1. Choral Music Relevancy in the 21st Century
Tim Sharp
American Choral Directors Association

3. Heart of the Matter
What sort of literacy are we trying to achieve?

4. Life’s Language Action and Rest Tension and Resolution Rise and Fall
Lightness and Intensity
Joy and Sorrow
Love and Hate
Life and Death

5. Why California must fund music education Ted Barone, Principal,Albany High School
San Francisco Chronicle, Friday, July 31, Ch
From the rhythm of our breathing as infants and the comforting lullabies that helped us sleep, to the cacophony of song and sound that envelops our modern everyday lives, music is an essential factor in what defines us as human. Music is a messenger that carries the history and collective experience of a people across time and space. Music also helps develop our brains in a way that will increase our ability to address and solve the extraordinary challenges that lie ahead of us as a people. The musical key is the proverbial key. In other words, the structure and organization of music is exactly what makes it so important for brain development. From the notes, chords are built. Chords determine keys, within which a skillful musician creates an experience, a message, a movement. Mix in rhythm and a new order of time emerges.
Music is all about creating neural networks and expanding the speed and capacity of the pathways that determine skill and memory. A key finding from brain research is that once a neural pathway is established, and the more that pathway is used, especially with passion and emotion, the greater the "bandwidth" and strength of the connection. Memory is improved, processing speed is increased, and better, more sophisticated decisions are a result.
Music is all about the structural connections that are used to support memory. It's much easier to remember something that follows a familiar structure or pattern than something random and unfamiliar. These familiar structures serve as the foundation for building greater knowledge and even stronger and more extensive neural networks that support learning of all kinds.
In a world of extraordinary complexity, a premium is placed on one's ability to quickly process massive amounts of wildly varying types of information. Musical instruction helps young people develop the brain capacity to process a lot of information and to organize and present it.
Playing music cultivates a mind that is prepared to process and make sense of the rush of information and problems that have come to characterize the 21st century. Music is a core subject. We can't cut funding for music any more than we can cut funding for math.

6. Sing Me to Heaven Jane Griner
In my heart's sequestered chambers lie truths stripped of poets' gloss,
Words alone are vain and vacant, and my heart is mute.
In response to aching silence, memory summons half-heard voices
And my soul finds primal eloquence, and wraps me in song.
If you would comfort me, sing me a lullaby,
If you would win my heart, sing me a love song,
If you would mourn me and bring me to God, sing me a requiem,
Sing me to Heaven.
Touch in me all love and passion, pain and pleasure,
Touch in me grief and comfort, love and passion, pain and pleasure.
Sing me a lullaby, a love song, a requiem.

7. Where are we? National Endowment for the Arts
2008 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts
(released June 2009)
From Adults attending Arts Events -29%
*Steepest Drop Occurring between 2002 and 2008
Adults Participating in Choirs % (1992) to 5.2% (2008) %

8. Choir A unique instrument
# Delivers a Text
# In Harmony
# By a Community of Voices

9. Choral Conductor as Artist in Residence
# Easy entry level particularly IF we start early
# Democratic in terms of cost
# Potential of reaching largest community

10. What the Symphony has that Choirs don’t have
# Symphony league
# Marketing department
# Survival motivation
# Community artistic appeal

11. Micro- or Macro- Conductor
Choral conductors are masters at collaboration within the rehearsal room, but

12. … failures at collaboration outside the rehearsal room.

13. Choral Conductors Embracing the 21st Century
Collaboration
# Technology
# World Choral Community
# Research Driven

14. Collaboration Other music and choral organizations
Other service organizations
Other professional organizations
Other civic organizations
Other states and their organizations

15. To establish the opportunity for every child in the United States to sing in a choir

16. Technology # Speaking the language of natives
(it can be that easy/hard)
# At least on par with your institution
# Create a tech component
# Googledocs; Facebook; Twitter
# ACDA.org, ChoralNet, ChoralPedia, CMPD

17. To utilize the full extent of technology for the benefit of our membership

18. World Choral Community
# ACDA Conductor Exchange
# World Choir Games
# IFCM and World Symposium
# Musica

19. To become fully engaged in world choral initiatives

20. Research Driven # ACDA website and membership services # LOC website
# Americans for the Arts
# Choral Journal and Searchable Index
# Base decisions and arguments on numbers and facts

21. To become research “go to” place for American Choral Music

22.
Celebrating our 50th Year