NEW COMMISSION CONSORTIUM PROJECT

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You may or may not know that the murder of transgender women of color is a grossly under-reported epidemic in American society. This commission, through GALA Choruses, will be the first in a series of pieces by two trans women of color: Lady Dane Figueroa Edidi (lyricist) and Mari Esabel Valverde (composer) to bring attention to this important topic. Click here for more information. THE NEW DEADLINE IS MARCH 1st.

NEW COMMISSION CONSORTIUM PROJECT

Artists: Mari Esabel Valverde & Dane Figueroa Edidi

Did you know that “The senseless killing of trans women” is a rampant problem in American society? (source: Marsha P. Johnson Institute)

Vision of the Work:

  • The first in a series of choral pieces addressing the epidemic of violence, especially murders, of transgender women and in particular trans women of color (TWOC). We hope that this inspires conversations aimed at cultivating intentional solidarity with TWOC with a work created by two trans women of color. The vision is that this composition will eventually become one movement in a larger work. According to our artistic collaborators: “It’s not just one work. It’s a movement. It’s not just about honoring lives. It’s about saving lives.”
  • Length of the Musical Work = ca. 4 minutes
  • For SATB, with SSAA and/or TTBB voicings available
  • To premiere in the 2021-2022 concert season/academic year. Choruses will receive scores no later than January 1, 2021
  • Text to be written/compiled by Dane Figueroa Edidi
  • Music to be written by Mari Esabel Valverde

Extension and Activism

  • Conversation surrounding the work is necessary and can be extremely powerful in education and activism. Ideas include, but are not limited to:
    • partnering with local organizations, schools, churches, etc.
    • coordinating composer and/or poet talks at the premiere(s) of the work, etc.
    • e-activism involving the distribution of the premiere video/audio recording
  • Option for partnerships facilitated between high-school/collegiate choirs and GALA LGBTQ Choruses (www.GalaChoruses.org)
  • Educational materials connected to the work will be provided for participating choruses.

Cost

Commissioning choruses pay a sliding fee of $300-750 to support the commission process. Includes score and curriculum for high school singers. This commission is offered free of charge to any trans chorus

Deadline to commit to the project is February 1, 2020 March 1, 2020.

To state your commitment to this project, please click here (Google form).

For more information, please email Joshua Palkki at josh.palkki@gmail.com.

NJ-ACDA Adds 12% Membership Growth!

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Per the recent ACDA National Mailing:

Our fall membership drive was a success! It ended on Nov. 15, and we invite you to join us in congratulating the following states for excellent results:

At least 15 percent growth in Active membership:

  • Idaho (48.5%)
  • Utah (23.9%)
  • Vermont (22.4%)
  • New Hampshire (17.4%)
  • Maine (17.1%)

At least 10 percent growth in overall membership:

  • Idaho (28.3%)
  • Rhode Island (26.3%)
  • Mississippi (20.8%)
  • Vermont (17.3%)
  • Delaware (15.4%)
  • New Hampshire (14.9%)
  • New Mexico (14.4%)
  • Connecticut (14.2%)
  • New Jersey (12.0%)
  • Wyoming (10.9%)
  • Arkansas (10.7%)

And drumroll: Vermont ACDA won the drawing for the Grand Prize, which is underwriting headliner expenses for their next state conference.

From Your Women’s Choirs/SSA Chair

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Brandon Williams headshot

Hello! I am very excited to provide resources for the women’s/treble choirs throughout our state. 

Check out this Choralnet blog One from the Folder: Repertoire Thoughts for Women’s/Treble Choirs penned by Dr. Shelbie Wahl-Fouts and occasional guest contributors. The blog includes a review of new, lesser-known, and staple pieces. 

https://choralnet.org/category/one-from-the-folder/

Why ACDA?

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Jamie Bunce Head Shot

My first experience with ACDA was as a fourth grade soprano in Jean Ashworth Bartle’s Elementary Honor Choir at the Eastern Division Conference in 1992. Sponsored by the directors of my community youth choir and accompanied by my mother, a veteran teacher of middle and high school choirs, I saw and heard first hand the existence of an entire network of people that seemed to love and deeply understand a world that I was just beginning to explore. 

