Page 68 - CJSept24

> 2024 ACDA INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON RESEARCH IN CHORAL SINGING

by Bryan E. Nichols, Symposium Chair <bnichols@psu.edu>

The Fourth International ACDA Symposium on Re- Choral Art in the Time of Pandemics
search in Choral Singing was held April 25-26, 2024,
hosted by the Pennsylvania State University at the Big • Matthew Garrett, Honoring Trans and Gender-Expansive
10 Conference Center in Rosemont/Chicago, Illinois. Students in Music Education
To ensure a robust in-person meeting, US-based pre-
senters appeared in person and attendees from all coun- • Elisa Dekaney, Music at the Intersection of Brazilian Cul-
tries were encouraged to attend remotely. The meeting ture: An Introduction to Music, Race, and Food
featured three pre-conference workshops: 1) Historical
performance practice by Carolann Buff, 2) Qualitative The schedule featured a performance by Iowa City
research techniques by Julia Shaw, and 3) Quantitative West High School (David Haas, conductor). Small
research techniques by Brian Shaw. To kick off the sym- Group Discussion Breakouts were convened by edito-
posium, a welcome was offered by Jessica Nápoles as rial board members from the International Journal for Re-
chair of the ACDA Research & Publications committee search in Choral Singing (IJRCS), including:
and Robyn Hilger as ACDA Executive Director.
The fourth symposium was preceded by an in-person • Vocal Health for All Ages (Melissa Grady)
symposium hosted at Northwestern University (2018),
a remote asynchronous symposium (Georgia State • Gender in Choral Singing
University, 2020), and a remote synchronous sympo- (Stephen Paparo & Matthew Garrett)
sium (Georgia State University & Penn State Univer-
sity, 2022). This year’s symposium began with the 2020 • Pedagogy, Skill Acquisition and Development
Herford dissertation prize winner, A. J. Keller, who (Rebecca Atkins)
gave an exciting presentation with musical excerpts on
the Danish composer Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen • Adolescent-Specific Topics (Alfonso Jesús Elorriaga
(1932-2016). A. J. is the associate director of choral or- Llor, Patrick Freer & Jamey Kelley)
ganizations at Northwestern University and the found-
er and artistic director of Stare at the Sun, a Chicago- An international group of nearly seventy choral
based, twenty-four-voice professional chamber choir scholars met in-person and virtually to present and dis-
specializing in the curation and commissioning of mu- cuss research in a range of formats. The primary goals
sic by living composers. The dissertation itself can be of the Symposium were to define the current state of
downloaded as a PDF without the need of a login at research in choral singing, and to identify and coordi-
this address: https://arch.library.northwestern.edu/ nate issues and methodologies for future efforts. Partici-
concern/generic_works/37720d088?locale=en pants represented forty-seven colleges and universities
in the United States, with others representing universi-
The dissertation prize winner was followed by twen- ties in Austria, Australia, Canada, England, Germany,
ty-one research presentations and twenty-one poster Hungary, and Spain.
presentations in the form of lightning talks. A book The Symposium was a project of the American
author session featured five publications from recent Choral Directors Association, supported by the Na-
years: tional Standing Committee on Research and Publica-
tions. Among the Committee’s many responsibilities is
• Bridget Sweet, Thinking Outside the Voice Box: Adolescent oversight of the International Journal of Research in Choral
Voice Change in Music Education Singing, and the Symposium was developed to encour-
age a body of scholarship that might be published in
• Elizabeth Parker, Adolescents on Music the IJRCS. The IJRCS can be accessed online, free of
charge, through the “publications” tab or at www.acda.
• Wendy Moy, Resurrecting Song: A Pathway Forward for the org/ijrcs.

66 CHORAL JOURNAL September 2024 Volume 65 Number 2