Voice THE
Personal Journeys, Collective Change #RediscoverHarmony
Reopening DECISIONS
Vo l u m e 4 4 N u m b e r 3 S u m m e r 2 0 21
Voice T he
Editor Liza W. Beth Publisher Catherine Dehoney Managing Editor Don Lee Art Direction DLG Design, Inc. The Voice is published by Chorus America, Washington, DC. Copyright ©2021 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. ———— Subscriptions and Membership 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 Programs and Membership Associate Karyn Castro Associate Director of Philanthropy André Coleman Operations Coordinator Casey Cook Director of Finance and Operations Anne Grobstich Erps Director of Member Services and Programs Christie McKinney Annual Fund and Corporate Engagement Manager KellyAnn Nelson Associate Director of Communications Mike Rowan Music Education Grants Program Officer Kim Theodore Sidey
contents F E A T URES
12 | Reopening Decisions: How Choral Leaders Are Bringing Singers Back Together by Holly J. Kellar
24 | Personal Journeys, Collective Change
columns 3
From the President & CEO
It's Time to #RediscoverHarmony by Catherine Dehoney
D E P A R T ME N T S 4
by Don Lee
C h o r u s A m e r i ca
29 2021 Chorus America Award Winners 31 2021 Virtual Conference Sponsors, Funders, and Exhibitors 32 Ad Index 32 Board of Directors
Chorus Connections Member News, Events, & Announcements
This publication is supported with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts.
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On the Cover: Singers from the Boston Children's Chorus film a music video for "Build A Bridge" by Mavis Staples in spring 2021.
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Nothing can silence the spirit and passion of the worldwide choral community.
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from the president & ceo
It’s Time to #RediscoverHarmony A collaborative social media campaign launching this fall will encourage public support for the choral community.
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hope you have had a chance to rest and recharge this summer, as I and the Chorus America staff have. Our entire office took a break in July after what had been a nonstop year, including not one, but two virtual conferences. Both were great successes; my sincere thanks to everyone who participated in the winter and summer events! I know I’m not alone in appreciating a lot about this summer that I’ve taken for granted in pre-pandemic years. It has felt wonderful to attend outdoor concerts, watch fireworks with neighbors, and wander farmers markets to find the best peaches and tomatoes. While recent news about the status of the pandemic isn’t all positive, I’ve been grateful for every day of greater access to community and greater connection with friends, family, and colleagues. During our Summer Conference in June, I was thrilled to hear choruses’ plans for returning to music making in-person in the coming year as health and safety conditions permit. We’ve shared some of this important discussion in this issue’s “Reopening Considerations” article. I also heard concerns about how long it might take for singers and audiences to feel comfortable returning, given the media attention on the risk of spreading the coronavirus during group singing. And yet, as those of us in the field know so well, choral singing is exactly what our communities need now more than ever! The inclusion, freedom of expression, unity, and joy found in singing together make it the perfect antidote to the isolation and dissonance that we’ve all experienced over the past year—and that’s been so present in society well before the pandemic. To encourage the public to support choruses in their community as in-person concerts and events begin to reopen, I’m excited to share news about #RediscoverHarmony, a collaborative social
The inclusion, freedom of expression, unity, and joy found in singing together make it the perfect antidote to the isolation and dissonance that we’ve all experienced over the past year.
media campaign for the field that we will launch this fall. The campaign is centered on a website: RediscoverHarmony.com. The website will have three main components, all freely available for your chorus and choruses everywhere to use in your own campaigns and messaging: • A location-based directory of choruses so that people can search for—and donate to—organizations in their communities • An interactive tool that lets website visitors play with the voices of real choral singers to create their own chords • A social media toolkit that ensembles, singers, and choral music lovers can customize and use to spread the #RediscoverHarmony word. #RediscoverHarmony began as the brainchild of a group of executive directors who are part of Chorus America’s Leadership Development Forum (LDF), a peer learning group for leaders of large-budget choruses. It’s been a joy to work on this campaign collaboratively with leaders Jean Davidson, Ann McNair, Steve Smith, LDF colleagues and other advisors in the field, and BRINK, the creative agency that is bringing #RediscoverHarmony to life for us. Furthermore, it’s incredibly meaningful to see so many of the large-budget organizations in Chorus America’s membership step up to fund this campaign to benefit the entire field. We’re deeply grateful for their leadership and support, along with sponsorship from the National Association of Music Merchants Foundation. We hope this resource will help choruses raise awareness of the myriad benefits they bring to their communities and take public excitement about choruses to a new level. You’ll be hearing much more about this campaign as we prepare for the fall launch. For now, please take a moment to visit rediscoverharmony.com to add your chorus to the location-based directory and share the link with other chorus leaders far and wide. Whatever your chorus’s plans are for this fall, we hope #RediscoveryHarmony can amplify the important work you are doing. Together we can shine a light on our choral community in all its inspiring beauty, diversity, and impact.
Catherine Dehoney President & CEO, Chorus America
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The Voice, Summer 2021
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year after COVID-19 forced the cancellation of its traditional season-culminating monthlong celebration of new music, the Philadelphia ensemble The Crossing (pictured) returned with its Month of Moderns in June, presented entirely outdoors. Inclement weather threatened this year’s event and did disrupt the schedule, but The Crossing was able to pull off the festival nonetheless. It included three programs (each offered on multiple dates), anchored by world premieres of we got time, a piece by Matana Roberts honoring Breonna Taylor, killed last year by Louisville police, and At which point by composer Wang Lu, based on poetry by 2019 Pulitzer Prize-winner Forrest Gander. Edmonton, Alberta’s Richard Eaton Singers were part of a co-commission project bringing together choruses from four geographically diverse Canadian cities: Edmonton, Halifax, Montreal, and Waterloo. Dubbed the Cross Canada Project, the initiative produced Take This Thread, a piece by Vancouver composer Katerina Gimon with text by Montreal poet
Lauren Peat. In English and French, the work explores the connections forged between neighbors and across all of Canada during the pandemic. The video premiered on July 6. The Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia created an immersive sound installation called FETTER & AIR (pictured), a looping 25-minute virtual performance for listeners to experience outdoors. Rather than specific parts, chorus members were given a “recipe” to execute their performances, which they individually interpreted and recorded from their homes, combined with some spoken reflections about their hopes, worries, dreams, fears, anxieties, and joys. The
Choral Performances Mark Special Juneteenth Holiday
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uneteenth, the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration marking the end of slavery in the United States, was greeted this summer with an outpouring of events. Juneteenth officially became a federal holiday this year, two days before the June 19 commemoration, which gave the many musical observances around the country an added air of celebration. The choral community played a prominent role in several of these programs. Brandon A. Boyd (pictured), assistant director of choral activities at the University of Missouri, served as guest conductor of the Missouri Symphony’s (MOSY) presentation of Lift Every Voice and Sing: A Juneteenth Soulful Celebration. Boyd conducted the MOSY Juneteenth Singers and soprano soloist NaGuanda Nobles with full orchestra in a performance of spirituals arranged in various styles and by a variety of arrangers, including Joseph Joubert and Margaret Bonds. “Celebrating Juneteenth’s 156th anniversary with the Missouri Symphony and Juneteenth Singers was one of the year’s highlights. The most impactful moment was in the dress rehearsal when we heard the voice of [Florida State University professor and former teacher] André Thomas in the back of the hall, who flew from Florida, coordinated with the MOSY staff and guest soloist NaGaunda Nobles, as a surprise. There are some moments in life that one will never forget, and this is definitely one of those.” –Brandon A. Boyd Jeffrey Allen Murdock, associate director of choral activities at the University of Arkansas, directed the
original words of Mendelssohn Club choristers were set to music composed by artistic director Dominick DiOrio, and over 500 audio files were mixed and designed for the installation by audio engineer Justin “JG” Gellar. The project was created to serve as a musical catharsis for 2020 and a way to experience choral music safely during the pandemic. The installation was presented in two-hour windows on the afternoons of May 14 and 15 in the Rail Park, a scenic elevated stretch of green space where listeners could sit and be surrounded by the music or walk freely through it. The chorus also produced a short documentary of the project. At its spring digital concert on June 26, the Senior Division of the National Children’s Chorus (NCC) presented four world premieres: “All Shall Be Well” by Sarah Quartel, a new custom arrangement by Saunder Choi of Bill Withers’ “Lean on Me,” incorporating many native languages of the choristers and families in NCC; Eric Clapton’s “Change the World,” arranged for NCC by Shams Ahmed and per-
University of Arkansas Inspirational Chorale’s Juneteenth Concert, Praising Our Way Through a Pandemic. The virtual concert combined selections spanning modern gospel, European classical, and American choral styles, recorded by the chorale individually from home and from masked in-person performances. “I chose Juneteenth as the day of our concert because Juneteenth is the oldest national commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States, and because Black music is so inextricably linked to the history of Black people in America. This night is also special because it gives a glimpse into the future to a day when the choir will be able to sing again for live audiences as we have in years past.” –Jeffrey Allen Murdock Jason Max Ferdinand, director of choral activities at Oakwood University, Huntsville, Alabama, conducted the Aeolians of Oakwood University as part of Live with Carnegie Hall: Juneteenth Celebration, an online concert featuring numerous artists, including Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and pianist Joseph Joubert. The Brazeal Dennard Chorale, a Detroit-based ensemble directed by Alice McAllister Tillman, performed during Madison Heights, Michigan’s first-ever Juneteenth celebration. Along with musical entertainment, the event included educational exhibits, speakers, food, and kid-friendly activities.
formed in collaboration with the Los Angelesbased ensemble Tonality; and “Everything Changes” by NCC Scholar Mia Ruhman. The Choral Arts Chamber Singers, comprising singers from the Choral Arts Society of Washington, gave the world premiere of “Stand Up” by B. E. Boykin, celebrating civil rights and women’s suffrage activist Mary Church Terrell. The piece was commissioned by the concert tour company Classical Movements, which presented the performance in its special COVIDresponsive outdoor concert series in Alexandria, Virginia, as part of its Eric Daniel Helms New Music Program. In May, composer Eric Whitacre introduced a new arrangement for treble voices of “Sing Gently,” a composition premiered last year by his Virtual Choir 6 in response to the pandemic. The first performance of the new version used groundbreaking technology from JackTrip Labs that enabled three choirs performing 400 miles apart to sing together synchronously in real time. The unique performance featured singers u
B ent, Bu t N ot B rok en C onference to Debu t i n O ctober
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ent, But Not Broken, a new choral conference amplifying the musical contributions of Black musicians and composers across time and across genres will be held for the first time October 21–24 in Wilmington, Delaware. Hosted by the Choir School of Delaware, the four-day event will include performances by EXIGENCE, the American Spiritual Ensemble, the Westminster Choir College Jubilee Singers, and more, as well as lectures and discussions with leading scholars on Black American music.
