Voice 47.2 - Spring 2024

Professional Collaborations for Young Singers

Rejuvenating Your Approach to Donor Relationships

CELEBRATING ALICE PARKER

Find YOUR CHORAL ADVENTURE at BCI

ANNOUNCING THE SUMMER 2024 SEASON

Lenox

JUNE 13-16

FRANK NEMHAUSER MAY 22-26

DIANA SÁEZ

Great Barrington Amherst

JULY 14-21

JOE MILLER JUNE 23-30

EUGENE ROGERS

ERIN FREEMAN AUGUST 4-11

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

berkshirechoral.org

Alice helped to lead Chorus America to a core truth about the beauty and craft in performance of diverse repertoire and the inestimable value of singing for all.

To Alice’s Accolades, Add Bridge-Builder

Alice Parker played an essential role in the founding and growth of Chorus America.

In the 2023–24 choral season, I’ve been thrilled to see all the exciting work happening in our field: sold out concerts, performances showcasing diverse composers and breathing new life into under-appreciated works, and premieres of innovative new works that speak to our time. This excitement is tempered, though, by the loss of Alice Parker, a composer, arranger, conductor, and educator like no other.

Since Alice’s passing on Christmas Eve (how fitting for a composer such as her!), there have been so many moving, eloquent tributes to her artistry and impact on other choral artists. We’re honored to share several tributes from friends of Chorus America and friends of Alice alike in this issue of the Voice

These tributes sum up all of the reasons that so many of us admire Alice so much: her indelible legacy as a composer, conductor, and educator; her trail-blazing as a woman in choral conducting and composing in the 50’s, 60’s, and beyond; her grit as a working mother; and above all her special power of wielding melody to bring people into the heart of music-making and community.

Given my more than 20 years on the Chorus America staff, I believe that it’s incumbent upon me to bring up yet another aspect of Alice’s legacy to celebrate, namely her essential role in the founding and growth of Chorus America itself. From attending the first annual conference of our precursor organization, the Association of Professional Vocal Ensembles in 1978 and the vast majority of Chorus America Conferences since then, to serving on the Board in the 1990’s and again in the 2000’s, and becoming our first Director Laureate, Alice was a steady, positive influence on Chorus America’s evolution.

I think a secret to Alice’s impact at Chorus America and in the field at large is that she was a bridge-builder. This trait was quite a gift to “future Chorus America” when she served on the Board

from 1990–99. It was a rocky and risky period of development for Chorus America, with many passionate—and sometimes tense and highly emotional—board discussions about expanding membership and growing service to a broader swath of choral singing communities. Alice was a calm and focused presence, helping to lead the organization to a core truth about the beauty and craft in performance of diverse repertoire and the inestimable value of singing for all— from amateur to paid professional and from children to adults.

When I came to Chorus America in 2000 as its development director, the organization was in the final stages of institutionalizing this important expanded mission and direction. We needed Alice’s experience, wisdom, and steady focus yet again, and she graciously answered the call, serving on the board from 2001–10. Today, Chorus America serves 6,000 choruses of all types, choral conductors, administrators, board members, and singers with tools, training, peer networking, and advocacy. We are “at the table” with national policy efforts and are a vital component of the performing arts ecosystem in the U.S. and Canada.

Our evolution continues today with our new Strategic Plan that focuses on a commitment to measurable actions that advance equity, diversity, and inclusion in the choral field, particularly as it relates to those who may have been marginalized by race or ethnicity. Not surprisingly, Alice was at the forefront of this work for decades in her compositions, arrangements, and teaching where she championed the styles of Latinx and African American cultures. Chorus America Board Chair Anton Armstrong, said it best: “So much of Alice’s work as teacher, composer, and conductor was to be a voice for social justice, building bridges between people, and lifting up the voices of so many who have been marginalized.” An example of this was in 2021, when Alice along with her friends and colleagues from her chorus, Melodious Accord, established the Alice Parker Fund at Chorus America. This endowed fund supports an award to recognize the composition and thoughtful presentation of choral music based in the traditions of Black and Latinx communities. What an honor for Chorus America and how typical of Alice’s leadership and generous spirit!

Alice set a very high bar as a Chorus American and as a human being. I treasure being able to call her a friend, inspiration, and a hero who served Chorus America when it needed her most.

Catherine Dehoney President & CEO, Chorus America

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he Cecilia Chorus of New York (pictured) gave the world premiere of Everyone, Everywhere, commissioned from composer Daron Hagen, in Carnegie Hall on December 16 to honor the 75th anniversary of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Remarks from UN representatives complemented the performance of the piece, which weaves passages from the Universal Declaration with the words of Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Eleanor Roosevelt, and other human rights luminaries.

On March 16, the Phoenix Boys Choir gave the world premiere of Foreign Lands by Polish composer Zuzanna Koziej. The piece was one of the prize-winning entries in the choir’s 2023 New Works Rising Choral Composition Competition.

Voices of Ascension presented the world premiere of Evan Blaché’s “Unrelenting and Unstoppable” and Danielle Jagelski’s “What Do You See” on April 9 in partnership with The Unsung Collective, a choral organization devoted to celebrating people of color in Western art music in New York City.

EXIGENCE, a professional vocal ensemble highlighting artistry within Black and Latinx communities that is part of the Sphinx Organization, gave the world premiere of When the Caged Bird Sings, commissioned from composer Nkeiru Okoye, on February 10 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The multi-movement work for chorus, orchestra, narrator, and soloists fuses elements of oratorio, theater, and opera. The Bach Choir of Bethlehem (Pennsylvania) presented the world premiere of Songs for the People, commissioned from composer u

How to Make ADEI-Centered Programming an Adventure

There’s no way to represent diverse voices in your concert programming without factoring composers’ ethnic identity, gender and sexual orientation into your decisionmaking. But what if most of that were done for you ahead of time? A website developed by an organization called New Muses Project aims to help you concentrate your programming effort, along with your curiosity, on the music itself. Co-founder Gloria Yin shares more about the project’s composer recommendation system in a conversation with writer Don Lee.

Don Lee: Could you start with a quick description of the New Muses Project? Your website describes it as “a DEI-centered classical music organization, promoting justice and curiosity through performance education and scholarship.” How do you aim to accomplish those things?

Gloria Yin: The main thing we’ve created is a web-based resource, newmusesproject. com, which provides recommendations of composers of historically marginalized identities for you to explore based on your current interests. We have a search box, and it says, “give us the name of a composer you like.” And so you could say, “Oh, I like Brahms,” and we might say “great, then you should check out this composer.” So we provide similar composers, based on parameters such as historical era, influences, genres composed, location, style, and sound. We give you the name and some fun information about them, biography, recordings: stuff that we think is going to be helpful to you to actually be getting to know this composer in a way that is not necessarily centered around their identity, or around any labels. The whole idea is for everyone just to be very adventurous, try and approach stuff that they might never have heard before. We want to encourage people to keep an open mind about the music and composers that they find interesting.

What signaled to you that there was a need for this?

We started developing the site in 2021, around the time that a lot of people were talking about what diversity in the classical music field looks like, and then we launched the site in the summer of 2022. DEI has been an ongoing conversation for decades, of course, but there was a

renewed interest in it in 2020, as we all know, and a lot of the discussion at the time revolved around how do we get more Black composers programmed? How do we get more women composers programmed? These questions are not necessarily themselves a bad thing, but we were feeling like people were treating it as another thing that they were obliged to do. We wanted to change the way people think about diversity, away from checklists and away from labels and identity. We felt like that wasn’t necessarily a very sustainable approach or a very fun approach. We wanted to make it feel like approaching these composers is more about just being adventurous, just being willing to embrace stuff that’s outside the canon.

The number of names that could be added to your resource must be limitless. How big is your database now, and how have you built it? What guides you in making the choices? What resources do you have to accomplish even a sliver of what could be done?

That’s been one of our really big challenges. It’s eternally going to be a work in progress. Our current list of composers that we want to add is in the hundreds—more than 400, for sure. And I believe the number of profiles we’ve written up right now is over 100, maybe 120 so far. Most of that has been down to the work of a small team of musicologists. All of the information is very custom-curated, so it is very time-intensive to create all of these profiles.

To identify overlooked composers, you must have to do a lot of detective work. And once you find them, do you go through a process to decide whether to recommend them?

We start with our list of over 400  (and counting) interesting composers that we want to recommend, and in order to decide which of those composers to prioritize we had to ask, “Who are the composers people are more likely to have as their favorites and therefore put into our search engine?” We know people are going to put Beethoven [in the search box]. Beethoven should have five or six recommendations, and who are those people going to be?

Because of historical and systemic marginalization of certain identity groups, it’s true that the composers we want to recommend are a little more sparsely scattered through the historical ages compared to white men

who have always been uplifted, but, importantly, that does not mean that those composers don’t exist; we just have to do extra work to find them, and that’s the fun part. As you can imagine, it’s not possible to always give recommendations that everyone will love. The good news is that we curate each of the connections (rather than relying on AI) and so we’re happy for you to disagree with a recommendation or suggest a recommendation that we’ve missed.

