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2024 ACDA Southern Region Conference February 21-24, 2024 Louisville, Kentucky

Rivertree Singers River Bluff High School
Bel Canto

Founded in 2010, Rivertree Singers members are
alumni of collegiate choral organizations who desire to Bel Canto is one of six ensembles in the River Bluff
delight and inspire arts communities across the globe. High School choral program. The choir is composed
By giving voice to the human experience through pas- of advanced treble voices in the ninth through twelfth
sionate choral artistry, the singers build connections with grades and consistently earns superior with distinction
audiences, arts organizations, schools, and emerging and ratings at the South Carolina Choral Performance As-
established composers. What began as a small group of sessment and at choral festivals throughout the south-
singers desiring an artistic outlet has grown into an in- east. Bel Canto members routinely earn selection to dis-
ternationally recognized and award-winning community trict and state honor choirs and most recently performed
arts organization of musicians, teachers, and profession- in the Memorial Day Festival Chorus in the John F. Ken-
als. In addition to invited performances, Rivertree Sing- nedy Center for the Performing Arts. River Bluff High
ers offers four concerts each season and hosts the River- School’s Bel Canto is highly honored to represent their
tree Singers & Friends Choral Festival every summer. school, district, and state in their first regional ACDA
conference performance.
Warren Cook is founder of Rivertree
Singers and retired professor and DCA at Heather Wilcox is director of choirs at
Bob Jones University, where he oversaw a River Bluff High School in Lexington,
graded program of five choirs enrolling South Carolina. She is lead teacher for
nearly three hundred students. His choirs secondary choral music for the Lexington
have been auditioned performers at international and One School District and Vocal Jazz and Contemporary
national events. Each summer, Cook conducts the Ri- Commercial Chair for the South Carolina Choral Di-
vertree Singers & Friends Choral Festival, which recently rectors Association. Wilcox has served as clinician for
included Robert Shaw’s late contribution to the choral honor choirs and artistically gifted choral intensives
repertory, an unpublished English edition of Brahm’s across South Carolina. Her choirs have performed for
German Requiem. Under Cook’s leadership, Rivertree the South Carolina ACDA and the South Carolina
Singers won the Oxford University Press Avent Com- MEA and consistently earn superior ratings at state, re-
petition grand prize. In 2019, Cook was honored with gional, and national choral festivals. She holds a bach-
South Carolina ACDA’s first-ever Lifetime Achievement elor’s degree in music education and a master’s degree
Award. in conducting from Winthrop University.

CHORAL JOURNAL January 2024 Volume 64 Number 5 75