The· Central Division Hotel Continental Chicago, Illinois February 23-25
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1984 Divisional Convention . The· Central Division Hotel Continental Chicago, Illinois February 23-25 HEADLINERS AND SPECIAL SESSIONS: Singers. He recently co-authored the current seventh- and eight-grade textbooks published by Silver-Burdette. Professor McNeil's sessions will focus upon World Music. He will be assisted by Harriet Ziegenhals. The first session, "A Celebration of World Music," will include the presenta tion of four choral groups performing selected compositions with explanatory remarks by the clinicians. A later general Margaret Hillis session will consist of a brief demonstration-lecture using choral music from the Phillipines, West Africa, Brazil, Japan, and the southern U.S.A. In this session, a sixteen voice ensemble from the Community Renewal Chorus of Chicago will be the demonstration group. His third and final session will be a reading session presenting choral works representing diyerse ethnic areas. Hailed as "one of the great choral conductors of the age," L Margaret Hillis is also making her mark as an orchestral con- ductor. In the current season, she will appear with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Louisville Orchestra, and the Hartford Symphony, as well as with the Elgin Sym phony, which she has served as Music Director for eleven years. Hillis captured nationwide attention in the fall of Weston Noble 1977, when she substituted on short notice for the ailing Sir Georg Solti in a performance of Mahler's Symphony No.8 in New York's Carnegie Hall. In recent seasons she has con ducted the National Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Milwaukee Symphony, and the Indianapolis Sym phony. Director of the Chicago Symphony Chorus (which she founded in 1957 at the request of Fritz Reiner), she also Weston Noble, Director of Music Activities at Luther Col serves as resident conductor of the Cinc Orchestra of lege, Decorah, Iowa, is an internationally known conductor Chicago and Music Director of the American Choral Foun and clinican. In addition to the performances of his own dation. Luther College Nordic Choir, Noble has served as guest Hillis will present an examination and in-depth analysis of director in forty-three states and in Canada and Europe. He "Magnificat" by J. S. Bach, and she will be guest conductor was a charter member of American Choral Directors on our Special Convention Concert at which this work will Association. He was awarded the honorary degree Doctor be performed, featuring university singers from Illinois, of Arts by Augustana College, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio. 1971. ~ Professor Noble will discuss the topic "Seating within a Section." His presentation will deal with the criteria for deter mining placement of individual singer within the section and the consideration of mixed, scrambled, and quartet forma tions within the ensemble . Albert J. McNeil • There will be many varied special interest sessions presented at the Central Division Convention. Topics and clinicians are listed below: • Tom Gieschen, Concordia College, River Forest, IllinOiS, will present a session on musical taste and musical aesthetics entitled "Sorry, Charlie." A similar Albert McNeil is on the faculty of the University of Cali lecture was presented by Gieschen at a recent fornia at Davis, where he heads the Department of Music Illinois convention with great success. Education, teaches Afro-American music, and directs the • "Aspects and Expectations of a Quality Junior High University Concert Choir. His study has been at School Choral Experience" will be addressed by Westminster Choir School and the University of Lausanne, Sandra Stoneham, Lockport, Illinois, and Robert Mix, Switzerland. He was organizer of the Albert McNeil Jubilee Lima, Ohio. Page4 THE CHORAL JOURNAL • Aspects of show choirs will be examined by Jim Parks, PERFORMING ORGANIZATIONS: Blackhawk College, Moline, Illinois. In this session, entitled "Seat Singing and Jazz Choir Techniques," Parks will demonstrate various techniques for ac complishing appropriate jazz inflections and style characteristics. Singers from the Elk Grove High School Jazz Choir will serve as the demonstration choir. • Conductors of male and female choirs will be in terested in attending the following sessions. Eugene Miller, Anderson College, Anderson, Indiana, will deal with the topic "Development of a Lyrical Singing Style in the Male Chorus." David Larson of Roosevelt Calvin College Alumni Choir University, Chicago, Illinois, will examine Grand Rapids, Michigan "Eighteenth-Century Venetian Music for the Treble Chorus." Larson will emphasize the availability in The forty-voice Calvin College Alumni Choir is comprised modern editions of this body of