Since you got started three years ago, the momentum behind ADEI has slowed somewhat in parts of corporate America. Do you think momentum has shifted in the music world based on what you have occasion to observe? This is all completely anecdotal—no hard evidence for this whatsoever— but it felt like in 2020, there seemed to be a lot more institutional push towards DEI in terms of written statements, goals that people wanted to accomplish, ways to track their progress. A lot of it seemed to be topdown because people seemed to say, “This is a structural problem, this is an institutional problem, we need institutional solutions.” And I felt like at the time, it wasn’t trickling down to the level of me, my peers, what were we doing as individuals. How are we keeping each other accountable? How was all of this informing our personal music choices? And now, I am hearing a lot less from institutions. But I’m still constantly gratified when my peers have continued to use resources that are out there, resources like New Muses Project and other databases. I feel like there are more pieces that didn’t used to be in the canon five or 10 years ago that feel almost canonical now, just by virtue of having been performed frequently in the last couple years, which is very gratifying. It’s sort of hard to measure, like, is this real progress? And what does real progress even mean? But I do feel like that’s where organizations like New Muses Project come in. It can be about counting composers, but it can also just be: Are you still being adventurous? Are you still being curious? Are you still wanting to learn about music that’s outside the canon? Then it’s intrinsic to your approach to music.

For more from Yin on the New Muses Project, see the full online article at bit.ly/ADEIAdventure.

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Jasmine Barnes, on February 13. “It is a rare and very special occasion when The Bach Choir premiers a brand-new commission by a living composer,” Bach Choir artistic director Christopher Jackson said of the project.

On March 17, Philadelphia-based The Crossing premiered You Are Who I Love, a collaboration between poet Aracelis Girmay and composer Harold Meltzer that captures the undocumented immigrant experience in the United States.

On October 20, Voices of Silicon Valley (VOSV) premiered Cyril Deaconoff’s “Visions of Guadalupe,” inspired by the paintings of Mexican American artist and civil rights leader Yolanda Lopez. The program was presented in cooperation with the San Jose Museum of Art in conjunction with an exhibit of Lopez’s work. The cantata set poetry by five

Mexican poets for chorus, soloists, prerecorded tape and instrumental ensemble.

The La Jolla Symphony & Chorus premiered Crescendo, a work commissioned from Nasim Khorassani, on February 11. Khorassani, a music composition doctoral student at UC San Diego who came to study music in the U.S. after growing up in Iran, wrote the piece in response to the Women, Life, Freedom movement which gained traction around the world following the death of Iranian woman Mahsa Amini.

On March 2, Seattle Pro Musica premiered Eric Tuan’s “Let them not say,” a plea for action against climate change set to a text by Jane Hirshfield. Student singers from local schools also joined the ensemble to perform another work by Tuan, “Journey of Song.”

The Monmouth Civic Chorus presented the premiere of “A Song Together,” a four-movement choral-orchestral work composed by artistic director Ryan James Brandau, paired with Johannes Brahms’s

We Came to America: Illuminating the American Immigrant Experience

CHORUS

Wchorusamerica.org/conference-2024

e Came to America, a fivemovement choral-orchestral work that honors the history and experience of immigrating to America, had its world premiere on January 20. The piece was inspired by the 2016 Jill Ringgold book of the same title and commissioned by the Thurnauer School of Music, home to the Young People’s Chorus @ Thurnauer, an affiliate of the Young People’s Chorus of New York City (YPC). The intergenerational project involved Young People’s Chorus

@ Thurnauer, YPC, and Ember Choral Arts singing with the New Jersey Symphony in the premiere. Composer Rob Kapilow interviewed over 100 immigrants for the piece and collaborated with Khmer artist Sokunthary Svay, a Thailand-born refugee who ultimately immigrated to the U.S., who used stories from the interviews to form part of the libretto for the piece. The creation of an educational curriculum and a scholarship fund were also part of the project.

Created by Juilliard faculty member Evan Fein, this unique sight singing method is perfect for self-study, classroom learning, or use as choral warm-ups.

CELEBRATING INTERSECTIONALITY AND BLACK ARTISTS FROM LGBTQ+ AND ALLIED COMMUNITIES

Coro Allegro, an LGBTQ+ and allied classical chorus based in Boston, presented IDENTITY: I Believe, a concert of works by Black American composers featuring renowned Black artists from the LGBTQ+ and allied communities on February 18. The performance marked the Boston debut of trans woman soprano Breanna Sinclairé, and countertenor Reginald Mobley was presented with the organization’s Daniel Pinkham Award in recognition of his advocacy for arts equity and contributions to classical music and the LGBTQ+ community.

Ein Deutsches Requiem to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the chorus.

ProMusica Arizona will give the world premiere of “Argonautika Suite” by local composer Thomas Hartwell on April 13. n

Former Chorus America board members Roland Carter (pictured) and Pearl Shangkuan (pictured) were named 2023 Honorary Life Members by the National Collegiate Choral Organization (NCCO), and honored in a ceremony during NCCO’s biennial conference on November 10 in Atlanta, Georgia. NCCO’s Honorary Life Members recognize collegiate and university conductors “who have mentored young conductors, inspired singers, supported music educators in the arts, and shared their talents and gifts in the United States and abroad.” Carter is Holmberg Professor Emeritus of American Music at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, and founder u

and CEO of MAR-VEL, a publisher specializing in music by African American composers and traditions. Shangkuan is director of choral activities and professor of music at Calvin University and chorus director of the Grand Rapids Symphony.

Jerusalem Youth Chorus (JYC) founder and artistic director Micah Hendler (pictured left) received the 2023 Dialogue Award from the Rumi Forum, a Washington DC interfaith nonprofit with a focus on peacebuilding, at its 2023 annual gala on November 8. JYC brings together teens from the Israeli and Palestinian sides of Jerusalem to create a space for song and dialogue, and the group has continued to meet even as war has been raging in the region since October 7. The Rumi Dialogue Award “honors successful practitioners with outstanding track records in interfaith engagement, community service, human rights, and education.” n

IN MEMORIAM

Peter Bagley, a former Chorus America board member from 1993–96 and longtime professor at the University of Connecticut, died January 20 at the age of 88. In 1957, Bagley became the first Black teacher in the Greenwich (Connecticut) public school system. In 1984, he was named director of choral activities at UConn, where he taught for almost three decades. Connecticut Public Radio’s obituary for Bagley stated that he “influenced countless singers and future choir directors, and was one of the first prominent Black choral conductors in the U.S.”

Choruses Recognized During 2024 Awards Season

Los Angeles-based ensemble Tonality (pictured) and New York-based ensemble Roomful of Teeth each won 2024 Grammy Awards. Tonality was featured on Carla Patullo’s album So She Howls which won the Grammy for Best New Age, Ambient, or Chant Album, and Roomful of Teeth took home the award for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance for their album Rough Magic. The Grammy award for Best Choral Performance went to the Helsinki Chamber Choir, and nominees in the

category included Chorus America members The Clarion Choir, Conspirare, The Crossing, and the San Francisco Symphony Chorus

During her acceptance speech for Best Original Song (“What Was I Made For?” from Barbie, with her brother FINNEAS) at the 2024 Oscars, Los Angeles Children’s Chorus (LACC) alum Billie Eilish thanked her former teacher Mandy Brigham, who had a 22-year tenure with LACC before retiring at the end of the 2022–23 season.

Appointments and Retirements

Craig Hella Johnson (pictured) has been named a co-artistic partner for the Oregon Bach Festival. Together with Jos van Veldhoven, Johnson is charged with shaping the festival’s artistic vision, contributing to the development of the festival’s annual concert schedule, and cultivating artist relationships that result in new works and commissions in this new role. Johnson, a current board member of Chorus America, concluded his tenure as music director of Cincinnati’s Vocal Arts Ensemble following performances on March 9 and 10, but will remain as founder and artistic director of Conspirare, based in Austin, Texas.

choruses, effective June 1. Swanson has been involved with the May Festival for over a decade in various capacities, joining as a tenor in the May Festival Chorus in 2011, and currently serves as director of the May Festival Youth Chorus, associate director of choruses, and director of special projects. The Los Angeles Children’s Chorus named Susan Miller Kotses (pictured) as executive director. An experienced administrator, voice teacher, and singer, Kotses was most recently Pacific Symphony’s vice president of education and community engagement.

The Cincinnati May Festival announced Matthew Swanson (pictured) as its next director of

Choral Arts (Washington DC) appointed Marie BucoyCalavan (pictured) as its next artistic director, beginning September 1. Bucoy-Calavan, who will complete her current term on the

©JAMES GOULDEN

Chorus America board of directors this June, will join Choral Arts from the University of Akron, where she has served as director of choral activities for the past decade.

Pacific Chorale (Orange County, California) named Rhett DelCampo (pictured) as president and CEO, effective May 1. DelCampo has served in multiple executive leadership roles in the choral field. The chorale also promoted Alex Nelson (pictured) to the position of vice president of artistic production and operations.

The Toronto Mendelssohn Choir appointed Daniela Nardi (pictured) as its new executive director. Nardi brings over 30 years of experience in the arts and culture sector to the organization and is also founder and artistic director of the Canadian-Italian cultural exchange program Salone di Cultura.

