We just enjoyed a superb winter conference reconnecting with each other, sharing information, and attending sessions and concerts. We certainly seek your feedback concerning the move of the concert venue for choral performances to the ballroom from the Performing Arts Center Auditorium. The move afforded us the opportunity to enjoy a two-hour concert block to which some of us affiliated with ACDA are accustomed. I think that the Honor Choir strained the capabilities of the room; however, we will not have to be concerned with such a large ensemble next year.

I appreciated my interaction with Dr. Jeffrey Benson. I think over the past three years we have certainly gained collaboration with some of our very finest in the profession—Dr. Chris Aspaas, Dr. Tucker Biddlecombe, and Dr. Jeffrey Benson. Dr. Benson, I hope, has offered us an opened door to some future association—either at an All-State festival or honor choir. I thought his reading session addressed content for various levels that is quite usable. There was nothing substandard and a majority of the literature is accessible by all. I encourage you to contact JW Pepper anytime that you need literature as they provided the reading session booklets at no cost to AVA. I got to attend some quite effective sessions by our own presenters. We were afforded sessions targeting functional aspects of the choral rehearsal— vocal health, theory, rehearsal pacing, sight-reading, and reasoning of why we select the literature that we do. Again this year, my hopes were that your students rehearsing this spring semester would directly benefit from your attendance.

I congratulate the directors who provided performances at the conference. I want to encourage you to submit for a performance. Certainly consider recording your SCPA selections and submitting for a concert performance.

Being chosen for All-State Chorus is one of the highest honors a choral student in the state can receive. We auditioned approximately 3,000 students in November with approximately one-third of those being chosen for one of our five All-State ensembles. Those students will interact with some of our finest vocal conductors. Go to the AVA website to read information concerning the all-state festival.

Be aware that the all-state schedule this year is again quite different. All ensembles are on the campus of Samford University. By the time that you read this article your All-State information will be available on the AVA website from our president-elect Ginny Coleman.

AVA events to be disseminated via our website. If you are attending an SCPA in another district you should be able to get all information concerning the event you are attending from that district’s web page. Let your district chairman know if you have difficulty accessing the information.

Lastly, I look forward to our website moving to the newly hosted AMEA website. We should transition over the spring and summer to the new site. Registration for Fall Workshop will be done just as you registered for the AMEA conference. Pending some more training and us discovering what is available, hopefully all registrations will be done online this next school year—more info to come at the All-State Festival concerning this. Please communicate with your district chairman.

See you at Samford.

Carl

Dr. Carl Davis, President