choral music. In addi of graduates of this Grand Rapids college, affiliated with the tion, a session on "Creative Programming for the Male Christian Reformed Church of North America. The Alumni and Female Choir" will be presented: each of the clini Choir provides music for area churches in addition to cians will present several works which they have found presenting two full concerts annually. Its featured ap to be unusually rewarding. A reading session, the clini pearances have included a 1982 performance with Semyon cians will be Lynne Bradley, Ruth Schnell, Ray Bychkov and the Grand Rapids Symphony and a concert Sprague, and Stan Malinowski. for the Michigan Choral Directors Association Fall Con • "Beautiful Singing: Development of Good Vocal ference at Michigan State University. Tone, Technique, and Musicianship in Children" is the topic selected by Diane Lewis of the Glen Ellyn Anton Armstrong Children's Chorus. The Training Chorus of that Anton Armstrong, a graduate of St. Olaf College, organization will be the demonstration ensemble. Northfield, Minnesota, has been on the Calvin College • For student ACDA members in attendance, a session faculty since 1980 .. In addition to his choral activities at the entitled "What You Were Never Taught in Methods college, Armstrong is conductor of the Grand Rapids Sym and Didn't Know to Ask" will deal with solving the phonic Choir. Active in children's choral musiC, too, he con problems of your first year of teaching. A panel dis ducts the select ninety-voice St. Cecilia Youth Chorale in cussion among selected first and second year teachers Grand Rapids and Albermarle and the coed summer music should make this session a lively one. program of the American Boychoir, Princeton, New Jersey. • A discussion period, led by James Major, Ohio State University, and Patrick Gardner, University of Michigan, will be devoted to "The Preparation of Choral Conductors in Higher Education." This session will focus upon preparing future choral musicians. This will be a particularly eventful session for college and university professors. • A session entitled "The Composer as Conductor" will be chaired by Robert Harris of Northwestern Universi ty. Other composer/conductors will assist Harris in o this presentation. Other informal reading sessions and activities have Carmel High School Ambassadors been planned to assure that the time spent in Chicago Carmel, Indiana will be meaningful and rewarding for you. The Ambassadors, comprised of tenth- through twelfth- LOVELY LYRIC EASTERN NEW MEXICO UNIVERSITY CHOIR GOWNS .,:;- We've dressed adult and . youth choirs with varieties SCHOOL OF MUSIC of styles. colors. and fab rics since 1955. Write for our new catalogue and GRADUATE ASSISTANTSHIPS IN fabric samples. Satisfac tion is absolutely guar- Choral Music . Maximum Stipend $4500 \.."J\ ' ::~;~:i~~~:~o;wns from $16.95. For information write: Dr. Paul K. Formo, Director of Choirs, LYRIC CHOIR GOWN CO. ENMU, Portales, N.M. 88130 p.o. Box 16954-AZ (505) 562-2561 Jacksonville, Rorida 32216 (904) 725-7977 Application Deadline for Assistantships: March 1,1984 JANUARY 1984 PageS grade students at Carmel High School, have :,:ceiv,:d eight-to-fourteen-year-old children for its tuition-based, numerous awards for their unique blend of musIcianship highly acclaimed ensemble. Founded in 1965, the and choreography. Grand Champions of the Luers-Midwest Children's Chorus has performed and recorded regularly Invitational Show Choir Contest in five of the last seven with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in Chicago, years, they have also been awarded two International Music Milwaukee, and New York; they have appeared with the St. Festi'val Gold Medals (1979, 1982). The Ambassadors per Louis Symphony Orchestra and have toured the United form approximately forty shows throughout the Midwest States, England, and West Germany. Among the numerous during a school year. recordings in which the Children's Chorus is featured is the 1982 Grammy Award winning London-Decca recording of Ronald Hellems Berlioz's Damnation of Faust with Sir Georg Solti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. Ronald Hellems chairs the Performing Arts Department at Carmel High School. He has served as director of the Am Doreen Rao bassadors there for eight years. He has been a clinician at Indiana State University's Show Choir Workshop for seven Doreen Rao serves as National Chairperson for the Com summers, at the Ball State University Mid-America Music mittee on Children's Choirs for ACDA. She has prepared Camp, and at the Indiana Music Educators Association the Glen Ellyn Children's Chorus for major performances State Convention. Hellems holds a M.S. degree from In with Sir Georg Solti, Claudio Abbado, Margaret Hillis, diana State University. James Levine, Leonard Slatkin, and Edo deWaart.