Andre Dowell (pictured) was promoted to the role of chief programming officer at the Sphinx Organization

The State College Choral Society named Erik Clayton (pictured) as artistic director for the 2024–25 season.

Clayton also serves as the director of choirs at State College Area High School. Current artistic director Russ Shelley (pictured) will step down at the end of the season after 25 years with the Society.

Houston Chamber Choir (HCC) announced that founder and artistic director Robert Simpson (pictured) will retire at the end of the 2024–25 season, which marks the ensemble’s 30th anniversary. During Simpson’s tenure, HCC won a 2020 Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance and was awarded u

Chorus America Staff Travels and Field Connections

The first few months of 2024 have been an active time for Chorus America staff traveling and connecting with colleagues at events and conferences. Our activities out in the field began just 12 days into the new year at the ACDA Children’s & Community Youth Choir Conductors’ Retreat in Nashville where Christie McKinney and Karyn Castro presented a pre-conference workshop: “I’m running a business?” Boards, Marketing and Business Administration for Directors of Children & Youth Choirs. Our other points of connection have included attending the 2024 SphinxConnect convening for diversity in the arts in Detroit with members of the Leadership Development Forum (Liza Beth, Karyn Castro, Mike

NEW CHORUS AMERICA STAFF

We are thrilled to welcome Hannah Grasso-McClain, our new development manager, to the Chorus America staff!

In this newly created role on the development team, Hannah will support the growth of contributed revenue across individual, corporate, and institutional campaigns. Hannah joins our staff from the Choir School of Delaware and is excited to combine her fundraising background and love of choral music. She received a master of music degree in choral conducting from Temple University and a bachelor of arts degree in music from Smith College.

Rowan), participating in the New York Choral Consortium’s Membership Day (Liza Beth, Vale Southard), and hosting a gathering for DC-area alumni of the ADEI Learning Lab (Karyn Castro).

Clockwise from top left: ACDA Children’s & Community Youth Choir Conductors’ Retreat, 2024 SphinxConnect, and ADEI Learning Lab

the Margaret Hillis Award for Choral Excellence from Chorus America in 2018. Simpson also received Chorus America’s Michael Korn Founders Award for Development of the Professional Choral

Art in 2010. The choir also announced that Betsy Cook Weber (pictured), a vocal coach and former director of the Houston Symphony Chorus, will join the organization as guest conductor in the 2024–25 season and take

Inaugural Dale Warland Singers Commission Grant Supports Collaboration to Embrace Diversity, Preserve Indigenous Language

With great excitement, Chorus America announced the inaugural recipient of the Dale Warland Singers Commission Grant. New Jersey-based Wharton Institute for the Performing Arts was selected to receive the 2024 grant, which will support a composition from composer William LinthicumBlackhorse (pictured) to be premiered by Wharton Arts’ New Jersey Youth Chorus (pictured). Chorus America and the American Composers Forum partner to present this grant to support a chorus entering into an artistically meaningful and mutually beneficial partnership with a composer to contribute a new work to the choral repertoire.

With the 2024 grant, Wharton Arts will commission Linthicum-Blackhorse to compose “Long Ago When They Lived in the East,” an original work based on a speech given by now-deceased Lenape speaker Nora Thompson Dean. The piece aims to honor the language and history of the Lenape people, who were forcibly removed by colonizers from their ancestral home where New Jersey is today, and to spread accurate and accessible history to New Jersey youth while embracing cultural diversity. As part of revitalization efforts to revive indigenous languages,

Linthicum-Blackhorse’s composition will feature both English and Southern UnamiLenape languages.

The finished work will be premiered by the New Jersey Youth Chorus, a program of Wharton Arts, in May 2025.

“As we endeavor to learn, share, and preserve the cultural heritage of the Lenape people—and in alignment with our commitment to amplifying the voices of BIPOC composers—it is our hope that this project will serve as a powerful educational and artistic tool, fostering understanding and appreciation for indigenous languages and histories among youth in New Jersey and beyond, while honoring the Lenape people, on whose ancient homelands we are standing,” said Helen H. Cha-Pyo, artistic director of the Wharton Institute for the Performing Arts.

This is the inaugural year of presenting the Dale Warland Singers Commission Grant, after undergoing a transition from a former award (the Dale Warland Singers Commission Award) in the fall of 2023. More details and updates about Chorus America’s awards and grants are available at chorusamerica.org

the reins as artistic director and conductor beginning with the 2025–26 season.

Robin Godfrey (pictured) announced that she will retire as executive director of GALA Choruses in the fall of 2024.

Over her 17-year tenure with GALA, Godfrey built a resilient financial foundation for the organization that was able to withstand the severe challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the cancellation of the quadrennial GALA Festival. Godfrey will lead GALA through the return of Festival 2024 in Minneapolis. n

Releases

The Bach Choir of Bethlehem (Pennsylvania) released a live recording of the world premiere performance of a new rendition of J.S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, interpreted by Felix Mendelssohn. The Bach Choir gave the live performance of this new scholarly edition from musicologist Malcolm Bruno on November 4.

Composer Jessica Meyer released I long and seek after, an album anchored by the multi-movement work of the same name, performed by Boston-based Lorelei Ensemble. The composition I long and seek after was the 2019 winner of Chorus America’s Dale Warland Singers Commission Award, setting words from the ancient Greek lyric poet Sappho to examine female identity and grapple with themes of love, lust, relationships, and mortality.

Cappella Records, a recording label operated by the ensemble Cappella Romana, released premiere recordings of composer Frank LaRocca’s Requiem for the Forgotten and Messe des Malades, performed by Benedict XVI Choir and Orchestra and directed by former Chorus America board member Richard

©SHANNON LANGMAN

Sparks. LaRocca’s requiem commemorates the displaced and the homeless and draws on his Ukranian heritage, and his mass underscores the universal need for healing, informed by his family’s health battles.

National Children’s Chorus (NCC) released its debut holiday album, Illumine The album was recorded on NCC’s tour in the UK at London’s Abbey Road Studios and AIR Studios by over 250 singers from all eight NCC chapter cities, and showcases new commissions, arrangements, and orchestrations that represent traditions and holiday expressions from around the world.

GIA Publications released Spirituals and Inspirational Songs, a compilation of arrangements of songs from the African American experience for solo voice by Uzee Brown, Jr., professor emeritus at Morehouse College. n

Highlighting Black Voices in Orthodox Music

Cvoices of the African American Orthodox Church. The concerts featured

116th Bethlehem BACH FESTIVAL

• Recorder virtuoso Vincent Lauzer, Festival Artist-in-Residence, plays J.S. Bach, (Brandenburg Concerto No. 4, Herr Christ, der einge Gottessohn, BWV 96, and Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele, BWV 180), Telemann, and C.P.E. Bach as soloist and in supporting roles (Fridays & Saturdays)

• Bach scholar Dr. Michael Marissen’s lecture, The Low Made Mighty, will discuss how Bach’s church cantatas and secular chamber music sometimes exalt instruments of low degree, such as the recorder (Fridays)

• Keyboard artist par excellence Charlotte Mattax Moersch offers Bach’s spellbinding Goldberg Variations (Fridays)

• Musical sampling of The Bach Choir’s upcoming Bachfest and European Tour repertoire performances (Fridays & Saturdays)

• The jewel of the Festival, Mass in B Minor (Saturdays) Livestreamed May 11

• Soloists Sherezade Panthaki, soprano; Meg Bragle, mezzo-soprano; Benjamin Butterfield, tenor; William Sharp, baritone; Paul Max Tipton, bass-baritone

@Bethlehem Bach

the work “Bright Sadness” which sets Orthodox liturgy to music based on African American spirituals, composed by Mother Katherine Weston, an Orthodox nun who focuses on racial reconciliation, as well as Shawn Wallace’s How Sweet The Sound, an Eastern Orthodox Vespers in gospel style with Byzantine chant references, written for chorus, Hammond B3 organ, and percussion.

Dr. Christopher Jackson Artistic Director & Conductor

Vincent Lauzer The Bach Choir of Bethlehem

Charlotte Mattax Moersch Dr. Michael Marrisen

appella Romana hosted a collaboration How Sweet the Sound: Black Voices in Orthodox Music with gospel choir Kingdom Sound in Seattle on February 9 and Portland on February 10. The project highlights finding common ground in varying musical styles ranging from Byzantine chant to gospel and elevating

DREAMING BIG Young Singers in Professional Collaborations

Leaders of children and youth choral organizations share how high-level artistic partnerships benefit young singers and how to ensure a safe and supportive environment for these collaborations.

BY THOMAS MAY

The socio-emotional benefits young singers gain from being part of a choral ensemble with their peers are well documented. But collaborations that provide them with high-level artistic experiences can have an especially enduring effect and reinforce a sense of accomplishment. Amplifying opportunities for such projects is a key part of the mission of many children and youth choral organizations around the U.S. and beyond.

The National Children’s Chorus regularly teams up with leading conductors, ensembles, and professional singers. The young artists participated in the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s 2019 recording of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony under Gustavo Dudamel (winning a Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance), while their most recent release, Illumine, is a holiday celebration recorded with the London Symphony. The NCC, which currently operates in eight cities around the U.S., also works closely with such composers as Nico Muhly, Tan Dun, and Meredith Monk.

