS Elementary Fernando Malvar-Ruiz JH/MS Mixed Andrea Ramsey HS SATB Eugene Rogers HS SSA Pearl Shangkuan AMAZING VENUES Cincinnati Music Hall Aronoff Center Theaters Plum Street Temple Duke Energy Convention Center for all interest sessions, exhibits, and publisher showcases

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