C horal R ecordi ng F eat u red i n H B O l i m i ted ser i es
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he Rose Ensemble’s recording of historical Hawaiian music, Naˉ Mele Hawai’i, is featured in HBO’s new limited series The White Lotus, a social satire set at a Hawaiian resort. Five of the series’ six episodes contain the Rose Ensemble’s music; the material from nine different tracks totals almost 20 minutes of airtime, earning them a screen credit in the last episode. The White Lotus—which has garnered positive reviews from NPR, Rolling Stone, the New York Times, and more— premiered July 11, with the Rose Ensemble’s music making its first appearance on July 18.
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chorus connections from Ragazzi Boys Chorus, San Francisco Girls Chorus, and Southern California Children’s Chorus. The Washington Chorus (TWC) presented a world premiere excerpt from Here’s the Thing, a work commissioned from Julian Wachner, as part of a digital concert titled Resilience that streamed June 11. Resilience featured several guest collaborators, including EXIGENCE, a professional ensemble of Black and Latinx singers founded and conducted by TWC artistic director Eugene Rogers, and composer and music educator Rollo Dilworth on piano. n
Awards
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he American Prize, which holds national competitions for nonprofits in the performing arts, has named composer Dale Warland (pictured) as its 2021 recipient of the National Arts Award for Lifetime Achievement. Coinciding with this honor, the American Prize also announced its annual award for choral conducting
will be renamed the American Prize Dale Warland Award in Choral Conducting. Together with Washington-based recording label the Gothic Catalog—which co-presents its Lifetime Achievement award and has created 11 recordings with Warland—the American Prize made a $2,000 seed gift to establish the Dale Warland Endowment for the American Prize to help ensure that Warland’s choral conducting award remains a permanent annual offering. Over the years, Warland has also received considerable recognition from Chorus America: He served on the board of directors and was given the 1995 Michael Korn Founders Award for Development of the Professional Choral Art. The ensemble that he founded, the Dale Warland Singers, won the inaugural 6
The Voice, Summer 2021
GALA Choruses Rise Up Singing in the Face of Cancelled Festivals
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his year, the world nearly lost GALA Choruses to the strain of festival cancellations. The association was saved by an outpouring of support from the 190 member choruses and 12,000 LGBTQ+ and allied singers it serves. No stranger to pandemic, having helped so many communities during the HIV/AIDS crisis, GALA Choruses determined to survive. “We will keep the association alive. We will help the member choruses back on their feet,” said executive director Robin Godfrey. “That was the mission we undertook. Find a way.” This June, Coro Allegro, Boston’s LGBTQ+ and allied classical chorus, David Hodgkins, artistic director, honored this commitment with Devotion: A Celebration of GALA Choruses (pictured), presenting the Daniel Pinkham Award to GALA’s staff and board. Music and stories from singers, alumni, directors, composers, and activists celebrated GALA’s impact, the power of hearing your story represented, and the need to raise our voices for international LGBTQ+ rights. Representing GALA Choruses’ contributions to the choral repertoire were works commissioned by Coro Allegro from Grammy Award-winner Kenneth Fuchs and a contemporary passion, inspired by the legacy of slain Ugandan LGBTQ+ activist David Kato Kisule, composed by Eric Banks and featuring countertenor Reginald Mobley. Sam Brinton of the Trevor Project encouraged all to return for GALA Festival 2024 for a new Coro Allegro commission featuring letters across generations, affirming Trans kids and survivors of conversion therapy.
Margaret Hillis Award for Choral Excellence in 1992, and one of Chorus America’s annual honors bears his name: the Dale Warland Singers Commission Award, presented in partnership with the American Composers Forum. Washington DC-based composer, conductor, and producer Nolan Williams Jr. and his business partner Dale A. Mott received a 2021 Telly Award Bronze Prize
The resilience of GALA Choruses was on display at the July 7–11 GALA Virtual Festival 2021. Audiences from Festival 2016 will never forget hearing the Orlando Gay Chorus talk of the aftermath of the Pulse nightclub massacre, when singers kept music and outfits in their cars because they appeared at so many memorials. Five years later the Orlando Gay Chorus returned with My Portraits of Pulse: An Orlando United Story, told from the perspective of J.D. Casto, a local photographer, filmmaker, and chorus board member, with music including the premiere of a new SATB arrangement of Melissa Etheridge’s “Pulse.” In a program titled A Roof and a Bed, the Portland Lesbian Choir invited audiences inside the experience of housing insecurity with two new commissions: a setting of poetry by unhoused women and a courageous family story of a troubled youth’s journey to find home. GALA celebrated its roots in two video retrospectives from its past: Our Legacy=Our Song, a 2012 program featuring sculptor Vanessa German and journalist Dan Savage; and A Song of Courage, the 2008 documentary of the history of the LGBTQ+ choral movement. GALA’s future was proudly displayed in the GALA Youth Choruses Showcase. LGBTQ+ Youth choruses from Portland, Washington, Nashville, San Diego, Tucson, and New York City sang from rooftops, garages, backyards, clubs, and stages, bringing light, love, and the energy of outside voices. Their explorations of race, land stewardship, and coming out showed GALA Choruses’ mission of changing the world through song is in good hands. –Yoshi Campbell *An encore of Devotion: A Celebration of GALA Choruses will take place September 30, 2021 at 8:00 p.m. EDT. For information about this and other events from the GALA Choruses Rise Up Singing series, visit https://galachoruses.org/events/ rise-up-singing/. Past events can also be found on the GALA Choruses YouTube channel.
for their music video, “I Have a Right To Vote,” a voting rights anthem that brought together a star-studded cast of narrators and distanced singers to raise awareness of voter suppression, encourage voter education and registration, and increase voter motivation leading up to the 2020 U.S. national election. The Telly Awards, established in 1979, honor excellence in video and television across all screens.
Releases
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s the culmination to its curriculum for the year, the Bel Canto Youth Chorus of the Bach Choir of Bethlehem (Pennsylvania) (pictured) released Stand Up: Singing the Underground Railroad, the chorus’s first fulllength concert video, on June 22. The project, recorded in the cities of Allentown, Bethlehem, Freemansburg, New Hope, and Quakertown, combines traditional African American spirituals and chorales of J.S. Bach with spoken word. The video weaves a story that helps choristers and viewers develop an understanding of the Underground Railroad and the journey of enslaved people escaping to freedom, while featuring repertoire written or arranged almost exclusively by African American composers and encouraging greater self-awareness surrounding issues of race and equity. The chorus also used the curriculum to connect to local touchpoints along the Underground Railroad and harness themes including survival, endurance, resilience, and bravery to inspire singers during a confusing and difficult time. The project engaged guest artists, including bass-baritone and Chorus America board member Dashon Burton. On June 18, New Yorkbased pop/rock band October Project released The Book of Rounds: Choral Edition, a song cycle of 21 original music rounds offered to comfort, heal, and awaken listeners as the world emerges from a challenging year. The songs in The Book of Rounds were conceived and written by Julie Flanders (lyrics) and Emil Adler (music), and performed by the Texasbased Chorus Austin. The release includes the track “JOY,” also released as a music video titled “Virtual Choir of Joy,” which won a 2021 Telly Award Bronze Prize for Immersive and Mixed Reality Virtual Experiences and Events. Miami-based Seraphic Fire released the first complete recording of Ordo virtutum, a u
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chorus connections landmark 12th-century work by pioneering composer Hildegard von Bingen. Ordo virtutum, roughly translated as “The Play of Virtues,” is the only music drama from the Middle Ages for which the composer’s name is known. Seraphic Fire’s release is the first complete recording of the work to include the accompanying gradual “Qui sunt hi” in its entirety. The ensemble worked with Eastman School of Music musicology professor and leading Hildegard scholar Honey Meconi as artistic advisor to the project. Twin Cities-based TTBB ensemble Cantus released Manifesto, its full-length album debut on the Signum Classics label. Recorded in March of 2020 at the start of the pandemic, the album’s tracks were
released as singles throughout the fall of 2020. The majority of the works in the project, which examines identity and relationships, were world premieres—including the title track, a commission from composer David Lang, who used Google’s autocomplete tool to create most of the text, a list generated in response to the search query “I want to be with someone who….” On July 9, the Antioch Chamber Ensemble of Bernardsville, New Jersey, released Robert Kyr: In Praise of Music on Bridge Records. The album touches on themes of conflict, celebration, peacemaking, and the art of music, with texts from Kyr and a variety of other sources.
Appointments and Retirements
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hoenix Chorale appointed Nicole Belmont (pictured) as its new executive director. Belmont served for the past seven years as executive director of the New York City ensemble Choral Chameleon and brings with her over 15 years of experience as a senior strategist for major New York media agencies.
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The Bach Choir of Bethlehem appointed Leela Breithaupt (pictured) as its new executive director. Breithaupt joins the Bach Choir from the educational software company E2E Advising, where she was vice president of business development and partnerships. A trained flutist, she has enjoyed a professional performing career of over a decade and possesses a deep familiarity with the
he voices of Los Angeles-based chorus Tonality can be heard in the film Space Jam: A New Legacy, the much-anticipated sequel to the popular 1996 film. Founder and artistic director Alexander Lloyd Blake conducted the group for the project. The film was released in United States theaters and on HBO Max on July 16.