These high-level commitments involve an ideal combination of artistic and educational goals, according to artistic director, president, and CEO Luke McEndarfer. “What you learn applies to every element of your life. In anything that you want to do, there’s going to be a path to create excellence— the realization of committing to being your very best no matter what the endeavor. That’s where we feel that the real power is.”

The rebound in activity since the pandemic has been particularly impressive. San Francisco Girls Chorus, which works with several of the Bay Area’s major arts organizations and includes a composer residency as part of its choral school program

(this season, the Iranian American Sahba Aminkia), starred in March in a production of Vivaldi’s only oratorio, Juditha Triumphans. The Young People’s Chorus of New York City (winner of the Choir of the World Award in 2018) extended its artistic associations to the Metropolitan Opera stage for the first time last fall in Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking and returns this spring to sing in John Adams’s El Niño.

Uniting Voices Chicago pursues trailblazing collaborations across genres and media, from singing with Karol G at Lollapalooza and on Saturday Night Live to being part of installation artist Theaster Gates’s climate change film The Flood UVC’s young singers recently took part in a program with jazz bassist, composer, and arranger Christian McBride paying homage to icons of the Civil Rights movement.

These represent some of the nation’s largest youth chorus organizations (and

“I want them to understand and more importantly feel that they are a real part of the creative process: it is a collaboration, it is alive, so everything can change all the time.”

–Valérie Sainte-Agathe

correspondingly biggest budgets). But ensembles of varying sizes pursue similarly ambitious professional partnerships. By virtue of its organization as a resident ensemble of the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music’s Prep program, the Cincinnati Youth Choir has a readily available platform for its advanced level of singers to perform substantial works like Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with the pre-professional conservatory students and conductors. Additionally, notes founder, artistic director, and conductor Robyn Reeves Lana, opportunities beyond the conservatory include appearances with the Cincinnati Symphony (Mahler’s Eighth Symphony at the 2023 Spring Festival), Cincinnati Opera, and regional collaborations.

The Bach Festival Society of Winter Park in Central Florida established its Youth Choir in 1992, which participates in two to three of the main events of the season. But thanks to the Society’s reputation, explains the Youth Choir’s director Rebecca Hammac, the young singers receive invitations to appear in an array of projects at Orlando’s performing arts hub, the Dr. Phillips Center. This season has been unusually crowded with such “extra” undertakings, from backing Diana Ross with the London Philharmonic to sold-out screenings of The Lord of the u

Luke McEndarfer conducts the National Children’s Chorus

Left: Valérie Sainte-Agathe conducts the San Francisco Girls Chorus

Dreaming Big

Rings films with live performances of Howard Shore’s scores.

The Hawaii Youth Opera Chorus on the island of Oahu occupies a unique niche. Though the organization was originally founded to provide young voices for Hawai‘i Opera Theatre, artistic director Nola A. Nāhulu has expanded its activities significantly to encompass a summer season that presents newly commissioned operas by local composers that are inspired by Hawaiian history and legend, as well as a host of other performances across the community, such as concerts at senior centers.

Thriving with Music

What makes these special artistic collaborations so valuable for the young singers? “They are developing their curiosity, which is about more than training them to be good musicians,” says Valérie SainteAgathe, who has served as artistic director

of the San Francisco Girls Chorus since 2013. “Juditha Triumphans is a staged production, for example, which requires them to go outside their comfort zone. But I know the impact is strong because it inspires them to develop curiosity and empathy. They draw on qualities they need to make things work in the real world in general. I want them to be fearless, courageous, brave.”

According to Elizabeth Núñez, creative director of the Young People’s Chorus of New York City, high-profile collaborations are part of a focus “on 21st-century skills.” They “transform a child’s thinking about

what they can do. If they’re able to diligently and meticulously work towards perfection for an event like this, they’ll think of ways to apply that same work ethic and passion in other facets of their lives.”

The reinforcement of self-confidence is an invaluable benefit, observes Luke McEndarfer. But he also emphasizes the holistic impact of being involved in music. While only a small percentage of these young artists will go on to become professional musicians or even to major in voice, singing for them goes beyond “a hobby, discipline, or skill. What the pandemic really brought home is how u

“In anything that you want to do, there’s going to be a path to create excellence — the realization of committing to being your very best no matter what the endeavor. That’s where we feel that the real power is.”

–Luke McEndarfer

Cincinnati Youth Choir and CCM Chamber Choir performed together at the ACDA’s 2023 Conference.

music is a source of mental, emotional, and physical well-being.” This idea prompted the title of the NCC’s current season, “Thrive,” which refers to how the programming reflects “a musical meditation on what students need in order to be their best selves and contribute positively towards society.”

As president and artistic director of Uniting Voices Chicago, Josephine Lee has overseen a revolutionary rebranding of one of the nation’s oldest organizations for young singers (formerly known as Chicago Children’s Choir). She points out that UVC’s genre-crossing artistic partnerships “offer young people a window to the world and the confidence to navigate diverse spaces.” These projects “require singers to open their minds to a new artist or art form, work toward a common goal, and present with excellence.”

Spotlight on Variety in Collaboration

A thread shared by these organizations is their enthusiastically eclectic approach to repertoire. The choice of which projects to pursue similarly reflect an emphasis on variety. “We want our students to have a full education in all of the classics, as well as to be able to sing music of varying styles from cultures all around the world,” says McEndarfer. “And it’s central to our mission to expand the art form by commissioning new works.”

McEndarfer explains that every commission, collaboration, and programming initiative is vetted by a special committee who ensures that underrepresented voices are heard. “We look specifically at the demographics of the students we serve and work hard to make sure the over all musical experience is a reflection of that in as many ways as possible.” The Illumine album that NCC recently recorded with the LSO reflects this mindfulness about diversity with commissions from composer André J. Thomas (currently an associate artist with the LSO), a Diwali-inspired piece, and new arrangements of Filipino and Nigerian carols alongside more familiar holiday selections.

Partnering with contemporary composers has been found to be exceptionally rewarding. The Young People’s Chorus of New York City enjoys an ongoing association with Julia Wolfe and has collaborated with her and the New York Philharmonic in two major productions over the past five years: her 2019 oratorio in my Mouth (about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire), which called for a girl choir,

Dreaming Big

and, in 2023, her multimedia production unEarth. The latter featured young male voices from YPC and addressed the topic of climate change. “It is so impactful for our singers to be a part of these kinds of partnerships,” says Elizabeth Núñez, “because Julia Wolfe and the director, Anne Kauffman, both have so much respect for the children’s creative process and the voice they bring to the work. In fact, most of the text from unEarth came from interviews with our singers.”

“There’s so much to get out of newer works,” reports Cincinnati Youth Choir’s Robyn Lana. “And there are opportunities to meet the composers and for staging and other aspects that aren’t as quickly applicable with older music.”

Valérie Sainte-Agathe finds new music a potent way to stimulate curiosity and is convinced it should be a clear priority. “When I arrived 10 years ago, I had a hard time with feedback from parents telling me these are not appropriate sounds for girls’ voices,” she recalls. “I believe in exploration.”

Last November, the San Francisco Girls Chorus joined with the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble in the inaugural California Festival to sing works centering such contemporary Californian women composers as Gabriela Lena Frank, Reena Esmail, and Gabriella Smith. “It’s important for the singers not only to know what new music is at the technical level, but also to know the composer personally and then have an opinion about what they are performing and how they perform it— to show them that they have a voice in the way they perform things.”

Special Connections through Novel Partnerships

At Uniting Voices Chicago, Josephine Lee has encouraged collaborations that go beyond the traditional repertoire and genres. “Everything from a singer connecting to her Colombian roots after performing with Karol G on SNL to singers who are passionate about immigration and human rights getting to perform at Navy Pier with Little Amal”—all of these experiences show the young artists “that music has significance beyond entertainment and is a reflection of people’s lives and experiences.”

Participating in these high-level partnerships also offers a special opportunity for UVC singers to see diverse cultures highlighted on a large stage. “Through shared experiences that focus on new people and new cultures, and that validate and celebrate

Uniting Voices Chicago performs with Christian McBride and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

©TODD ROSENBERG, COURTESY OF CHICAGO SYMPHONY

peoples’ differences, students gain global leadership qualities and cultural competence,” Lee observes. “This inspires them to actively work toward creating a more connected and accepting society.”

When they’re not singing from the center of the canon as part of the Bach Festival Society’s homage to their namesake, the Florida-based BFS Youth Choir avails itself of opportunities that can even be unpredictable until the last minute. They returned from several years of pandemic-caused hiatus last fall with a request to provide accompaniment to Diana Ross on tour with the London Philharmonic in Orlando. Director Rebecca Hammac recalls an initial sense of hesitation, which was followed by the realization that this was too good a chance to pass up. “But we only had a week’s advance notice and ended up doing nine songs, even though we were originally supposed to do two to three songs.”