I adored spending hours rehearsing Mendelssohn and Britten with other children from all over the east coast (!). In the evenings, I thrilled at watching Dr. André Thomas rehearse Larry Farrow’s “Market Woman” and Gorczycki’s “In Virtute Tua” with the high school division after the elementary rehearsals dismissed. I thought we (along with several other people, somehow) had snuck into that ballroom, exhilarated by the thought of rehearsing choral music with such exuberance at 10 pm on a Friday, and in the presence of countless engaged observers, besides! 

It all felt very magical, like we were all a part of something both special and welcoming. I had discovered that a weekend spent immersed in joyfully created, enthusiastically shared, and exceptionally executed choral music can be a powerful mirror that might help me see and reconnect with a fundamental and sometimes elusive part of my self. It was also a path to connection with other people who share the same passions, and whose diverse experience and expertise offer the possibility of moving us all forward, developing our craft so that it might enable us to truly (finally!) express the granular, human truth that drives us all to make music in the first place.

I was only nine then, and perhaps too young to appreciate the significance of finding one’s tribe. Like so many of us, I eventually allowed my teaching schedule and the business of life to pull me away from spending my precious time feeding myself. I love my job as a the director of a choral program in an awesome high school, but though I get to share the world of choral music with many wonderful kids all day, I had starved myself the thing that started it all: singing in choir, myself. I was tired and on the verge of burning out, and I knew I deserved more than the table scraps of my time and of that world. I sought a change.

Gently nudged by friends, including Leslie Adler, the director who sponsored that first ACDA experience, I joined the Harmonium Choral Society. Then, I rejoined ACDA. Together, these were a homecoming. I found again the simple, effervescent joy of choral singing, and likewise rediscovered the invaluable learning and networking ACDA offers through its conferences, resources, and perhaps most significantly, its network of generous, knowledgeable members. Indeed, nearly three decades after that first conference, I find I learn something every time I make use of my ACDA membership, even as I continue to quote Ms. Bartle in my own rehearsals.

Time is precious, and I choose to spend at least a bit of it recharging and learning with my people. ACDA is a part of that. What a lovely gift.

Jamie Bunce
High School Youth Chair

President’s Letter: 2019

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Sing-up-Join-up!
A message from the President

At our first board meeting of September your NJ ACDA board representatives went around the room and shared why they were serving ACDA, and what the organization means to them. For all of us there was a joy in getting together with colleagues who understand the challenges of building a choral program, the chance to be inspired at conferences, like last summer’s wonderful work with Abbie Betinis and the justice choir song book, or this upcoming Eastern Division conference Open Ears…Open Hearts. Our Elementary/Junior High Honors Choir is a fantastic inspiring opportunity for your students, as is our High School Festival, now a full week in May and including a day in the southern part of the state. Our urban/inclusivity team has received a Fund for Tomorrow grant to support the Voices United Festival in East Orange in November, bringing in both Donald Dumpson and the Westminster Choir College Jubilee Singers. Our active student chapters are planning get-togethers and enrichment activities throughout the year.

I remember the first national convention I attended as a young conductor—the joy of hearing the voices (so many tenors!) lifted together in Bach’s Dona nobis pacem, and the array of leaders in our field giving of themselves. Over the years, I am always inspired, learning something new (or being reminded of something crucial I may have forgotten) and renewed by conversations with colleagues around the country.

Please join, renew and encourage others today! We have a limited amount of free memberships (new members) available this month, email Josh Melson joshm@pctr.org –it’s that easy.

Please feel free to send your photos and events to me for posting on our facebook page https://www.facebook.com/njacdaofficial/. Our Instagram is https://www.instagram.com/njacda/ tag us in your choir posts.

Please feel free to contact your state board R & R Chairs for mentoring and help. Have a wonderful fall, and a sane start-up season!