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The Voice, Summer 2021
©Sara Thom Photography ©Tam Lan Truong Photography
German language and culture and the work of J.S. Bach. Breithaupt succeeds Bridget George, who retired after 24 years of leadership as executive director. Brandon Waddles (pictured) has been named the new artistic director of Rackham Choir, one of the oldest vocal groups in metro Detroit. A Detroit native with deep roots in the city’s gospel tradition, Waddles is also director of choral activities at Wayne State University and music director for Grammy-winning recording artist Ledisi. He succeeds Suzanne Acton, who was Rackham Choir’s artistic director for 25 years. Washington DC’s Congressional Chorus announced new artistic and executive directors to lead the organization into the future. Allan Laiño (pictured), who also holds positions as associate conductor at the National Children’s Chorus, co-artistic director of the Washington/ Baltimore ensemble Bridge, and director of music ministry and technology at Washington’s Western Presbyterian Church, steps in as artistic director. Michelle Heslin (pictured) comes to the chorus as executive director with extensive experience in nonprofit operational and fundraising strategy. Jean-Sébastien Vallée (pictured) was appointed as the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir’s new artistic director. Vallée is also director of choral studies at McGill University’s Schulich School of Music, conductor of the Choir of the Church of St. Andrew and St. Paul in Montreal; and music director of the Ottawa Choral Society. The Arizona Masterworks Chorale appointed Scott Youngs (pictured) as music director. Youngs is also the founder and music director of the Arizona Bach Festival. Heather Mitchell (pictured) was appointed assistant conductor and chorus manager of the Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia. Mitchell also serves as artistic director of the Hopewell Valley Chorus in Pennington, New Jersey. Commonwealth Youthchoirs appointed Frank Van Atta (pictured) as co-artistic director, joining co-artistic director Elizabeth Parker. Van Atta, also the Upper
New and Noteworthy at Chorus America ADEI Learning Lab Welcomes Full Inaugural Cohort; Encore Offering Launched Thirty-two choral leaders participated in Chorus America’s inaugural ADEI Learning Lab, held May 3–June 2. This new four-week experiential online learning program was specifically designed for White choral leaders seeking to address structural racism in their organizations and become better allies and accomplices to their BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) colleagues. The Learning Lab teaches foundational knowledge in (ADEI) and emphasizes understanding Whiteness and White supremacy. After the inaugural cohort reached capacity and prompted a waitlist for the program’s next available offering, a second 2021 cohort was added for this fall, running October 1– November 1. Registration is open until September 23 while space remains. For more information, visit chorusamerica.org/adei-learning-lab. The Learning Lab is the first in a series of new ADEI programs to more specifically serve the needs of distinct cultural affinity groups. Future programs include a leadership development program tailored to self-identifying BIPOC leaders. Music Education Partnership Grants Program to Open This Fall In fall 2021, Chorus America will launch our new Music Education Partnerships Grants program, designed to support collaborations between community choruses and schools during the 2022–23 school year. Grants will fund projects designed to increase access to choral music education for K–9th grade students and promote non-arts learning and cultural literacy, all while upholding the principles of access, diversity, equity, and inclusion. In the program’s inaugural year, Chorus America will provide $900,000+ in grants to 40 grant partners across four regions: British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest, Central Appalachia, the Southwest, and the Upper Midwest. More details, including application requirements, funding guidelines, review phases and timeline, the scoring rubric(s), and guiding definitions, will be published in early October.
School Choral Director at Germantown Friends School, will direct the Keystone State Boychoir and New Jersey Boychoir ensembles, while Parker leads the Pennsylvania Girlchoir and Garden State Girlchoir ensembles. Te Deum in Kansas City appointed Jon Duncan (pictured) to the newly created role
Chorus America Board of Directors Elects New Leaders During its June meeting, the Chorus America Board of Directors chose Anton Armstrong as its chair-elect. Armstrong is the Tosdal Professor of Music at St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minnesota, where he recently celebrated 30 years of teaching and conducting the renowned St. Olaf Choir. The Board also welcomed two new members: Craig Hella Johnson, founder and artistic director of Conspirare, Austin, Texas, and music director, Vocal Arts Ensemble Cincinnati; and Pearl Shangkuan, professor and director of choral activities at Calvin University, Grand Rapids, Michigan, and chorus master of the Grand Rapids Symphony. Additionally, Michael McCarthy, former board chair of VocalEssence, Minneapolis, was named Director Laureate, an honorific title that recognizes individuals who “have demonstrated extraordinary leadership as a member of Chorus America’s Board of Directors and had significant impact on the choral field.” Staffing Additions and Updates With great excitement, Chorus America welcomed two new team members to support the inaugural Music Education Partnership Grants program opening this fall. Kim Theodore Sidey joins Chorus America as music education grants program officer, combining her experience in grant-making and choral music education. Kim has held both school choral director and arts management positions, most recently serving as program manager at the Austin (Texas) Community Foundation. Christina Alexander comes aboard as ADEI and music education consultant. Christina is an equity, diversity, and inclusion leader living at the intersection of education and the arts, with over 20 years of professional experience and training in EDI and antiracism, arts, organizational development and management, curriculum development, and nonprofit work. Additionally, Casey Cook has taken on a new role of information and digital asset manager, expanding his focus on maintaining the organization’s data and digital platforms and serving digital needs across all departments.
of assistant rehearsal director. Duncan is choir director at Shawnee Mission South High School, Overland Park, Kansas, and has sung in Te Deum for the past eight seasons. The National Lutheran Choir, Minneapolis, welcomed two new marketing and communications specialists: composer and Consortio co-founder Paul John Rudoi (pictured) and Twin Cities-area musician Sarah Anderson. u www.chorusamerica.org
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chorus connections
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n May, the Washington Master Chorale (WMC) premiered Out of the Ashes of Holocaust, a 20-minute cantata for solo soprano, solo alto, SATB chorus, violin, cello, and piano composed by Joshua Fishbein (pictured with his grandmother, Josephine Velelli Becker). The work tells the story of Fishbein’s grandmother’s family (the Velellis) and their struggle to survive during the Holocaust in Nazi-occupied Greece. The Velelli family went into hiding and were sheltered in the mountains by the Michalos family, who are Christians. Fishbein and his wife, Marina, based the libretto on a 1984 Baltimore Sun article recounting the story of the two families, as well as the 1984 U.S. Congressional Record, to which thenRepresentative Barbara Mikulski added the account. WMC made an in-person recording of the cantata and broadcast the work as part of an on-demand virtual concert that aired May 21–24.
Cathedral Choral Society of Washington DC appointed Erin Haar (pictured) as its marketing coordinator. A graduate of UC Berkeley with a degree in American studies and journalism, Haar
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Said Fishbein about the subject of his composition, “The work is deeply personal … Except for the extraordinary kindness of this family, [my own family] most certainly would have perished along with 90 percent of the Greek Jewish community.” He added in his performance notes, “I hope audiences will feel the emotional impact of the Michalos’s and Velellis’s struggle. I want them to hear in the music the awful sadness of the Michalos’s house being burned by the Nazis, but also feel the profound resonance of both families, Jewish and Christian, coming together, hiding as ONE family, not only to survive, but to find each other and reunite a decade later in America.”
brings along varied skills including photography, video editing, and social media content creation. Duain Wolfe (pictured) announced his plans to retire as director of the Chicago Symphony Chorus (CSC) in the spring
© T odd Rosenberg
Washington Master Chorale Premieres Holocaust Cantata
of 2022 after a tenure of over 25 years. Wolfe, a current Chorus America board member, is only the second director in the history of CSC, succeeding the groundbreaking conductor Margaret Hillis in the position. In his storied career, he has prepared CSC for over 150 programs and also founded the Colorado Symphony Chorus and Colorado Children’s Chorale. Tim Seelig (pictured) announced that he will retire as artistic director of the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus (SFGMC) next July at the conclusion of the 2021–22 season. The end of his tenure with SFGMC will mark his tenth season with the ensemble, and his 35th anniversary of conducting LGBTQ+ choruses, where his career has had a particularly profound impact. He is the former director of three Dallas ensembles: Turtle Creek Chorale, the Women’s Chorus of Dallas, and Resounding Harmony. He plans to continue working as a guest conductor, clinician, and speaker. n
Reopening Decisions:
How Choral Leaders Are Bringing Singers Back Together In the U.S., Canada, and across the globe, choral leaders are grappling with challenging questions as they prepare to emerge from the pandemic and gather in person to sing together again. Difficult decisions about masks, distancing, vaccinations, waivers, and other safety protocols need to be made and, in many cases, re-evaluated over the course of the season. Themes emerging from conversations with a cross-section of choral leaders and industry experts suggest a framework that may help your decision-making process. BY HOLLY J. KELL AR
12 The Voice, Summer 2021
M
orna Edmundson has been a choral director for more than four decades. She has won numerous honors and awards, directed countless hours of rehearsals, and serves on the boards of both Chorus America and Choral Canada. But none of this experience adequately prepared her for the decisions she has to make in a pandemic. As artistic director of two choirs in western Canada (Elektra Women’s Choir and EnChor Choir), she just isn’t sure about the best course of action for reopening. When should singers start gathering in person? What safety protocols should be required? How do the board
and leadership even decide? What do we tell the singers? Edmundson believes “these communication steps are the most important. What are we going to say, and when are we going to say it?” More than 3,000 miles away, Boston Gay Men’s Chorus executive director Craig Coogan is putting off some of these decisions for several more months. During the pandemic, the chorus has been a pioneer in many respects, he feels. “We have been on the front lines for many historic things coming out of COVID. However, we’re not going to be one of the first returning to singing together. We are happy to make sure that it is safe before we all come back.” Coogan has already determined that the chorus will not return to rehearsing in person until February 2022, in preparation for a June performance. In the San Francisco Bay area, Martín Benvenuto, founder and artistic director of 21V, is preparing for launch. The new ensemble will feature “soprano and alto voices of all genders and all gender identities with a focus on 21stcentury music of the Americas,” he explains. Interested singers are submitting audition materials now, with a plan for rehearsals to start in October and a first performance in November. He knows that safety protocols will be required for in-person singing but hasn’t yet decided exactly what they will be. Because inclusivity is a core value, Benvenuto intends also to open up auditions to singers outside the Bay Area, who would be able to participate in virtual projects. “I’m anticipating that we would have an in-person project roster and a virtual one as well.”