Hawaii Youth Opera Chorus was founded in 1961 by Eileen Lum and Richard Vine as a pipeline for young singers to appear on the stage of Hawai‘i Opera Theatre. (Their first performance there was in a production of La Bohème.) The leadership of longtime artistic director Nola Nāhulu has transformed HYOC, growing the

membership tenfold and expanding the range of young singers it involves from grades K through 12. In 1993, she launched a youth opera program dubbed “OPERAtunities” intended to showcase operas not just performed by but specifically composed for young people. The first production, Yanomamo, written in 1988 by Peter Rose and Anne Conlon, told the story of an indigenous tribe living in harmony with the ecosystem in the Amazon basin. Although a previously composed work, its setting in the rain forest evoked parallels with the situation of indigenous Hawaiians and suggested the idea of presenting operas that would have a message relating to Hawaiian lore and history, Nāhulu recalls.

In 1994, HYOC began commissioning brand-new operas for children by local composers to celebrate native culture and heritage. Seven operas have been created to date, beginning with Neil McKay’s Kahalaopuna, which shows the daughter of the gods of wind and rain teaching reverence for raindrops and the rainbow of Manoa. The roles in these productions are performed entirely by the young singers (ranging from grades 4 to 12). They also participate in creating the sets

and take dance and drama classes to prepare for their performances.

“Because many of our kids enjoy what they get to do on the opera stage, they will audition to collaborate with Hawai‘i Opera Theatre, which is open to singers starting from the junior high level,” says Nāhulu. This June, to mark the 30th anniversary of the first commissioned youth opera, HYOC will premiere a new commission by Tonia Ko, an alumna of the chorus, based on Acaia Awai’s original story Scales about dragons on Maui who can assume the form of humans with special powers.

Keeping the Bar High — and Creating a Supportive Environment

A key challenge for young singers who engage in professional partnerships is learning how to accommodate to personalities and working styles that are new and unfamiliar—whether conductors, directors, composers, or artistic figures outside the classical sphere.

“We want to ensure that the students are very flexible,” says NCC artistic director u

Hawaii Youth Opera Chorus performs Ka‘ililauokekoa by Bertran Moon, one of the operas the organization has commissioned specifically for young performers.

Pamela Blackstone. “Oftentimes in our rehearsals we’ll have two conductors to make sure that they understand how to follow different styles, different people, different energies.” Her NCC colleague Allan Laiño, who is principal conductor and director of advanced studies, recalls that when preparing his students who took part in a performance of Britten’s War Requiem with the American Youth Symphony at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, “we practiced many variations of tempi and dynamics and even practiced watching the conductor from 50 feet away, rather than the usual 15 to 20. I found it was also important to talk about the experience of being able to adjust to a new setting in an instant, knowing they weren’t going to have much rehearsal time in this space.”

At Uniting Voices Chicago, says Josephine Lee, “we are intentional about introducing young people to the artist, providing background on their life and artistry, how the opportunity came to Uniting Voices, and the benefit of stepping outside

their sphere of familiarity. We set parameters for interpersonal interaction and social media use, and instill adaptability, as sometimes these projects can take unexpected paths. Singers know the expectation to

demonstrate our core values of education, expression, and excellence at every turn.”

Rebecca Hammac refers to the need to discuss matters that don’t typically come up in rehearsal. For the Bach Festival Society

Young People’s Chorus of New York City were featured performers in the New York Philharmonic world premiere of Julia Wolfe’s unEarth.

©CHRIS LEE

Youth Choir’s Diana Ross and Lord of the Rings gigs this season, “we had to talk to them about why we’re miked and make sure they’re conscious of the microphones. But they also get to learn about the lighting, all the stage technology, which gives them a bigger picture of professional performance.”

“You need to train the singers to understand what’s going to happen, what attention they’re going to receive but also not receive,” observes Cincinnati’s Robyn Lana. “What they see from us as teacher conductors is very different from what they will see from a professional orchestral conductor.”

In addition to training the San Francisco Girls Chorus to be flexible, Sainte-Agathe believes that it is important “to make sure they can instantly change a phrase, an articulation, a dynamic, a tempo—depending on the conductor involved. The training allows them to adapt to that.” She gives the example of having the singers learn a piece by memory and, in rehearsal, “changing the phrasing, the tempo, to make sure they know where the down beats are to be able to match the conductor’s gesture.”

This way of instilling confidence in responding to contingencies is also of great

value from the conductor’s perspective. “I don’t want a conductor to be scared thinking that these are children and could be unpredictable. I am training them to support the conductor.” This is part of a larger perspective that refuses to diminish the contributions of the young singers. “I want them to understand and more importantly feel that they are a real part of the creative process: it is a collaboration, it is alive, so everything can change all the time. We really do consider them to be partners with the different artists; they are at the same level.”

“I don’t sugarcoat it for them at all,” says McEndarfer, referring to preparing the NCC singers for the real-life pressures of performing in world-famous venues like the Hollywood Bowl. “I tell them what the stakes are.” He sees these endeavors as integral to the confidence building that results from “making the students feel respected and challenged and excited. I’ve learned not to set the bar low.”

Along with the added dimensions involved in preparing for them, professional collaborations can have a lasting aftereffect on the whole organization. “The children

love these opportunities to get into this detailed work and push themselves,” says Núñez. “Even if a child was not involved in a particular event, there is a ripple from the children that goes through the whole chorus.”

According to Blackstone, following any major performance by the National Children’s Chorus, “we’ll have a rundown of how it went at the next rehearsal and talk about their experiences. That’s part of community building, of knowing that we’re part of this family and a team, that we got through this adventure together.”

McEndarfer adds: “The clean and beautiful and virtuosic execution: that’s all great, but it does something for these students that is so extremely powerful in building who they are and the people they will be.” n

Thomas May is a writer, critic, educator, and translator whose work appears in the New York Times, the Seattle Times, Gramophone, and many other publications. The Englishlanguage editor for the Lucerne Festival, he also writes program notes for the Boulez Saal in Berlin and the Ojai Festival in California.

HONORING ALICE PARKER

This collection of tributes to Alice Parker honors her life and work and shines a light on her legacy.

Composer, conductor, and teacher Alice Parker was a true champion of the power of the human voice. Since her passing on December 24, 2023, countless voices have in turn honored her life and work. These tributes from people in the Chorus America community illuminate Alice Parker’s lasting impact on Chorus America, the choral field, and beyond.

Investing in the Fundamental Purpose

by Ann Meier Baker

A pioneer who paved the way for future women composers, Alice wrote operas, song-cycles, cantatas, works for chorus and orchestra, hymns, and more—many of which have become part of the repertoire of choirs around the world. She even wrote a piece of music for me once, and the treasured gift included a

signed and framed manuscript that hangs right here on my office wall.

I remember well the very first time I met her in person, which was akin to meeting royalty for me. I was in my early twenties when I served on the staff of the National Association for Music Education, an association with a membership of thousands of school music teachers across the country. I was a cub reporter who was sent to Alice’s apartment on the Upper West Side in New York City to interview her for the organization’s magazine. Little did I know then that

I would be privileged enough to have the chance to witness her many magical powers and learn so much from Alice over the course of the next several decades.

My career took me to positions in other organizations, and during my 15-year tenure as president and CEO of Chorus America, I really got to see Alice and her many-faceted leadership skills in action. My memory is chockfull of things that Alice has said to me throughout all these years. For example, when I complained to her about turning 60 years old, with a wink in her eye she said, “Oh, Ann, it’s not so bad—now you can tell people exactly what you think without apology!”

I could join the vast chorus—pun intended—of Alice Parker admirers and wax on here about her long list of accomplishments, or about how dedicated she was to the many important roles she has played over the years as a musician, mother, grandmother, and more. To me, however, Alice’s real superpower was how she got to the very *essence* of music and its meaning. Unlike some composers who ask musicians to u

Ann Meier Baker interviewed Alice Parker for a plenary conversation at Chorus America’s 2015 Conference (left), followed by a community sing of “Hark, I Hear the Harps Eternal” in honor of Parker’s 90th birthday.

IMAGES: ©GRETJEN HELENE PHOTOGRAPHY ©GRETJEN HELENE PHOTOGRAPHY

Honoring Alice Parker

follow the notes and other markings that they’ve put on the page with precision, Alice invited those who perform her music to take some liberties and to interpret the notes and the poetry in ways that can truly convey their meaning. And, unlike some who compose music on spec, once Alice told me that she only composed music when it would have a specific purpose, such as a commission for a particular ensemble, or a piece to be performed for a specific event, or a to further an important cause or message.

To me, that is the difference that Alice made—she completely invested her gifts in the *fundamental purpose* of this life of ours, and the underlying essence of each person’s unique gifts. I myself am still a work in progress, but I will forever strive to follow this example that Alice set for us all. And although she’s now left our world, my love and admiration for her will be endless.

Ann Meier Baker is the director of music and opera at the National Endowment for the Arts.

Expressing the Human Experience

by André J. Thomas

Alice Parker was a giant in the world of choral music. So much of Alice’s contribution to the field, starting in those early years and continuing throughout her life, was her work with the spiritual. I gloried in the days of those Shaw Parker arrangements that became definitive around the world.

