Tennessee Musician - Vol. 67 No. 2

TMEA STATE CHORAL CHAIR
PAPERWORK, field trip
forms, permission slips,
hotel reservations, sub
plans. Does your All State/
TMEA Conference check
list look like this? It sometimes
feels that it’s so
overwhelming and stressful
to make the preparations to attend the
conference and be away from school for
several days. In fact, I’ve had some colleagues
choose not to attend because “it’s
too expensive,” or “too much work to just
send a few (or maybe just one) students
to All State.” But for me, as soon as I leave
school on that first day of conference and
head towards our annual professional development
event, I feel this sense of relief
and anticipation as I think about seeing
friends and colleagues from across the
state, attending the motivating sessions
and performances, and enjoying the excitement
my students have at being able to
sing in these wonderful choruses.
For your sessions, you have many choices
which range from getting down to the
nitty-gritty with music theory skills in
the choral rehearsal, enhancing your performances
with choreography, improving
concentration skills for singers, and
learning to include some “soul” in your
Janet Johnson
repertoire. ACDA will present a
Master Class of college student
conductors who will conduct
an area high school choir and be
critiqued by a master conductor.
My students were privileged to
be the demo choir a few years
ago and it proved to be a very enjoyable
and valuable experience
for the high school singers, the
college student conductors, and
the audience of TMEA members.
As well as getting valuable information
and being inspired
at the sessions, we have several
wonderful choirs performing
during the conference. Brad
Turner, who with input from
the board in creating the schedule,
has worked very hard not to
have any overlap with sessions
and performances. This year
you shouldn’t have to choose
between attending a session and going
to a choral concert. Please look over the
schedule very carefully and arrange to attend
as many of these events as possible.
It’s really discouraging for a clinician or
a choral director who has worked so hard
on their presentation to have a sparse audience.
Our choral caucus/roundtable will meet
on Friday, April 10 at 3:00 pm in room 204.
Please try to attend this meeting. This is
one of the few chances that we as choral
directors across the state get to meet each
other and share ideas. I would like to focus
on the round table aspect of the meeting.
At the present moment, things are rather
calm with no “burning issues” that must
be debated and voted on. I’ve been warned
by some in my region NOT to create any!
If you have a topic you’d like to bring up
(and lead discussion on) or an issue you
think we could all relate to, please email
me. As you walk through the convention
center, you will see groups of music directors
sitting together laughing, sharing
ideas, solving classroom problems and
just generally enjoying each other’s company.
At the roundtable, we have a chance
to connect the 3 regions.
In teaching both middle and high school
choirs, I see the importance of building
that connection between elementary,
middle, and high school. There has been
some discussion of including an auditioned
middle school chorus to TMEA in
the future. It would perhaps work like the
Treble Choir does now, with auditions by
CD and then performing on that first day
on the same concert as the elementary
group. The reasoning behind this is that
those who participate in the awesome
Treble Honor Choir then have to wait several
years before they are able to participate
again. There are several of us who
would like to keep that momentum going
with our young singers.
Lastly, I’d like to encourage you to regularly
check out the TMEA website and
especially the choral page for updates
and conference information. I’ve tried to
include calendar events, reminders, and
general chorus information. One new addition
is the requirement for all students
to have a notarized medical form that you
will make a copy of and turn in at registration.
Everyone should have received a
director’s packet from your region which
will have All State information and copies
of documents you can use. If you have
events or notices you would like for me to
include on our website page, send me an
email.
I wish you the best of luck in your upcoming
festivals and performances and
look forward to seeing you at conference.
-Janet Johnson
This year you shouldn’t have
to choose between attending
a session and going to a
choral concert.
34 | TENNESSEE MUSICIAN | 2015 | VOLUME 67, NO. 2