In the U.S., Canada, and across the globe, choral leaders are grappling with incredibly difficult questions as stay-at-home orders are lifted, vaccinations go into arms, and COVID transmission rates in many areas—thankfully— drop. While the decision to close down choir rehearsals at the start of the pandemic was imposed by national and local officials, opening back up is the responsibility of each individual organization. “The shutdown was hard because it was just out of the blue,” says Edmundson, “but the restart is proving to be harder, because it’s more subjective and on us. Then we have to communicate this decision to
our singers, as opposed to ‘they told us we’re not allowed to do this anymore.’” While the questions facing leaders—about masks, distancing, vaccinations, waivers, and other safety protocols—may be the same, there is no one-size-fits-all answer. Even the decision-making process may differ, depending on the chorus location, organization, and individual singers and leaders. Themes emerging from conversations with a cross-section of choral leaders and industry experts suggest a framework that may help you work through your decision-making process—or at the very least, assure you that you are not alone. u
When they rehearse during the pandemic, members of the choral ensemble Ember wear custom masks designed for them by the group's artistic director, Deborah Simpkin King.
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Like many singing groups, the Tallahassee Community Chorus has been holding rehearsals outdoors during the pandemic.
COVID-19 Reopening Decisions
With So Much to Learn and So Much to Decide, Where Do You Start? Imagine a set of three concentric circles, with your choral organization at the center. Start with the broadest context, jurisdiction, before narrowing the focus to your community and finally your specific chorus. This approach may help you address very difficult questions in a structured way, taking you past the broad and overwhelming, “What should we do?” Jurisdiction The first step requires a leader to consider what is allowed or not allowed under applicable laws—including federal, state/ provincial, and local ordinances. (Note that the experts interviewed for this article are providing general guidance only and cannot provide legal advice.) An individual state or province might have very different rules or legislation from the next, so it is important that you understand what is applicable to your organization. 14 The Voice, Summer 2021
For example, Quebec is a civil jurisdiction and operates very differently from other Canadian provinces. In the U.S., Florida has recently passed legislation specific to COVID-19 that makes reopening decisions there different from other states. Always consult an attorney to confirm what laws are applicable to your situation and location.
might include artistic expression, community engagement, or inclusion. Being clear on your priorities will help shape your reopening plan.
Community Your local community is the next level of consideration. Think about factors such as transmission rate, availability of vaccinations, and general community culture and demographics. The best decision for a choir located in the center of a large metropolitan city might be different from another group that operates in a rural area of the same state, even if the same laws apply to both.
The decisions required for reopening range from legal to logistics, health and safety to artistic and financial. For the purposes of this article, we are choosing to home in on the specific decisions required before bringing singers back together, focusing on those that might be the thorniest because of legal implications: vaccinations, masks, and liability waivers. For more information on these and other reopening topics, see the Additional Resources sidebar and information compiled by Chorus America at bit.ly/ChorusCOVID.
Chorus Finally, consider your individual group— the singers themselves and your organizational culture. Bear in mind the ages and other characteristics as well as tolerance for risk. How many singers are part of your ensemble? What is the level of familiarity and trust? A tightly knit group that has been singing together for years might come to conclusions different from a large community chorus with 50 percent turnover each season. Consider also your values, which
What Are the Key Decisions You Must Make?
Requiring vaccinations Probably the most burning question for choral leaders today is whether to require singers to be vaccinated against COVID-19 before allowing them at in-person rehearsals. Let’s look at this question through the framework of jurisdiction, community, and chorus.
First, is it legal to require vaccinations in your jurisdiction? As always, consult a lawyer, but the prevailing thought seems to be that in most U.S. jurisdictions outside Florida, an employer or organization is not prohibited from requiring vaccinations as a condition of either employment or participation. “I think organizations are getting more comfortable saying, ‘If you’re not vaccinated, you can’t be part of this group,’’’ says Charles
I’m the director, but what does the board feel, what does the membership feel? I want to really canvas, ask questions, and not have to have all the answers, but to seek the answers based on the feedback I’m receiving. –Donald Dumpson
Berardesco, Chorus America board member and retired general counsel most recently of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation. “I’ve advised boards to tell people that they have to be vaccinated.” Allison Tremblay, a labor and human rights lawyer and partner at Victory Square Law Office in Vancouver, British Columbia, explains that in general, the situation is similar in Canada. “I can’t say that there is any specific prohibition on an employer requiring a vaccination. It’s just not been adjudicated in that way.” Beyond that, she notes that British Columbia’s Workers’ Compensation Act requires employers to “ensure the health and safety of their workers. So, depending on the particular workplace at issue, I can imagine a scenario where an employer believes that in order to ensure the health and safety of all workers, it needs to mandate vaccines.” Bob Middleton, director of the Arts Insurance Program, sees that scenario playing out among the 5,000-plus U.S. clients his company claims—opera, dance, and theater companies, festivals, touring productions, and more. “Many of our employers are requiring vaccinations, and from what we understand, in most of these cases the attor-
neys or insurers are taking the stance that it is legal and something they can require due to the overall safety of their employees.” He adds that exemptions to the vaccine requirements for health, including disabilityrelated or religious reasons, “are being addressed individually.” In the U.S., under federal law, choruses with employees that make exemption requests for these reasons need to determine whether not being vaccinated poses a direct threat to others and, if so, whether the chorus can provide a reasonable accommodation to the employee. Recent legislation in Florida provides an exception. Jan Smith, Tallahassee Community Chorus singer and board president, explains that “Florida law prohibits organizations and businesses such as ours from imposing the requirement that volunteers and employees produce proof of vaccination.” Smith says the law poses problems for the chorus. “We have folks on our board who feel very strongly that people should not be able to come to an in-person rehearsal if they’re not vaccinated, but there may not be a whole lot legally we can do to prevent that. We’re wrestling with it.” Many choral leaders are asking if the statutes regarding employees also apply u www.chorusamerica.org 15
© A nthony Shelton
A recording session for the Philadelphia Heritage Chorale's 2020 holiday program, Christmas in a Time of Isolation
COVID-19 Reopening Decisions to volunteer singers. In the U.S., as long as your volunteers are classified correctly, they do not have standing under employment law, including the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). This means that volunteers are not necessarily entitled to the same considerations for health and religious exemptions. As always, it’s important to contact your attorney to understand the laws that apply to your specific situation. “In a number of different respects,” says Trembley, Canadian laws “don’t treat volunteers that much differently than employees.” But, she notes, “for other purposes, they do. For example, whether a volunteer is a true volunteer for the purposes of the workers’ compensation rules might depend on very specific facts about types of compensation singers might receive”—e.g., food or small gifts of appreciation. Other laws might 16 The Voice, Summer 2021
take a different view. As always, contact your attorney for your specific jurisdiction and situation. When it comes to children and youth choruses, jurisdiction resides with the parents. For children under 12, vaccine requirements have not been an issue because, at this writing, they are not eligible for vaccination. But for older children, the parent is involved in the vaccination decision. Both Andrés Holder, executive director of Boston Children’s Chorus (BCC), and Robyn Lana, managing artistic director of the Cincinnati Youth Choir, emphasize the need to engage the parents in the conversation. Holder works with children ages 7 to 18, so his singers are “divided smack down the middle” in terms of vaccine eligibility. Asked whether BCC will require vaccinations for the older children, Holder responds, “That’s not something that we feel comfortable saying one way or another. I think we need to listen first, and we’ll be talking to
parents.” Lana stresses the need “to respect the household just like we respect other faiths. You’ve got to respect reasoning for not doing something or doing something. We’re not going to require a vaccine, because I don’t think that’s our business to do so. We’re a community organization. I will not eliminate a child from the program who really needs to be there.” Additionally, Holder feels it’s important to consider the vaccination question through an equity lens. “Access to vaccines for me was easy because I have all the digital devices I need, I have PTO [personal time off], but what is that like for people who don’t have all those things? Are we erecting more barriers? It’s certainly a question that we’re exploring.” After considering the implications of jurisdiction and community, the final step is to consider chorus and culture. For Edmundson, it was important to survey the views of the singers. “I did an anonymous
survey with one of my choirs to see how people were feeling about possibly starting again in September. One of the questions was, ‘If we required that everyone was fully vaccinated, would you expect to be coming back in September?’, and 98 percent said yes. If we don’t require full vaccination, the response was something like 50 to 60 percent.” Chorus and culture were top of mind for J. Donald Dumpson, artistic director of the Philadelphia Heritage Chorale, as he considered vaccination policy. “I deal with a large number of African American singers,” he notes. A Pew Research Center study found that 34 percent of African Americans have low trust in the vaccine research and development process, an attitude that stems in part from documented abuse of Black people in medical experimentation. Dumpson felt the need to understand the level of skepticism that might be present among his singers. “It was important that the vaccine became something that my community trusted. Trusting that the science is being authentically accurate for this community is something that I really had to seriously investigate.” Although concerns were raised “about privacy and other issues,” he says “there
Assuming there are some people who don’t come in person for one reason or another, how do we make them still feel like they’re part of this organization, so that when we’re past all of this, they haven’t gone away, or felt misunderstood or not respected? –Morna Edmundson
was a clear statement from the choir that vaccination is a major priority. We’re going with 100 percent you must be vaccinated.” Considering the organization culture was also especially important for Coogan and the Boston Gay Men’s Chorus. “We have a culture of welcome and inclusivity, so how do we maintain our culture and stay acces-
sible with our primary responsibility of being safe with an airborne disease in a chorus of 220 people? The simple answer is we’re requiring vaccinations, but it’s important to acknowledge that we’re putting a barrier up and do whatever we can do to maintain our culture of inclusivity.” In Florida, Smith’s community chorus is considering participation options for those who are not vaccinated. “One of the things we’ve discussed is giving a virtual option for those people who tell us that they’re not vaccinated. If they still decide they want to sing with us, they would participate virtually until fully vaccinated, with the understanding that performing in the concert may not be possible for them.” Inquiring about vaccination status Before getting to the question of whether to require vaccinations, many choral leaders are wondering how to ask singers about vaccination status. Is it even legal? Berardesco provides a straightforward response: “There is no legal issue with asking somebody if they have been vaccinated, unless you’re in Florida.” Tremblay agrees, to a point. “It’s never going to be illegal to ask,” she says, but “whether someone is u
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Bel Canto, the grade 6–12 ensemble of the Cincinnati Youth Choir, in a March video recording session at the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music. The session took the place of a scheduled concert. In addition to wearing masks, singers maintained six feet of distance on all sides, used separate entrance and exit doors, and maintained 15-minute intervals between each CYC ensemble's performance.