Alice’s approach to the spiritual was special because she would go and visit her grandmother in the South, and so she got to hear these songs in a very natural way. She gained an affinity for them. She would say, “This is sound coming from the earth, and you sing it from the earth up.” I think what made her successful is that when she thought of the spiritual, she thought of her experiences with the music from the viewpoint of childhood on. As she grew as a person, she refined it all and brought it to fruition.

I did a video conversation with Alice for Melodious Accord about spirituals not too long ago, which we showed at ACDA in February 2023. When we were filming, I mentioned “John Saw Duh Numbuh” and her shoulders started going up and down and she was just singing away. Her energy and feel for the music was just amazing and she was a fount of information.

Her commitment and Robert Shaw’s commitment with the arrangements for the RCA Victor recordings that they worked on in the 1950s and 1960s was that they agreed the melody had to be the most important thing. That became a guiding star for Alice for the rest of her life. So that’s the way she wrote those arrangements. And then with Shaw’s sense of rhythm and her own innate sense of rhythm, they came to life. The Robert Shaw Chorale recorded those arrangements, and the records became bestsellers in the United States. They cemented the spiritual’s status in the eyes of the “art world.”

Of course, William Dawson and Nathaniel Dett and many others were definitive writers of the spiritual, because so much of that history comes from the historically Black universities. But Alice was bold enough to write. Even not being from a HBCU, she was going to write the songs as she knew them. I think it’s the humanity in her approach that was so impressive, because she saw the spiritual as expressing the

André J. Thomas and Alice Parker co-led a session on community singing at Chorus America’s 2014 Conference

IMAGES: ©SHANNON FINNEY

REFLECTING ON A LIFE LIVED IN SONG

These articles explore Alice Parker’s life, approach to music, and inspiring body of work, often in her own words.

• In a plenary conversation at the 2015 Chorus America Conference, Alice Parker reflected on conducting and composing, her work with Robert Shaw, her involvement with Chorus America and the value of coming together to sing. “We’re all in this because this is our life. Our work is our play. We’re all going to be singing together and getting other people to sing as long as we live,” she said. [bit.ly/parker-plenary]

• In a 2012 profile of Alice Parker for the Voice magazine, writer Matthew Sigman visited Alice Parker in her western Massachusetts home. “There is a woman on a hill who hears music all the time: in the singing brook that runs beside her house, in the chilly kitchen where she prepares her meals, in the sunlit study where she brings melody to life. For this woman, Alice Parker, the muse is ever-present.”

[bit.ly/parker-belle]

• In Finding the Music in the Text, Alice Parker explained her creative process as a composer. “I can tell immediately as I read whether the melody hidden in those words will reveal itself to me. I feel the sounds in my throat as I read, and they either ‘sing’ or do not.” [bit.ly/parker-text]

• In Reflections on a Life Lived in Song, Alice Parker shared insight into her life in music one decade at a time. “Music is basic to our lives, giving us a language for our emotions and a healing sense of order. Singing is the quintessential bringer-together: Songs and choruses unite us in unique and mysterious ways.” [bit.ly/parker-reflections]

human experience rather than solely the Black experience. Dvorák called spirituals the “songs of America” and Alice took it from there and went on with it.

Every time I came to a Chorus America event, Alice was there. In the early years of knowing her, I was still fairly young in my career, requesting things and asking questions. And she was so gracious. There was never a time that I ever spoke with her that she did not extend a sincere kindness and interest u

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Honoring Alice Parker

in others. She liked to talk, but she also knew how to listen to people.

This experience wasn’t unique to me. It was that way for everybody she met. That’s the other thing about Alice that will always stand out for me: her graciousness and her spirit.

Conductor, composer, and author André J. Thomas is an Emeritus Professor of Music at Florida State University.

A Paean to Parker

by Jon Washburn

Alice Parker was an icon in the field, famous for exquisite melodic shaping of English poetry, hymns, and folk texts. She was also a dear and long-time friend of mine, through our mutual work on the board of Chorus America, and since we realized that our melodic sensitivities were extraordinarily simpatico.

The music of Alice’s which I have loved the most and performed most frequently is Songstream, those wonderful poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay which she composed in 1983 for choir and piano four-hands, like the Brahms Liebeslieder. Our major collaboration was when my Vancouver Chamber Choir commissioned a magnificent choralorchestral work on Mennonite themes, called That Sturdy Vine

When Alice received the National Opera Association Sacred in Opera Achievement Award in 2021, I was asked to make a video as part of the presentation at the

organization’s virtual conference. I struggled to make a 65-second comment fit into the requested 20–25 seconds. Seeking not-tobe-attained brevity, this was one of the six versions I came up with that ranged from the descriptive to the despairing to poesy.

ALICE!

You are our favourite! Musicians everywhere agree.

We love your music, your wonderful interpretations of great poetry.

We love your teaching and sharing ... the literal baking and breaking of bread. We love your devotion to our shared musical causes.

You are with us every time we discover a beautiful yet humble melody. You are our inspiration.

You are our ever-renewing breath of musical fresh air.

You are our Melodious Mentor. You are ALICE!

Jon Washburn is the founder and Conductor Emeritus of the Vancouver Chamber Choir.

A Natural Conversation of Voices

by Susan LaBarr

It was a cool October evening outside, but in the warm light of Alice Parker’s kitchen, my new friend Joe Gregorio and I were giggling in disbelief that we had been given permission to rifle through the drawers and cabinets to find what we needed to make dinner for Alice and the group of

composers who had gathered for the week at her home in Hawley, Massachusetts.

After all of these years, the contents of Alice’s kitchen still appear clearly in my mind: the saved bread ties of all colors neatly stored in a drawer, the washed and dried Ziplock bags ready to be used again, the small compost bucket under the sink filled with the scraps of nearby New England farms. During that life-changing week at Alice’s Composer’s Workshop, we learned that simplicity can often be the key to writing good and lasting choral music. As Alice was such a natural at living simply in her day-to-day life, it’s no wonder that she adopted this same ideal in her music making.

My degree is in music theory, but somehow at my college I never had to take a class on counterpoint. It wasn’t required for my degree, and you better believe that I was never going to electively take something called “16th Century Counterpoint” or “18th Century Counterpoint.” However, it was the second or third day at Alice’s composer’s workshop that the word came up. Alice casually mentioned that she was almost finished writing a book on counterpoint and that she wanted to give each of us a copy of the manuscript to work through with her.

Alice starting reading from the book’s introduction and, for me, it was like watching a ray of sunlight break through a cloud. I’ll never forget her line in the book, “My conviction is that the proper answer to melody was more melody. Point/counterpoint.” She claimed that counterpoint was simply an answer to the melody; that crafting melody and counterpoint could be thought of as a conversation: one voice makes a statement, and the second voice responds to that statement.

Jon Washburn and Alice Parker at Chorus America’s 2000 Conference

There was nothing mathematical or formulaic about how Alice crafted counterpoint, although that was the only way I had heard counterpoint described before my time with her. According to Alice, counterpoint is a natural conversation of voices, where there is overlap as if the second voice can’t wait to join in. Ultimately, she asked us to imagine singing around a campfire with a guitar and how voices join in when they just can’t wait any longer to be a part of the song. u

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Following their best-selling Mass of the Americas / Misa de las Américas, Benedict XVI Choir & Orchestra present here two new soul-stirring choral works also by composer Frank La Rocca. Requiem for the Forgotten commemorates the displaced, the homeless, those forsaken by war—championing the inherent dignity of every person. Messe des Malades (Mass for the Sick) underscores the universal need for healing, inspiring empathy in a broken world. Scores: franklarocca.com cappellarecords.com

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Susan LaBarr and Alice Parker during a Composer Workshop; Alice Parker’s home in Hawley, Massachusetts in winter

Honoring Alice Parker

This was a true lightbulb moment for me and a turning point in my compositional journey. I can look at my catalog of pieces and see a distinct line that runs between “before Alice” and “after Alice.” Incorporating counterpoint into my vocal writing became a game, a puzzle that could be put together. And, my goodness, it is so much more fun to sing!

In the introduction of her book on counterpoint (The Answering Voice), Alice speaks of music in this way: “Any notes on any page are like the leaves on a tree because they can live only when connected to twig, branch, bough, trunk and roots.” I like to think of myself as one of the leaves on the Tree of Alice—I am the composer I am today because of my connection to Alice. I know thousands of leaves who would say the same. Susan LaBarr, her husband Cameron, and their son Elliott reside in Springfield, Missouri, where Cameron is the Director of Choral Studies at Missouri State University and Susan works as Editor of Walton Music.

Crossing the Line

by Tom Hall

We live in an America riddled with lines: Pernicious lines that separate us. Red lines in

neighborhoods that advance bigotry and inequity. Lines between those who have and those who have not. Lines that tribalize, bifurcate, and polarize.

With a deep affection for musical lines, Alice Parker assiduously and masterfully destroyed these lines of division and intolerance. It might not be true that America sings because of Alice Parker, but it is undeniably true that because of her genius and generosity, America sings better and with a deeper understanding and connection to one another.

Musical lines were the wondrous center of Alice’s being. Melody is where Alice Parker started, and where she finished, the fundament with which she led thousands of people to wonder and joy. Alice employed melody with unparalleled invention to create paths to happiness and accomplishment for children and seniors, believers and non-believers, professionals and amateurs. Musical lines that mix and fit and surprise and delight, exchanging that which separates us for that which brings us together.