– Anne
Dr. Anne Matlack 
ann.matlack@choralcommunities.com

Resources From your Inclusivity Chair (Libby Gopal/Kason Jackson)

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Click here for pdf

The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation: Field Trip New Jersey

DonorsChoose.org

New Jersey Department of Education: Federal Grant Programs

Music Education Grants NJMEA Educational Grant Award​: $1000 – can only receive 1 every 5 years Application Deadline: March 1 Notification of Award: after April board meeting

ACDA Fund For Tomorrow Grant

Tri-M Music Honor Society: Grants and Scholarship Opportunities

NJ Paper Mill Playhouse Adopt A School

Authentic Learning Opportunities NJSMA Urban Liason​: ​urban@njsma.com Using this data, the NJSMA is moving forward with several changes for the 2019-2020 school year:

  • Students who receive free / reduced lunch in our region will be eligible for:
    • Waived audition and participation fees for regional music festivals
    • Bus vouchers so that high school students have free transportation for auditions, rehearsals, and performances for choir, band, and orchestra.

NJACDA Voices United Choir Festival:​ ​njacdainclusivitychair@gmail.com​ – Free for Title 1 school districts *Must be an NJACDA member

NJPAC Johnny Mercer Musical Theater Program

American Young Voices​: Choir concert for all voices – $95 registration fee Location in Newark, NJ; Philadelphia NJ (music is included)

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A message from the President

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NJACDA 2018 FALL NEWSLETTER

A message from the President

Greetings choral conductors and enthusiasts!

By now, every one of us is fully immersed in rehearsals, performances, and the demands of managing ensembles and programs.  As you navigate the new year and look for resources, inspiration, and community, we hope you’ll find ways to connect with your colleagues across the state and region through ACDA.

Sometimes the busier we get, we forget how many wonderful people and programs are eager to help.  Are you a new teacher? NJACDA has some of the best choral programs in the country, and those directors are likely NJACDA members and happy to mentor.  Are you experienced, but need some new ideas?  Consider attending some of our events throughout the year and discover what you may learn from attending a session or having an informal group conversation.

The state board and I are here to serve you and your programs, and look forward to being a part of the good work of all of our members.  Let’s engage!

Dr. Christopher Thomas
Director of Choral Activities
Rowan University
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A Note from Your President-Elect

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As we start panning our 2019 Summer Conference, we would love YOUR input! Please send any names of headliners you would love to see over the next few years to anne.matlack@choralcommunities.com. Please also let us know if you are interested in presenting a session yourself. We will have an application available soon, but for now, subject and title is all you need to send. We try to have sessions for all the different hats we wear: schools (elementary, middle, HS and college), to worship, community, a cappella etc.

I’d love to hear about any clinicians and headliners you would just LOVE TO HAVE BACK again as well! If you’d be willing to help logistically with the summer conference, I’d love to know that as well (food, set-up, hosting headliners, onsite registration etc.). We are looking at August 5 & 6, to be confirmed soon. It is not too soon to assemble a team.

I also oversee the social media content for NJACDA.
Please send announcements of interest to the membership (Concerts, workshops) to me for posting on the Facebook page. Contribute to the page by visiting often and LIKING what you see.

Dr. Anne Matlack
Grace Church, Madison NJ
Artistic Director, Harmonium Choral Society

Gerald J. Luongo

Gerald J. Luongo: 1979-1981, 1983-1985

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The fourth New Jersey ACDA President was Dr. Gerald J. Luongo, Principal and Choral Director at Vineland High School.

Gerald J. Luongo has been a choral director for over 40 years, having taught at Mahwah High School, Pascack Valley High School and Vineland High School, Rowan University, the College of New Jersey, Community and Church Choirs and as a Guest conductor and clinician in Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, Maryland, the Carolinas, Delaware with his Choral Groups performing at State, Divisional and National Music Conventions. He has been an active member and President of the Bergen County Music Educators, the South Jersey Choral Directors Association, the NJMEA, the MENC, a life-member of the ACDA, Eastern Division Board member of the ACDA and the NJ ACDA as its President for many years. He has been involved with the New Jersey All State Chorus as Manager, State Coordinator and Chorus Director. His studies in Voice and Choral music have been at the Curtis Institute, the Julliard School and he holds degrees in Music from The College of NJ (BA,MA) and other degrees from Rowan University (MBA) and South Eastern University (PhD in Administration).