COVID-19 Reopening Decisions obligated to answer is a different question.” Staying in compliance when asking about vaccination status has more to do with the answer than the question—particularly the way the answer is recorded and stored, which may be subject to laws in your jurisdiction. The general consensus among U.S. legal and health care experts is that the act of asking about vaccination status—yes or no—does not violate Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) privacy regulations. “Health information is particularly private and has a higher status attached to it,” says Tremblay, “so you have to take particular care with that information and make sure that you are storing it and using it properly in accordance with your jurisdiction’s privacy laws.” Another worry is that you will end up with your own private Pandora’s box, says Tremblay, with access to more information than intended. “Because now not only do you have their vaccination status, but you may also have other very private information [religious group affiliation or health information] that you might not be entitled to.” The Cincinnati Youth Choir will ask about vaccinations, “but we won’t say, ‘If you’re vaccinated, you don’t have to wear a mask,’ reports Lana. “All are going to be in masks. We will let parents know the percentage of our youth-age singers who are vaccinated.” 18 The Voice, Summer 2021
Several of the choral leaders we interviewed who are planning to require singers to be vaccinated are still determining the appropriate method for verification. “Some sort of objective proof will be expected,” explains Benvenuto, “not for lack of trust but more for transparency.” Because it won’t resume in-person singing till early next year, Coogan says the Boston Gay Men’s Chorus doesn’t face an urgent need to finalize its verification system, “but, in talking with my colleagues and other large choruses, the standard emerging is that
Access to vaccines for me was easy because I have all the digital devices I need, I have PTO [personal time off], but what is that like for people who don’t have all those things? Are we erecting more barriers? It’s certainly a question that we’re exploring. –Andrés Holder
members are asked to submit a digital version of their vaccination card, and it goes into some secure database.”
Wearing masks Mask mandates can change quickly and vary by jurisdiction, and even if masks are not required by law, some choral leaders may choose to require masks nonetheless. As a youth choir director, Holder looks to the U.S. Department of Education for guidance. “We are modeling our service after them and are going to be masked. If they change guidelines, we will follow suit.” Lana also reports that her youth chorus will be masked and distanced, although vaccinated staff will not wear masks. Dumpson’s Philadelphia Heritage Chorale will require masks “at the beginning” and hopes to ease the requirement over time. The choral ensemble Ember, which performs in Manhattan and Montclair, New Jersey, performed masked outdoors last September and continued the practice when it resumed live indoor performances in April. The chorus continues to rehearse in masks in preparation for a December performance. In an effort to enhance comfort and artistry while maintaining safety, artistic director Deborah Simpkin King went to great lengths to design a custom mask for the singers. “I worked with the studies on fabrics and filtration, constructing a mask that—to my view—is still the most highly filtering mask of any that are available.”
Benvenuto agrees that safety is the highest concern. “If we’re going to use masks, let’s use what the science says as the safest way of preventing transmission.” Smith reports that her community chorus in Tallahassee will most likely require masks, “simply because we don’t know who is vaccinated and who isn’t. I don’t think we have any choice.” While the Boston Gay Men’s Chorus is waiting to rehearse in person until the new year for a number of reasons, they don’t plan to use masks when they do. Coogan states, “We believe that choral singing is at its best unmasked, so masking will not be something that we utilize.”
Liability waivers The practice of asking singers to sign a waiver of liability (stating that the singer/participant understands the risks and will not sue the organization if infected) has both supporters and detractors. The law is complex and waivers can be difficult to enforce, so Tremblay recommends that any chorus considering a waiver requirement get specific advice for its jurisdiction. Introducing a waiver specifically for COVID can be “a bit of a minefield,” she adds. “It’s also a matter of optics. Are you really worried that your singers are going to sue your choir? What does that mean for your singers in terms of their relationship with you?” Local legislation may make waivers for a particular jurisdiction unnecessary—at least from a legal standpoint. According to Smith, “a recent law passed in Florida protects organizations and businesses, including nonprofit organizations, from civil liability in the event they should be sued because of someone using their facility or their services catching COVID-19 or suffering from the virus. That helps us and also helps our venue, which is a church.” British Columbia has similar legislation protecting essential workers, which includes arts and culture groups. “While you can always sue, you will be statute-barred in recovering against your choir, both as an audience member and as a singer,” explains Tremblay. “A waiver would not be required while that legislation exists.” From an insurance standpoint, a workers’ compensation claim that someone contracted the virus through a particular business, organization, or location is likely to be very difficult to prove. In fact, Middleton explains, “we’ve seen 10 claims submitted so far, all through the state of Texas and all for performing arts organizations, and none of those have actually been covered.” However, he recommends that employers “always put in the u
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COVID-19 Reopening Decisions claim,” regardless of the individual situation and whether you have a waiver. “Your insurance carrier’s job is to define a claim that’s compensatable, and you should protect yourself by making sure that you put that claim in and let the insurance company do their investigation.” Among a number of choruses it’s been longstanding policy to ask that members sign general participation waivers, a practice that Berardesco recommends. “The power of a waiver in this context is really just to say to the singer, ‘You’re assuming the risk if you want to come here. We’ve told you what we’re doing.’” Coogan notes that his chorus members “already sign a waiver for a number of issues, including our ability to record and use their likeness and their voice.” With that kind of understanding in place, an addendum or additional waiver about the risks of COVID may be easier to implement. “We have drafted an update to more explicitly outline the potential risk of a COVID world,” Coogan says. Some of the leaders interviewed for this story see the waiver as an effort for transparency or to start a conversation. Dumpson says the Philadelphia Heritage Chorale already has a general waiver and will soon send singers an addendum about coming back. “The verdict is out about how valid waivers are or not, but I support anything we can do to foster more clarity.”
Who Makes the Final Decisions, and How?
©M ichael Willer
How should choral leaders go about making these difficult decisions of how to return to in-person singing? All of the leaders we spoke with are engaging others to help, either
their board, a special task force, local experts, focus groups of singers, or all of the above. Getting advice and consulting experts “I don’t have a board, but I have a group of close collaborators that have been helping me,” explains Benvenuto. “I’ve used a lot of virtual singer focus groups. We have conversations, do research, and bounce off ideas.” Dumpson agrees that it’s important not to do it alone. “I’m the director, but what does the board feel, what does the membership feel? I want to really canvas, ask questions, and not have to have all the answers, but to seek the answers based on the feedback I’m receiving.” In making decisions about what is allowed in your jurisdiction, once again it’s best to consult a local attorney. Middleton recommends always working with a labor attorney regarding human resources issues and how you’re operating as an organization in general. “We have many clients that are using firms to help them navigate the CDC [Centers for Disease Control] or state HHS [Health and Human Services] guidelines to make sure they’re doing what they need to do.” Many of the leaders interviewed are gathering information directly from the scientists, both about the virus transmission in general and also about local community infection rates. “We feel that the CDC is an appropriate barometer to use and gauge what’s going on,” says Dumpson. “We’re not experts on science and we know there’s reason for some to not trust, but we need something to use as our guidepost.” As decisions are made, adds Lana, share the data that guided you with singers and parents “so that they know we’re not just moving blindly forward.” “There’s still an awful lot we don’t know about this virus, but there’s some really good material from Chorus America and other organizations—slides that give visual dis-
How do we maintain our culture and stay accessible with our primary responsibility of being safe with an airborne disease in a chorus of 220 people? The simple answer is we’re requiring vaccinations, but it’s important to acknowledge that we’re putting a barrier up and do whatever we can do to maintain our culture of inclusivity. –Craig Coogan 20 The Voice, Summer 2021
plays and graphs,” explains King. “I extracted various slides that I felt applied to our situation. It bases the conversation just on facts, not on how we feel about the facts.” Surveys and gathering information Every choral leader we spoke with described doing some kind of information-gathering from chorus members, either through informal conversations, a formal survey instrument, or both. Some choruses engaged in town hallstyle Zoom meetings to gather input on plans for gathering in person, including the singers’ feelings about timing and safety protocols like masks and vaccinations. “We didn’t do Zoom rehearsals, but we’ve had a Zoom meeting every four to six weeks with a bunch of breakout rooms,” explains Coogan. “We didn’t do formal polling, but we have certainly had a lot of engagement to make sure that we are hearing where people are. In addition, four times over the last two years every single member got a phone call from somebody in leadership, checking in.” King used a similar, informal approach. “Every week, we would have discussions about how people are feeling and comfort with interaction.” Eventually, those conversations surfaced a desire to find a way to sing again and perform for others, so a small task force was formed to start investigating the possibility. Leaders of community choruses have an additional challenge of not necessarily knowing in advance who will be singing each year—even during a “regular” season. Tallahassee Community Chorus typically surveys past singers over the summer to determine who is likely returning. “This time, instead of one survey, they’ll get two,” explains Smith. “We did the initial, ‘would you be comfortable coming back in-person?’ survey, and we’ll do another in the next several weeks to get a little more information.” Holder utilizes a robust combination of smaller, more informal focus groups and formal surveys sent to a larger group. “We have done surveys that surface information, both quantitative and qualitative, which provides a structure for multiple small group conversations. Once we’ve heard from these key groups to get a temperature read, then we survey the bigger group, to see if it aligns or is totally different. Then we take that thinking to a third group— normally three or four small focus groups—and then we share more broadly.”