Alice was way ahead of the curve more than 40 years ago when she started her Community Sings. In elevating community singing, Alice has lifted countless communities, connecting people with each other, to a higher purpose. Call it transformational togetherness.

Alice helped Chorus America evolve into the important force it is today, helping our organization learn how to balance the needs of both professionals and amateurs. She was a model and a ground breaker for women

ALICE PARKER FUND AWARD

One of the many ways Alice Parker’s legacy lives on at Chorus America is through the Alice Parker Fund Award, which recognizes the composition and thoughtful presentation of choral music based in the traditions of Black and Latinx communities. Established by Chorus America and Melodious Accord, this award focuses on Parker’s passion for the music landscape and traditions of many cultures, specifically those of Black and Latinx communities, which inspired her work.

This award is made possible through the Alice Parker Fund, and gifts to Chorus America in honor of Alice Parker are being directed toward the Fund. Tribute gifts may be made at chorusamerica.org/give or by calling the Development Office at 202.331.7577 x241.

in a male dominated music industry. And she was a mentor, friend, and inspiration to generations of choral composers and performers. It’s one of the great blessings of my life that I am one of the many whose lives she has touched and transformed.

One of many wonderful memories: In 1998, I conducted the Baltimore Choral Arts Society in a performance of Songstream, a beautiful suite of pieces for chorus and piano that Alice composed to poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay. Alice presided over our final rehearsal, an experience that

Alice Parker, who was Chorus America’s first Director Laureate, helped present Tom Hall with his Director Laureate honor at the 2014 Chorus America Conference.

IMAGES: ©SHANNON FINNEY

was, as one would expect, marvelous, revelatory, and inspiring. I learned more that afternoon than I had learned in semesters of study elsewhere.

So what did I learn? I learned to respect the lines. To love them in a way I hadn’t thought about loving them before. To obsess over their care and feeding. To try and try again to unlock their mysteries. To enliven and elevate them. To make those marvelous fruits of Alice’s marvelous imagination, well, “sing.”

Alice’s brilliance was rooted in her full embrace and happy obsession with nuance and subtlety; foreground and background; shape and arc; movement and rest. Alice affirmed that words mean something and when they’re sung, they mean more, resonating in the soul because of the melodies in which they are couched.

In On the Common Ground, for which she wrote the text and the music in 2021, Alice writes:

Help me find the common ground

Between the shouting and the silence,

Between the bound and the free,

Between the grief and the joy,

Between the heart and the mind.

Alice showed us how to live, how to work, and how important it is to connect our hearts and our minds. With a large heart and an abundant, generous spirit, she led us across the lines that divide, and she artfully and lovingly helped us elevate those lines that sustain, inspire, and lead us to where we need to be.

Tom Hall is the Music Director Emeritus of the Baltimore Choral Arts Society and a Director Laureate of Chorus America. He is the host of Midday, a public affairs program on WYPR Radio, the NPR affiliate in Baltimore. n

Alice Parker with longtime friends and colleagues Kathleen Holt and Marilyn Pryor at Chorus America’s 2010 Conference

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a dataset of 107 choral organizations are individual donations (36% of overall revenue), followed by foundation contributions (16%). Of all revenue streams for choruses, the one that administrators can manage most easily and effectively is individual donations.

Reassessing and Rejuvenating our Approach to Donor Relationships

Individual donations are key to your chorus’s success and stability. Focus on these four pillars to lay a strong foundation and combat donor fatigue.

BY LAURA ADLERS

Individual donors are vital contributors to the revenue streams of choral organizations across the United States and Canada. Where would we have been without them during the pandemic? So many of our patrons and donors gave generously and often.

However, since the end of the pandemic, many nonprofit charitable organizations have seen a decline in individual donations, which has been attributed primarily to donor fatigue and the cost-of-living increase. Donors are being more careful with their money and are scrutinizing how they spend it and whom they choose to support more than they did in the past.

Small to mid-sized organizations with budgets of under $500,000 have felt the effects of this most acutely. Many organizations of this size are operating with skeleton staff of perhaps one part-time or full-time manager and one or two sub-contracted workers. Organizations with much smaller budgets are often managed entirely by a volunteer board. Choral organizations need to take stock, reassess financial and organizational priorities, and adjust their business models to ensure they will fully recover from the pandemic over the next couple of years.

Chorus America’s 2022 Chorus Operations Survey Report (see figure right) states that the most significant types of funding across

Remember, your existing and potential new donors are not transactions, they are relationships. If you view every donor through this lens, the dynamic of your donor relations and revenue will change.

As a donor to a broad range of charitable organizations, I received an unprecedented number of emails, social media posts and direct mail from these organizations and others I did not currently support on Giving Tuesday last November and at the end of December for year-end giving campaigns. Competition for donations is fierce. The effect of receiving so many asks is that they are often deleted, discarded, or ignored. Donor fatigue is real.

The key to rejuvenating your approach to individual donor relations is centered around four pillars: stewardship and retention of existing donors; sharing your organization’s story to cultivate and engage potential new donors; diversifying ways for patrons to give; and developing effective tools to take your small to mid-sized organization to the next level in donor engagement. Small to mid-sized organizations need the committed involvement of their Board members to support staff in these efforts. One of the key responsibilities of the Board is ensuring the organization’s financial stability, and donor stewardship and engagement are a wonderful way for reluctant fundraisers on the Board to get involved. u

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n Foundation Contributions

n City Government Contributions

n County Government Contributions

n State Government Contributions

n Federal Government Contributions

n Special Events Revenue

n Other Support

Donor Stewardship

Donor stewardship is the relationship-building process that occurs after a donor makes a gift, no matter how small or significant. The main purpose is to thank them for their gift and to inspire them to give again in the future. There is a saying in the nonprofit world that is well worth remembering as you consider your donor relationships: “Your donors are not ATMs!” Donations are not one-way transactions; they are part of a relationship between the donor and your organization. Let’s look at the ways in which you can strengthen your donor relations through stewardship best practices:

• Thank your donors—It seems obvious, but so many organizations send their tax receipts and thank you letters out twice a year, or worse, at the end of the year, just before tax season, and with a generic thank you letter.

Donors have chosen to send their hard-earned money to your organization, so thank them soon after receiving the donation, and write a customized thank you letter that connects with them directly, with language that is focused on them. You may have a thank you letter template as a base, but ensure you customize it to include the donor’s name and mention the program they chose to support. If they donated to general funds, speak to how their donation will impact your chorus’s activities this season or in the coming season. Let them know how they are making a difference to your organization. This is a perfect task for chorus members or Board members to help with as well. Donors will appreciate the personal touch of a handwritten letter or personalized email.

• Recognize them appropriately

Decide how and where best to recognize your donors at each of your organization’s giving levels or gift types. Perhaps you will recognize all donors at every level on your website, and only top donors ($2,500 and up, for example) in concert programs and in your enewsletter banner. For many donors, this recognition is important, but others will prefer to remain anonymous. Make sure you respect this wish but include them on your donor lists as “Anonymous” under the appropriate giving level regardless. Ensure you have records of individual donors’ wishes regarding recognition.

Plan for at least two donor recognition events or actions over the course of the season. Make the events or actions cost-efficient, but unique and memorable. Some examples may include pre- or post-concert receptions, an exclusive meet and greet event with your artistic director, an opportunity for a top donor to conduct a Christmas carol at your annual holiday concert, or a special reception with a mini concert involving a group of your choristers. Or donors might be recognized with a gesture like leaving chocolate bars with customized thank you notes on their seats at a concert.

• Get to know them—Engage with your donors even when you’re not asking for help. Get to know them, show them you’re interested in the person behind the donation and that this is not just a transactional relationship. Book a one-on-one phone call or in-person meeting between the donor and the manager, Board member, or chorus member to learn more about the donor and share updates about upcoming events which may be of interest to them. This is a great opportunity to engage Board and chorus members with donors. Prepare some guidelines for the conversation, give everyone a list of names to contact and have them send back notes for your records after they have met with the donors. This interaction is invaluable and is key to cultivating donors which may turn into regular gifts and become major contributions over time.

• Share the impact of their gifts—A crucial best practice for donor stewardship is to tell donors how their gifts have been used by the organization and the positive impact their gifts have had on your organization’s activity. This can be done regularly through your enewsletters and social media posts but can also be in the form of a one-page report with photographs which is part of an individual donor campaign. Telling these impact stories also provides another opportunity to thank donors for their generosity and demonstrates their gifts are being used responsibly and as intended.

• Ask them for feedback—Online or inperson donor surveys using Google Forms, Jotform or Survey Monkey, for example, are a wonderful way to get valuable feedback about their experiences as donors and as patrons of your choral organization. You will find that those who feel truly invested in and passionate about your organization will share freely. Aside from donor surveys,

consider interviewing a selection of different categories of donors (for example, donors who give under $150, $150–500, over $500) and ask them why they support your chorus, what motivates them to give, and whether they are happy with how they are recognized as donors. This level of interest and engagement with donors can pay off in spades.

