AVA: Thank you for your contributions to the AMEA Conference

Ginny Coleman

AMEA CONFERENCE

It was so nice to see many of you at our conference last month.  Despite the winter weather and the move to a new venue, we had a great turnout!  I appreciate all those who worked to be sure that everything ran smoothly.  Those who were in attendance enjoyed re-connecting with each other, sharing information, and attending sessions and concerts.  If you did not attend the AMEA conference this year, I encourage you to go ahead and make plans to do so next year.  The conference will be held January 17-19, 2019 at the BJCC.

I certainly enjoyed my interaction with Dan Davison at the AMEA conference.  I particularly appreciated his session on teaching the changing male voice.  I thought his reading session addressed content for various levels and included repertoire appropriate for our singers.  I encourage you to contact JW Pepper any time that you need literature as they provided the reading session booklets at no cost to AVA.  Other sessions covered a range of topics from sight-reading to authentic assessment.  If you have something new or interesting that you would like to share, I encourage you to submit to present at AMEA next year.

Congratulations to the students and directors who provided performances at the conference, including the AVA Honor Choir.  We encourage you to submit an application to perform.  Like last year, we will provide you with a recording of your SCPA performance as a part of your SCPA registration cost.  Our hope is that the recording will make it a little easier for you gather the materials needed for your application.

ALL-STATE FESTIVAL

We are looking forward to seeing you and your students who were chosen to be a member of an All-State Choir in March.  By the time that you read this article your All-State correspondence packet will be available on the AVA website from our president-elect Meg Jones.

We appreciate Samford University for once again hosting All-State.  Kenny Gannon, Tim Banks, and the staff at Samford have already begun working to be sure that our event is a success.  Thanks to everyone who has agreed to serve as a choir coordinator, assistant coordinator, or attendance monitor.  Your service is appreciated.

SCPA

In an effort to connect with our colleagues who are not plugged in with AVA, we are again offering a free registration initiative for State Choral Performance Assessment.  Directors may register one choir for free (school fee and student fees waived) if their school has not participated in SCPA in the past three years.  Please share with your colleagues who may be interested in taking advantage of this offer.

We are also pleased to be able to provide additional services this year during our SCPA event.  Each district chair will contract a recording engineer to record all choirs that perform at SCPA.  After SCPA is complete, each director will receive a copy of his/her ensemble’s recordings at no additional cost.

OUR MISSION

The AVA Board is continually striving to 1) maintain adherence to our mission statement and 2) improve our functionality.  Along those lines, we have begun discussion about the following:

  • Streamlining the All-State audition process using available recording technology rather than sending 5 judges on a tour around the state
  • Modifying the All-State audition form to a rubric-style adjudication form
  • Modifying the sight-reading portion of SCPA to allow directors to choose an appropriate sight-reading example for their students based on students’ ability
  • The future of All-State Show Choir and how it fits into the structure of AVA
  • The future of Honor Choir and how it fits into the structure of AVA
  • We sent a survey at the end of the AVA Membership meeting on January 19th.  If you did not already complete the survey, please do.  We will use the information gathered from the survey when scheduling AVA event dates for the 2018-2019 school year.  We are also interested in thoughtful, written feedback in the form of an email to me or anyone else on the AVA Board.  Please let us know if you have anything you would like to add to the conversation.  Your thoughts are welcome and appreciated.

Thank you for taking to the time to read about your professional association.  Please send questions, suggestions, or ideas to me at presidentofava@gmail.com. I am looking forward to seeing you in March!

Ginny