Even with plenty of surveys and other input, the decisions, and the responsibility, can be overwhelming. It’s not surprising that many choral organizations are simply waiting to see what others do. “I console myself slightly by thinking this is temporary, this is not forever,“ admits Edmundson. Priorities and trade-offs There is no “perfect” solution for a choir that meets all of every stakeholder’s needs. Wearing masks reduces transmission risk and also the artistic quality. A live performance with reduced audience capacity might not result in the needed revenue. Distancing might mean that your usual rehearsal space can’t accommodate your choir. “The artistic director just really wants to get people back together,” admits Smith, “and I think that’s a fairly universal feeling. To me, the issue will then be, how much are you willing to do to make that happen? People are so anxious to get back together that I’m thinking we’ll have a pretty good showing, and then we’ll have to deal with the expense. We’ve checked a lot of other different venues just in case we need another location to split rehearsals.” Resources have been challenging throughout the pandemic. “We are trying to see if the season will work with minimal people in the audience, which is a huge financial challenge,” explains Edmundson. But Holder believes more money isn’t the perfect answer either. “Even if we had all the money in the world—which we don’t— we still wouldn’t satisfy and mitigate risk and provide comfort to every single person, given this pandemic. It’s just not possible.” Dumpson’s intent is to put people first, and he says “that will really help calibrate when it’s people versus the building, people versus the concert date, people versus the budget. When we are mindful of the needs of our people holistically, we make different decisions.” Every leader spoke about the need to put singers—their health, safety, and comfort—at the center of decision-making. The challenge, of course, is that a singing organization is made up of individuals who may not agree on what is “safe” or “comfortable.” In King’s experience, even when the group reached consensus on gathering in preparation for an outdoor performance, that didn’t mean that everyone was comfortable taking part. “We had very strict protocols, and we agreed on them as a group,” she says. Still, “some
A d d i t i o n a l R e s o u rc e s
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horus America continues to track news and collect information and resources about reopening and new COVID-19 developments from our members and partners. This sidebar contains some recent highlights. Links to all the material included and the most current updates can be found at bit.ly/ChorusCOVID.
Chorus America 2021 Summer Conference Sessions What’s Next: Preparing for a Healthy, Safe Reopening A panel of doctors with experience advising performing arts organizations and choruses shared the latest updates in COVID developments and vaccination efforts (as of June 28, 2021). Insurance and Reopening: Are You Prepared? As choruses work toward reopening, there are many insurancerelated questions to consider. Join Bob Middleton, director of the Arts Insurance Program, as he explores how COVID-19 should play into your insurance planning. These sessions are publicly available at chorusamerica.org/conf2021. You can also register for replays of additional Conference sessions through September 18.
International Coalition Performing Arts Aerosol Study Led by researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder and the University of Maryland, the Performing Arts Aerosol Study examines the risk level of instrumental and vocal activity in performing arts classrooms and performance venues. The study released new guidance for fall 2021 activities, including singing, on July 16.
people said, ‘I’m not ready.’ In fact more said I’m not ready than said they were.” “Some of these nuanced decisions are going to put our inclusivity values to the test,” suggests Benvenuto. “Are we as leaders going to ensure that every single singer in our ensemble is comfortable with the protocols in place?” Ultimately, after gathering information from experts, singers, and other stakeholders, you’ll need to make a decision. While coming to grips with reopening protocols, “I’m going to be moving within
The University of Colorado Boulder has also developed a pilot risk-assessment tool for aerosol transmission to help decisionmakers estimate the infection risk for a number of basic situations such as college classrooms, choirs, and outdoor activities.
Vaccine Requirements Under federal law and current guidelines, choruses—like other private employers and organizations—can require staff, volunteers, and audiences to get vaccinated in most cases. Resources from law firms and Chorus America articles written specifically for the choral community offer more detail about those guidelines.
Examples from Member Choruses We have collected some examples of waivers and surveys for singers and audiences that choruses are using to prepare for the return to in-person singing. We’re grateful to the member choruses that have shared their organizations’ documents. Please email membership@chorusamerica.org if you have a resource you would be willing to share.
Audience Considerations Colleen Dilenschneider’s Know Your Own Bone website shares data-driven insights into audience intent to visit cultural institutions. WolfBrown’s Audience Outlook Monitor is an international collaboration among top researchers, funders, service organizations, and hundreds of cultural organizations that want to make informed decisions about how and when to re-start programming based on rigorous data. Several choral organizations have been part of this research. Updates are shared monthly.
the ‘safe, safer, safest’ continuum,” explains Benvenuto. “Right now my instinct is to move towards the safest.” Perhaps trade-offs are endemic to a choral organization. “Steve Smith said it best in one of the Chorus America conference sessions,” says Coogan. “The inherent nature of choral music is that you give up a little bit of yourself to be in a whole. The voice, the oneness, is what’s important, and you give up individuality to a little degree.” Dumpson echoes that feeling: “When you u www.chorusamerica.org 21
COVID-19 Reopening Decisions deal with a group of people and a group of people’s needs, there’s no singular me,” he says. “How do you hold space for all the different expressions of ‘me’ in terms of a community of singing?”
How Should Decisions Be Communicated? Even once you’ve made the difficult decisions, your work is not done. Leaders know that it’s not enough to have a policy or plan—you need to communicate that plan in a clear, understandable way. We heard the message over and over again: Communication should be frequent, consistent, transparent, and caring. Berardesco has been working with multiple organizations and has seen this first-hand. “An organization right now should be thinking about what they are going to require of singers to sing in person, without a mask, and be very upfront and consistent about it from minute one.
Decide what that policy is going to be, and communicate that clearly to your chorus members well before you start rehearsals to allow people to object and/or make sure they are in fact compliant.” “We always take a moment to acknowledge the pain, the loss, and the difficulty of this time,” says Coogan. “So many of our members have been on the frontlines, have suffered sickness or family deaths, and it’s been a trauma.” For Benvenuto, transparency, simplicity, and caring communication are on the forefront. “Being honest about where we are and the uncertainty about how exactly we’ll move forward—I think that actually builds trust,” he says. Trust is an important aspect of communication for Dumpson as well. He tries to convey the message “things are okay, and you can trust that we are being really thoughtful about our plan.” None of this is easy. “This whole experience has just been really humbling for me,” Holder confesses. His advice to others: “Leading with humility and just being open to making mistakes, having thick enough skin to accept the mistakes. Listening, and actually taking the correction of a thing to
consider—this has been a saving grace in this process. None of us have the right answer. We’re all making it up and doing our best. We’re all stressed.” Communication and culture are inextricably linked. “It’s about trying to bring the whole group together,” Edmundson acknowledges. “Assuming there are some people who don’t come in person for one reason or another, how do we make them still feel like they’re part of this organization, so that when we’re past all of this, they haven’t gone away, or felt misunderstood or not respected?” It’s a tall challenge, and each unique community must chart its own path. “The one thing that is not going to change is how we treat each other,” emphasizes Dumpson. “We’re not going to change our intention to really bring to light what we call a choral community—its essence, its purpose and reason why we gather.” n Holly J. Kellar works in marketing and consulting. She is a lifelong singer and was previously chief marketing officer of the Barbershop Harmony Society.
GRADUATE CONDUCTING PROGRAM Bard Conservatory of Music
All students receive ample podium time working with community, collegiate, and professional ensembles including: Bard Conservatory Orchestra Bard College Community Orchestra Bard Chamber Singers
information
Bard Conductor’s Chorale Bard Symphonic Chorus Conductor’s Ensemble
845-752-2409 bard.edu/conservatory conservatoryadmission@bard.edu
22 The Voice, Summer 2021
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Personal Journeys, Collective Change
A Conversation with Maria Ellis, Reginald Mobley, Zanaida Robles, and Anthony Trecek-King The closing plenary at the 2021 Chorus America Summer Conference, a panel discussion titled Personal Journeys, Collective Change, centered on Black voices in the choral community. The plenary served as a follow-up to a similar event at the 2020 gathering during which longtime African American choral leaders reflected on their careers and experiences. This year, representatives of a younger generation described the paths they have followed in choral music and where they find themselves today. BY DON LEE
T
he 2020 and 2021 Conference closing plenaries bookended a year of both peril and promise. One of last year’s speakers, Morehouse College Glee Club director David Morrow, returned to introduce this year’s discussion, leading off with the exclamation, “What a difference a year makes!” The global wave of racial justice activism that formed last year in the wake of George Floyd’s killing continues to build. The global pandemic that upended business as usual in most walks of life and virtually shut down the performing arts shows signs of abating in several countries, including the United States.
24 The Voice, Summer 2021
It was a year that presented the speakers in this year’s closing plenary with much to contemplate as well as the time to do it. One of them, Reginald Mobley (pictured), is a singer and a newly minted artistic advisor in Boston. Zanaida Robles (pictured) is a Los Angeles-based composer, singer, conductor, and teacher. Maria Ellis (pictured), from St. Louis, is a conductor, consultant, educator, and entrepreneur. During the panel discussion, the three of them reflected on their multi-faceted personal journeys and shared hopes that their paths will intertwine with those of fellow travelers.