In the early 1970’s, Dr. Eugene Simpson and I were asked by the Eastern Division to build a stronger State ACDA Chapter. With the help of many dedicated teachers, the State Chapter immediately began to grow, providing State activities such as reading sessions, newsletters and the ACDA Adjudicated Choral Festival that grew from a few groups into a three-day program. The number of schools and the cooperation of the respective Choral Directors brought much attention to the quality of choral music in the State. The cooperation of both Rowan University and The College of New Jersey in providing performance venues provided exceptional opportunities for New Jersey students.

As President for several years, I was fortunate to work with so many outstanding Choral Directors whose commitment to their students and the quality of Choral Music in the State was impressive and rewarding. The cooperation of the schools and the assistance provided by my colleagues was exceptional. And every Board of Directors that served with me made a commitment to excellence. Many of these colleagues and friends have passed on but their contributions will long be remembered as they charted the course for the NJ ACDA and the importance of Choral Music in our schools. Although I retired from music and continued my career as a High School Principal, NJ State Monitor, politician and now as a businessman operating a private school, my fondest memories are the years in “making music”.

Eugene Thamon Simpson

Eugene Thamon Simpson: 1977-1979

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The  third president was Dr. Eugene Thamon Simpson. Educated at Howard, Yale and Columbia Universities. While in the US Army from 1956-59, he formed he Melodaires Quartet that achieved national attention by winning the World Wide Entertainment Competition, appearing on the Ed Sullivan TV Show and touring the world for nine months entertaining troops.

Upon his discharge from Special Services, he taught in the NY High Schools for ten years and worked as a studio singer doing recordings with a plethora of major artists from Harry Belafonte to Leontyne Price. Before coming to New Jersey, he served as Choral Director and Voice Chairman at Virginia State College, and as Professor, Music Chair and Division Head at Bowie State University. He is the recipient of a Tanglewood Vocal Fellowship, a Ford Foundation Academic Administration Fellowship, and served as Chair of the Eastern Regional NASM, Governor of New Jersey NATS, Founder and National Chair of the ACDA Committee on Ethnic Music and Minority Concerns, Founder and Curator of The Hall Johnson Collection, Founder and Endower of the NATS Hall Johnson Spirituals Competition, and a Panelist on the National Endowment for the Arts. His choirs have performed at ACDA Division and National Conventions, at Carnegie Hall, the Mormon Tabernacle, the Vatican, in London, Paris, Vienna, Salzburg, St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Madrid Spain.

When Dr. Simpson came to Glassboro State College as Music Chairman in 1975, the New Jersey ACDA Presidency was vacant and the membership was depleted. As he had been active in ACDA for almost 10 years and had appeared with the Virginia State College Choir at the Southern Division Convention to an enthusiastic standing ovation, he was contacted almost immediately by the ACDA national president and asked if he would fill the vacant presidency and revive the flagging chapter. He accepted the charge and within his two-year term, almost tripled the membership. He established communication with all of the high school and college choral directors;  established adjudicated high school and college festivals with quality judges and awards. He developed a newsletter to alert and inform the directors of the festival schedule, of the regulations and procedures, of judging standards, and of the final ratings of each school. The results were instantaneous and enthusiastic. He was able to hand over to his successor a healthy, thriving chapter.

During the same period and in cooperation with the national board of ACDA, Simpson worked to incase the participation of minority choral directors,  to familiarize them with international choral standards, and encourage them to accept them for their programs. To this end, he convened a Symposium for Black Choral Directors to discuss the kinds of choral literature that should be taught in accredited schools, adjudication standards, and modern choral techniques. The idea that Black choirs were not chosen because of racial bias was dispelled and the fact of competitive auditions was emphasized. Upon receipt of the report of this Symposium, the national organization demonstrated its good faith by granting his request to constitute a National Committee on Ethnic Music and Minority Concerns to develop a greater appreciation for diverse music literature and to encourage participation by minority conductors. Simpson chaired the national committee for seven years and organized a committee in each ACDA Division.