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2026 ACDA Western Region Conference March 4-7, 2026 San Jose, California

Interest Sessions

Transformative Vocal Techniques The Why and How of
for Your Choirs: Student Leadership Programs

Tested, Tried, and True
Strong student leadership can transform your en-
A great educator is constantly searching for ways to sembles, reduce director workload, and foster a posi-
improve their choral rehearsals. This session provides tive, student-driven culture. This session explores the
group vocal technique methods to build your choir’s practical “nuts and bolts” for developing a leadership
sound, strengthen individual singers, and achieve bet- team that builds trust, accountability, and engagement
ter choral tone and artistry. Designed for directors from while preventing cliques, disengagement, negativity,
elementary to high school, key learning outcomes in- and retention issues. Learn the benefits of selecting vs.
clude equipping directors with hands-on techniques for electing leaders, explore different leadership structures,
posture, breathing, support, resonance, and articula- and discover practical strategies for goal setting, re-
tion. Participants will actively work on problem solving treats, and year-long leadership development. Whether
the many common issues within the rehearsal, expe- you’re refining an existing leadership program or start-
riencing creative teaching strategies used to increase ing from scratch, you’ll gain actionable steps to empow-
focus and energy. This clinic is highly practical; partic- er student leaders and elevate your program’s success.
ipants will come away with new, useful techniques that
can immediately be applied in their choral rehearsals. Bruce Rockwell is the choir director at
College Park High School in Pleasant
Christine Bass has fifty years of teaching Hill, California. He has taught choir,
experience. She was former director of piano, and guitar at College Park for fif-
Temple University Men’s and Women’s teen years. Rockwell received his MM in
Choruses and assistant professor of mu- composition from the San Francisco Conservatory of
sic education, previously DCA at Cherry Music and his BM from the University of California at
Hill West High School, where her program grew from Santa Cruz. He has written and presented a number
60 to over 320 students in 7 choirs. Her ensembles of articles and conference sessions on various topics of
have performed at multiple ACDA national confer- interest to music educators.
ences, MENC, and ACDA Eastern conferences. Bass’s
men’s a cappella group won three consecutive national
championships for Best of High School A Cappella.
Bass has conducted numerous all-state honors choirs, Vocal Pedagogy for Choirs:
including the 2009 ACDA National HS Honor Choir. Keep the Magic, Lose the Myth
Her educational products and her book are published
by Hal Leonard: Vocal Transformation, Where the Boys Are: Better singers make better choirs. We know this, but
Recruiting, Engaging, and Maintaining Tenors and Basses, and so often it’s hard to look beyond the notes and rhythms
Front-Loading Your Choral Rehearsal: Constructing for Success. in the little time we have. Some conductors are highly
trained singers and some are not, but all conductors
face the same challenge of using phrases that mean
something to us but, perhaps, mean nothing to our
choirs. Voice teaching is both an art and a science, but
finding ways to incorporate more science/reality-based
pedagogy into the choral rehearsal will only make the

192 CHORAL JOURNAL January 2026 Volume 66 Number 5