A Seat at the Table One reason “there’s so little diversity in classical music,” said Reginald Mobley, is that people of color “feel as though we’ve never really had a place at the table.” An acclaimed countertenor, Mobley has worked closely for several seasons with Boston’s Handel and Haydn Society, directing its annual program Every Voice. The goal of that initiative has been “to spotlight parts of the community that make Boston Boston,” such as the Black and Jewish communities, youth, and women. “If I better understand the Jewish community and the Latinx community as a Black person,” Mobley said, “I begin to expand my bubble. I begin to see them as part of my tribe, seeing that we are all the same.” He believes that a community “is better served if we understand all the parts that make the whole.” Last year Mobley became Handel and Haydn’s programming consultant, a role he was supposed to take on in 2022, but the society seized a chance to make the move just as the COVID-19 pandemic was beginning. The idea was to introduce ideas forged in community concerts to Handel and Haydn’s regular subscription programming. “My role is to recognize that the world is getting Blacker, it’s getting more femme, it’s getting more queer,” he said, “and we need to represent the world that we serve.” Welcoming a diverse range of performers to the stage is one way to do that, but in addition, Mobley is focusing much of his effort on “trying to bring more diversity to the spots on the page.” In the
© Sam Brewer
Countertenor Reginald Mobley, with conductor Masaaki Suzuki and the Handel and Haydn Society, in a performance of Handel’s Messiah
realm of early music, where he and Handel and Haydn spend much of their time, “the things that we perform are just as White as the people we see around us. I feel like it’s on us to show everyone that Black people in classical music didn’t start with Scott Joplin or Harry Burleigh.” In other words, to return to his metaphor, “we aren’t bringing a chair to the table; we’ve always had a seat at the table. It’s just someone else is sitting in it. And it’s time for them to move.” Panel moderator Anthony Trecek-King (pictured), named this year as a resident conductor of the Handel and Haydn Society Chorus, echoed Mobley’s assertion: “There are composers of color that absolutely belong on a period music stage. And that’s not something that is common knowledge.” Mobley went on to list several examples, among them Chevalier de St. Georges, who was Marie Antoinette’s private tutor; Mexican Baroque composer Manuel de Zumaya; and Classical-era Brazilian composer José Mauricio Nunes Garcia. “Sometimes we assume they’re second-rate composers,” observed TrecekKing. “They’re not. The music is really,
really good.” The reason we don’t know about them, he said, has to do with “how we’re being taught, how we’ve studied our music. We know how many symphonies Beethoven wrote, right? We know how many symphonies Brahms wrote. Do we know how many symphonies William Grant Still wrote?” Another way of bringing diversity to the spots on the page is to “retroactively expand the canon,” as Mobley put it. He hopes to work with contemporary composers of color to create new music designed to complement the old, “like songs or small minuets, something that works” for an orchestra and chorus like Handel and Haydn’s, his aim being to “show that this music, no matter the scope, or the scale, is just as beautiful and just as deserving as anything we’ve known and accepted as the actual canon.” One of the composers Mobley has already turned to is fellow panelist Zanaida Robles. Her response to the plans Mobley described made it clear she considers an intentional focus on composers of color much more than a welcome gesture; it’s a difference-maker. That’s especially true when this focus includes studying the full
complexities of composers’ identities and influences. “When those composers, like Zumaya and Nunes Garcia, were presented to me, they were presented to me as Latin composers.... If, in my studies of those composers the totality of that identity, including their Blackness, had been included, that would have been hugely impactful for me to know.” In recent years, Robles has experienced a process she described as coming into a “new sort of identity as a real composer.” She’s been writing music since she was seven, she said, “but I never saw myself in the field, and so I didn’t really think what I had to say compositionally was important enough, or it wasn’t needed, it wasn’t necessary.” Now things have changed. “So many organizations are bending over backwards to try to find Black composers or female composers,” she said. As she’s been producing more work amid this new attention, Robles has reassessed early ideas she’d only sketched out before, realizing “this counts. This counts as real. So a lot of my work has been kind of backwards-looking and saying, ‘I’ve always been this composer. Why did I never share? Why did I never put this out?’” Her first u www.chorusamerica.org 25
Connections Forged Despite Isolation
Composer Zanaida Robles (standing, left) attending a rehearsal for the premiere of her piece “She Lingers On” at the California All State Music Education Conference in February 2020
Personal Journeys, Collective Change commission, “Can You See,” written for Tonality in 2018, proved to be another turning point. “I’m super proud of that piece, because it was the first time where I was like, clean slate. I wrote it from scratch using skills and experience I had, using techniques that I had learned like a real composer. It’s about being given that opportunity and being seen as someone who has something to contribute.” When she was in high school, Maria Ellis told the plenary audience, she wanted to be a conductor. “I never saw women doing that. I only saw men.” Her choir director gave her “as much knowledge as she could about going into that path, but it wasn’t enough to take me where I needed to go.” Ellis took a detour into the business world, but she returned to music in 2013 as an educator. “I still didn’t see enough women, and especially not enough Black women,” she said, and “I never saw Black women on the podium.” That inspired her to launch Girl Conductor, LLC, which provides resources such as individual consultation, choral workshops, and online courses for music educators and aspiring conductors. She sees it as “a brand where I can champion women,” she said. “And then it
26 The Voice, Summer 2021
kind of morphed into championing diversity, so that people can see themselves.” When the pandemic left the web as educators’ primary option to connect with students, Ellis realized it would be a challenge to replicate the energy she found in the classroom. “So I had to go back into my elementary brain, to when I was a kid, and think, what made me love Sesame Street?” What came out of her brain was the Soulfege Slide, billed on YouTube as a dance that “teaches the Curwen Solfège Signs with a 21st-century appeal.” One early comment on the video reads, “This is my new jam. My music teacher plays this every day.” At 15,000 YouTube views and counting, “it just went crazy,” said Ellis, “which is just so fun for me. It blesses me every time I see little Black kids doing their solfège signs. When I was growing up, we didn’t learn that in our school. But now they do.”
Ellis’s experience with Girl Conductor led her last year to a joint venture with Nyadia Thorpe, director of Navarro College Choir in Texas: the Black Women Composers and Conductors Network, a Facebook group where “brilliant women are able to get together and just help each other and mentor and just provide advice and just really be a blessing to each other.” For Robles, that’s just what it has turned out to be—“a balm to my soul,” she told Ellis. “I didn’t realize how much I didn’t see myself reflected in the field. I’ve kind of always just had these blinders on, just for survival, just to focus to get where I need to get.” Trecek-King understands where she’s coming from. “Being an African American musician—no matter if you’re a singer, conductor, whatever—it’s very isolating,” he said. “And when you’ve got your blinders on, you’re not always able to connect with people who are like you.” Only after discovering Ellis’s network and other opportunities that put her “a room with people who did look like me who did share similar experiences” was Robles able to appreciate the importance of an “affinity space, that place where we can just kind of get together and see each other and hone our pride and our support of each other. I had no idea how much I needed that until I saw it.” Ironically, the isolation that came with the pandemic did a lot to enable the connection Robles and many others have experienced. Musicians are “all little points of light,” said Mobley. “And when the world went completely dark, we suddenly recognized that there were other points of light.” The darker it was, the brighter they became, he said. “And so our instinct was to draw ourselves closer.” In Mobley, that instinct plays out in his contacts with younger musicians. Asked about advice he gives to aspiring singers, he
We’re all now in this new woke state…we can’t go back to not being thoughtful. We have to think before we act. We have to think about the whole community, we have to really pay attention to who is in our midst. We have to insist on continuing to build meaningful, authentic relationships. –Zanaida Robles
answered, “Be bold. If you see someone whose career you admire, find them, talk to them, write them.” Mobley said he answers every Twitter and Facebook question he gets “because this career, this community, it can’t die with us, it shouldn’t die with us. And your success is our success.” Amid the pandemic, he said, “it seems like we’ve all been reaching out to these other little points of light to try and create something brighter that so the world can see again. And I found myself extremely busy because of it.”
Points of Light and Lightning Rods During the past year, Mobley and each of his fellow panelists have grown more visible more broadly in the music community as well. “Because of what happened not just with the pandemic, but with Juneteenth, and also the tragedies of last year with George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, a lot of organizations—typically White-led musical organizations—are damn near breaking their legs, rushing to find a Black composer and a Black director and a Black singer and a Black instrumentalist.” More than points of light, they’ve become “lightning rods”— in a good way, he said, because awareness of them is growing, “and everyone is coming to us to do the work.” The attention may be welcome, but at the same time “our radar is up,” said Trecek-King. “We’re really being careful and choosy on who we work with right
now.” Ellis picked up the thread: “We, as Black people, can see through whether somebody’s intentions are real. If you’re just hiring me to check a box, we can see through that.” After being invited to join numerous advisory committees on diversity and inclusion, she started wanting to say, “I’ve been here, I’ve been around for years. Did you not see me before? Was I not qualified then?” All of the attention has another downside, encapsulated in a question submitted from the virtual audience: “So many of my African American friends and colleagues use the word exhaustion to describe their experience of this past year. What would support look like from the choral field to dispel that exhaustion?” The panelists seemed to agree there’s no way to avoid it because, as Robles put it, “the work is exhausting.” She’ll feel able to rest, she said, when she no longer has to worry that the work is being done. “So that means we can’t be the only ones doing the work. Those of us who are in this broader community have to do the work to lift up the voices of those that aren’t like us.” As a way to point out more immediate relief for people like her, Robles reminded the audience that she is not a unicorn. “Now, especially now, there are so many of us that that can provide a perspective on the Black experience.” With that in mind, advised Mobley, when you approach someone like him or Robles for help and learn they’re too busy, remember that you can also ask them to recommend someone else. “Once the four of us is 16 or 30, u
COVID-19 and Reopening Resources Stay informed about reopening and advocacy developments as the choral field moves forward together. Find articles, resources, sample plans and documents, and more at bit.ly/ChorusCOVID.
2021
Here Comes the Sun Your choir is invited to join thousands around the globe on World Singing Day, Oct. 16, 2021, to sing this year’s WSD Song-ofthe-Year “Here Comes the Sun.” Arrangement and sheet music at WorldSingingDay.org. Sing together. Unite the world.