I once called a donor who had given two donations of $500 over the course of a pandemic year. When I called him, he said he had made similar donations to several cultural organizations, but I was the only one that had called to thank him and find out more about him. This relationship turned into an annual gift of $5,000, sent in January, which then turned into a monthly gift of $2,000, in addition to the $5,000! It pays to steward and cultivate donor relationships!

• Tell their stories—Telling your donors’ stories is a compelling way to inspire previous donors to give again, or to give another kind of gift. For instance, you could tell the story of a monthly donor who gives $25 a month and how this is not only a manageable amount for the donor, but that it amounts to a $300 annual gift for your choral organization. Or you could tell the story of a donor who chooses to donate shares to your organization annually or has included a bequest for your organization in their will, and how these gifts have significant impact on the organization but will not affect the donors as much financially. Some donors will appreciate sharing their stories to help your organization raise much-needed funds.

Share Your Organization’s Stories

Imagine one of your loyal patrons, a Board member or chorus member, invites a friend to one of your concerts and they are inspired to learn more about your organization. What do you think they’ll do next? More then likely, they will go to your organization’s website, YouTube channel, Facebook or Instagram pages. Your digital presence is vital to telling your organization’s story!

Cathy Landolt, founder of Blue Elephant Productions in Toronto, works with several choral organizations in Canada to optimize their online presence through robust social media campaigns and engaging, relevant content. “Patrons and donors want to see the chorus in its natural environment, making music and bringing joy to the

audience. They want to feel like they’re included in the inner workings of the organization on some level. Creating compelling content, like videos, regular enewsletters, interviews with the artistic director, guest composers, members of the chorus, and sharing statistics about outreach events and outcomes, how your chorus is making a difference in the community, the power of choral music, etc. all bring your audience, and potential donors, closer to the organization,” Landolt explains.

While I recognize that many smaller organizations are run by volunteers and others have limited staff and budgets, I would encourage you to consider investing in a digital marketing expert who is well-versed in the arts and choral music to manage your online presence, for a cohesive, professional presence that will engage existing and potential new subscribers and donors. Most digital marketing consultants will work within your budget and will be well worth the investment over the long run.

For those organizations who cannot afford to hire a digital marketing expert, perhaps this is a role which may be filled by

a Board member with marketing expertise, or by a member of your chorus, on a pro bono basis. You may also consider hiring a recent graduate from a digital marketing program at your local college or university, who would not charge as much as someone who is more experienced.

Diversify Ways of Giving

It’s important for your choral organization to offer as many ways of giving as possible, to ensure your donor base feels comfortable supporting your organization at any giving amount. Remember, you don’t have to be wealthy to be a donor!

Many nonprofit organizations are now encouraging monthly giving. It’s less of a financial burden for a donor to give $20 a month, but the impact is very meaningful. Not only does the organization have muchneeded predictable income every month, but this gift amounts to $240 over the year, which could well be more than the donor may have given as a one-time donation.

Matching fund campaigns also resonate with donors. The way this usually works is that a Board member or generous patron pledges a set amount ($5,000, for example), which they will donate dollar for dollar to

match any donations made during the campaign. Sometimes the donor pledges to match dollar for dollar only if the donations meet or exceed $5,000. There are several approaches to matching fund campaigns, but they are popular, as they incentivize donors to give, knowing their donations will be doubled.

Two additional ways patrons may support your organization is by donating shares and by leaving a bequest to your chorus in their wills. Both of these options can be arranged through their financial planners and lawyers. You may want to consider promoting these options to your patrons through telling the stories of why other patrons have chosen to support your chorus in this way, in addition to stating these options clearly on your website and in your communications pieces.

One thing to consider for all your donors is ensuring you have payment options which are familiar and comfortable for both the older generation who still prefer to pay in person or by mail with a check or credit card, and for those who prefer to pay online through your website or other giving platforms. u

Chorus America Officers

Chair

Anton Armstrong

St. Olaf College (MN)

Treasurer

Steven Neiffer

Los Angeles Master Chorale (CA)

Secretary

Marie Bucoy-Calavan

University of Akron (OH)

Members of the Board

Laura Adlers

Management Consultant (ON)

Jeffrey Barnett

Dorsal Capital Management LLC (CA)

Charles Berardesco

Baltimore Choral Arts Society (MD)

Dashon Burton

Professional Singer (NY)

Iris Derke

Distinguished Concerts International New York (NY)

Rollo Dilworth

Temple University (PA)

John Earls

May Festival Chorus; Vocal Arts Ensemble (OH)

Maria A. Ellis

Educator and Conductor; Girl Conductor LLC (MO)

David Hayes

New York Choral Society (NY)

Robert Istad

Pacific Chorale; CSU Fullerton (CA)

Craig Hella Johnson

Conspirare (TX); Oregon Bach Festival (OR)

Anne B. Keiser

Choral Arts Society of Washington (DC)

Mary Tuuk Kuras

MTK Practical Leadership (MI)

Robyn Reeves Lana

Cincinnati Youth Choir (OH)

Mark Lawson

ECS Publishing Group (MO)

Alysia Lee

Baltimore Children & Youth Fund; Sister Cities Girlchoir (MD)

Mary Doughty Mauch

Conductor and Community Organizer (IL)

Marcela Molina

Tucson Girls Chorus (AZ)

David Morrow

Morehouse College (GA)

John Nuechterlein

Community Leader (MN)

Elizabeth Núñez

Young People’s Chorus of New York City; SoHarmoniums Women’s Choir (NY)

Eric V. Oliver

Zion Baptist Church; Loretta C. Manggrum Chorale (OH)

Dianne Peterson

The Washington Chorus; New Orchestra of Washington (DC)

Molly Buzick Pontin City of Lakewood (CO)

Andrea Ramsey Composer, Conductor, and Music Educator (MO)

Eugene Rogers

Diana

Steven

Michigan (MI);

(MD)

Choral International (MA)

Karen P. Thomas

Seattle Pro Musica (WA)

Anthony Trecek-King Handel and Haydn Society (MA)

Jean-Sébastien Vallée

Toronto Mendelssohn Choir (ON); McGill University (QC)

Duain Wolfe

Colorado Symphony Chorus (CO)

Effective Tools for Donor Engagement

Small to mid-sized organizations have limited staff and capacity to cover all the administrative bases, so efficient and effective systems are very important. If your organization does not currently use constituent relationship management (CRM) software, I highly recommend you find one that works best for your organization. It will help your fundraising and stewardship efforts tremendously.

CRM databases allow you to store crucial donor information, including contact information and gift history, and can also send communications, integrate with social media, track organizational data like finances, volunteer activity, and issue tax receipts with customized thank you letters.

There are several CRM software companies which are designed for small to midsized nonprofits. In Canada, two examples are Keela and Zeffy, and in the United States, nonprofits are using software such as Bloomerang, Little Green Light, ArtsPeople and Kindful. These are by no means the only options out there. I encourage you to contact other choral organizations of similar size to yours to get their feedback on the software they’re using. You may also want to reach out to peers on Chorus America’s Online Community or on NTEN’s online groups (nten.org).

The main considerations for your organization will be user-friendliness, ensuring your existing software systems will integrate with the CRM software and that they are able to seamlessly share information. Ensure one person in your organization is

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the CRM lead and that they will be able to train others on how to use it as required. Of course, cost will be an important factor, but consider this an investment which will improve your donor relations game well into the future. The cheapest option may not always be the best.

For those choral organizations that are just starting out or don’t have the budget or staff to manage a CRM system, the most important thing is to keep clear records about your donors, and to document any interactions and pertinent information about them. Excel spreadsheets would be the best option for this. If your records are well organized and clean, they will transfer well to a CRM system when you are ready to take that step.

Remember, your existing and potential new donors are not transactions, they are relationships. If you view every donor through this lens, the dynamic of your donor relations and revenue will change. The actions your choral organization will take now to cultivate these crucial relationships will reap rewards in the coming months and years! n

Laura Adlers recently relaunched her consulting business—The Adlers Agency—and works with cultural and nonprofit organizations on operational assessment and strategic planning, fundraising and development, board development and succession planning, artistic administration, special event and tour production, and cross-cultural collaboration. She joined the Board of Chorus America in June 2023. For more information about Laura, visit lauraadlers.com

NEW CHORAL RELEASES FOR SPRING CONCERTS

FROM

Hal Leonard has the highest quality new repertoire for your spring concerts! From pop chart-toppers to concert works filled with inspiration and cultural appreciation, this music will continue to elevate your programs. Move your singers forward and onward with a broad scope of texts, rhythms, ranges and harmonies.

Learn parts with: Purchase digital octavos/audio at: See and hear full scores at:

Explore these titles and more at halleonard.com/choral

2024 CONFERENCE CHORUS AMERICA

ATLANTA, GA | JUNE 6–8

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

FEATURING

AI and nonprofits expert Beth Kanter in conversation with Maggie Vo of AI safety and research company Anthropic on demystifying and harnessing AI ethically

Boston Children’s Chorus executive director Andrés Holder and a panel of Choral Executive Leadership Academy alumni Joseph To, Lyjah Torres-Reyes, and Kimberly Waigwa on charting a course for the future of choral leadership