Conductor and music educator Maria Ellis, in a scene from her YouTube video Soul-Fege Slide
www.chorusamerica.org 27
Personal Journeys, Collective Change once it grows, there is so much more that can happen,” he said. And realize, too, noted Trecek-King, that a “no” today does not mean the answer will be the same tomorrow. “It means no for now. So go back and ask again a little bit later.” “We’re trending,” Ellis said, and for that reason she’s “trying to push out as much information as I can to keep us still trending, to make sure that people are still seeing us.” To her, now does not feel like the right time to slow down. “My fragility says that if I stop, then people may forget about us.”
More than a Trend? In the wake of George Floyd’s killing last year, organizations of all kinds—including many in the choral field—issued statements via social media and other means taking a stand against systemic racism and declaring their solidarity with Black Lives Matter. That response was “amazing,” said Ellis, but she can’t help wondering how long it will last. “Sometimes what happens is those become trends and then, in 2022, those
things don’t exist anymore.” She said she will be convinced attention to racial justice issues is not just a trend when these same organizations recruit people like her to work as something other than “your diversity and inclusion person. I’m more than that,” she said. “Come on, hire us! We can do this stuff. We’ve been doing it. You probably just didn’t know because we weren’t on your radar.” Mobley will believe the movement is more than a trend when being first no longer feels like a significant accomplishment. “I’m not impressed that I’m the first programming consultant,” he said. “I’m impressed by seconds. I’m impressed by thirds. I’m impressed by breaking the idea that we’re racing to see who can have the first Black person’s position.” When a Black person is hired, he said, “it shouldn’t be for any other reason than we are who we are, we are qualified, we are needed for that moment. Then I’ll feel like we’re actually making some sort of progress.” Robles said she has found a number of reasons to be hopeful. After deepening connections in the past year with Ellis, Mobley, Trecek-King, and many other people of
color in the field, she said she knows “I’m not going to be left out left hanging out to dry. I know that there’s going to be support around me. I know who I can call on for help.” Knowing her audience was “looking for resources to help spread the word about diversity, equity and inclusion,” she told them, “you now know, you can never not see all the people that you’ve now seen.” We are still a long way from the promised land, she cautioned. “We’re all now in this new woke state,” but “we can’t go back to not being thoughtful. We have to think before we act,” she said. “We have to think about the whole community, we have to really pay attention to who is in our midst. We have to insist on continuing to build meaningful, authentic relationships.” Inevitably, she acknowledged, there will be stumbles. “But if you’re really listening, and you’re really in touch with the community, somebody’s going to help bring you back. And that’s the beauty of being in community.” n Don Lee is the managing editor of the Voice as well as 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.
Get Noticed!
Storytelling and Advertising Opportunities with Chorus America We’re here to help you draw the attention of choral leaders across North America and share the story of your impact on our dynamic field. Let’s connect to explore the options that could work best for you! Advertising • Sponsorship Exhibiting • Custom Opportunities
Contact us: Mike Rowan Associate Director of Communications mike@chorusamerica.org KellyAnn Nelson Annual Fund and Corporate Engagement Manager kellyann@chorusamerica.org
See more: chorusamerica.org/advertising | chorusamerica.org/support/corporate-support 28 The Voice, Summer 2021
Chorus America Honors
2021 Award Winners Chorus America Distinguished Service Award This award is given by Chorus America to a member whose long-term service to the choral field significantly furthers Chorus America’s mission “to empower singing ensembles to create vibrant communities and effect meaningful change.” • 2021 Recipient: Kathy Saltzman Romey
© Sam Brewer
Chorus America’s Awards Program recognizes remarkable individuals and choruses for their meaningful contributions to the choral community. Our 2021 awards were presented at the Awards Celebration and Virtual Gala and Auction during the Summer Conference. Visit youtube.com/chorusamerica to watch the events and view video tributes to many of the award winners. Michael Korn Founders Award for Development of the Professional Choral Art Chorus America established this award in 1978 to recognize an individual with a lifetime of significant contributions to the professional choral art. The award’s name honors Michael Korn, one of the founders of Chorus America and the organization’s first president. •2021 Recipient: Harry Christophers
www.chorusamerica.org 29
Louis Botto Award for Innovative Action and Entrepreneurial Zeal This award was established in memory of Louis Botto for his artistry, selfless service to the choral art, and entrepreneurial spirit in founding the men’s vocal ensemble Chanticleer. The award is given periodically to a mid-career choral leader who has demonstrated these characteristics in developing a professional or professionalcore choral ensemble. • 2021 Recipient: Alexander Lloyd Blake
© A bigail D roeger
2021 Award Winners
Dale Warland Singers Commission Award Chorus America and the American Composers Forum partner to present this award in honor of Dale Warland’s lifelong commitment to new music as embodied through his work with the Dale Warland Singers. The award is made possible by the Dale Warland Singers Fund for New Choral Music, a permanently restricted endowment fund established in 2004. The winning chorus receives a cash award of $10,000, $7,500 of which supports the commissioning fee and $2,500 of which supports engagement with the project composer, and production and promotion costs to present the project. •2021 Recipient:
Chicago Children’s Choir and W. Mitchell Owens, III, composer
Brazeal Wayne Dennard Award This award honors the life and achievements of educator, conductor, and arranger Brazeal Dennard by recognizing individuals or organizations whose work builds upon his commitment to diversity, inclusiveness, and furthering African American and other diverse choral traditions through performance, research, or the creation of new compositions of significance. • 2021 Recipient: André de Quadros
30 The Voice, Summer 2021
Chorus America Philanthropy Award This award recognizes an individual, corporation, or foundation whose financial support has been especially significant and generous to the host of Chorus America’s annual Conference. The winner is selected by leaders of the Conference host. • 2021 Recipient: Dr. Bill Halverson
Michael Korn Founders Award for Philanthropic Contribution to the Arts This award is given to an individual, corporation, or foundation whose financial support of Chorus America and the choral art has been especially significant and generous. •2021 Recipient: Mark and Ginny Lawson, ECS Publishing Group
Awards Program Adjustments for 2021 With significant changes to performance and operations because of COVID-19, Chorus America adjusted its Awards Program for 2021. Some awards with criteria that are difficult to adjudicate under current circumstances were put on hold, with plans to resume in 2022. Learn more at chorusamerica.org/awards.
Conference Sponsors, Funders, and Exhibitors
Thank you
Chorus America gratefully acknowledges these businesses and organizations for their support of the 2021 Summer Conference. CONTRIBUTing SponsorS
Over 700 participants came together virtually for the 2021 Summer Conference, June 16–18, featuring plenary and breakout sessions and networking events addressing timely issues in the field, including in-person reopening and access, diversity, equity, and inclusion (ADEI). Performances by a 200-person choir of Twin Cities singers under the direction of VocalEssence associate conductor and director of learning and engagement G. Phillip Shoultz III and a collection of choruses and song leaders from across North America shone a spotlight on the contributions of the Black artistic community and the resilience of the choral field. The virtual gathering was a festive culmination of a year filled with innovative and responsive programming, including our first-ever year with two Conference events. Lead Sponsor
Conducting Academy Content Category
Plenary: Personal Journeys, Collective Change
On Demand Content and Daily Sings
General Sponsors Opening Night Concert – Voices Rising: A Choral Affirmation of Black Lives
Major Sponsors
COVID-19 Response Content Category
Virtual Gala and Auction sponsored by My Choral Coach in partnership with RealTime Audio
CONNECTION Continued on next page www.chorusamerica.org 31
Chorus America Officers Chair Brian Newhouse Minnesota Orchestra (MN) Chair Elect Anton Armstrong St. Olaf College (MN) Treasurer John Earls Prospect House (OH) Secretary Marie Bucoy-Calavan University of Akron (OH)
General Sponsors continued
Chorus America is deeply grateful to the following funders for their generous support of the Conference:
John C. Griswold Family Foundation Popplestone Foundation
Members of the Board
Jeffrey Barnett Dorsal Capital Management LLC (CA) Charles Berardesco Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington (DC) 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) Morna Edmundson Elektra Women’s Choir (BC) Todd Estabrook Handel and Haydn Society (MA) Miguel Ángel Felipe Conductor and Educator (AZ) Corty B. Fengler Cappella SF (CA) David Hayes Mannes School of Music (NY) Elfrieda Heinrichs The Heinrichs Foundation (ON) Robert Istad Pacific Chorale; California State University Fullerton (CA) Craig Jessop Utah State University (UT) Craig Hella Johnson Vocal Arts Ensemble (OH); Conspirare (TX) Anne Keiser Choral Arts Society of Washington (DC) Robyn Reeves Lana Cincinnati Youth Choir (OH) Mark Lawson ECS Publishing Group (MO) Alysia Lee Maryland State Department of Education; 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 (NY) Dianne Peterson The Washington Chorus (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) Karen P. Thomas Seattle Pro Musica (WA) Anthony Trecek-King Handel and Haydn Society (MA); University of Hartford (CT) Duain Wolfe Chicago Symphony Chorus (IL); Colorado Symphony Chorus (CO)
32 The Voice, Summer 2021
special Underwriting
Conference Exhibitors Choral Singing in America Documentary Series Chorus Connection Consortio ECS Publishing Group Edition Peters Give by Cell Kaleidoscope Adventures Karen Siegel, Composer Michael Bussewitz-Quarm, Composer MusicFolder.com My Choral Coach MyMusicFolders October Project Oxford University Press Performing Arts Readiness RealTime Audio See-A-Dot Music Publishing Sing A Mile High International Children’s Choral Festival Witte Performance Tours
Advertising Index ACDA.......................................................................... 23
MyMusicFolders.com................................................. 17
ACFEA ........................................................................ 19
Rising Software.......................................................... 11
Bard College Conservatory of Music......................... 22
Utah State University................................................. 10
Berkshire Choral International..................................... 2
Vancouver Chamber Choir..........................................C3
Chorus America.......................................................... 28
Witte Performance Tours............................................. 7
Cincinnati Youth Choir................................................ 27
World Singing Day..................................................... 27
Houston Chamber Choir.........................................C2, 8
Yale Institute of Sacred Music.................................. 19
MUSICFOLDER.com...................................................... 7 My Choral Coach in partnership with Real Time Audio.........................................................C4
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