Happy second semester! I hope you are off to a great start and are making beautiful music with your students. I know we all have been reminded in the last few weeks of the importance of remaining flexible and patient not just with our students, but with ourselves and the many obstacles that are put in our way. Thank you for remaining positive when we encounter these barriers and for teaching your students to do the same.

AMEA Conference

I am deeply disappointed that we were not able to see each other at the AMEA conference this year. Please know that the decision to cancel was not made lightly, and that we were all very upset to have to make such a tough decision. There were many consequences to the cancellation, including not being able to hear the beautiful performances from the Hartselle High School Chamber Chorale, Hewitt-Trussville High School Chamber Choir, Indian Springs School Chamber Choir, Jacksonville State University A Cappella Choir, and the University of North Alabama Collegiate Singers and Chamber Choir. I know the performances would have been fantastic and I want to personally thank the students and directors for their hard work and preparation for these performances. I also want to extend a special thank you to the AVA board who put in a tremendous amount of work to prepare for this conference. Your attention to detail and work ethic was greatly appreciated and a huge help to me.

Thankfully, we have rescheduled our Gospel Honor Choir for March 22 at First Baptist Huntsville. We will rehearse during the day and combine our concert with the All-State Elementary Choir that evening. We are thankful for the work of our directors and clinicians who were able to make this rescheduled event happen.

General Membership Updates

Thank you to everyone who helped our All-State auditions run so smoothly. I was extremely pleased with the number of students we had to register and audition. I am confident that we are returning to our pre-covid numbers with our auditionees. Your students were well-prepared and they should be proud to be a part of truly the best choral students in our state. We are still looking to streamline the audition process. If you are a member of our All-State teacher panel, please be looking for a survey about our audition process and new options for auditions.

Our All-State Show Choir auditions also went very smoothly this year. We had an increased number of auditionees for this event, and the judges were impressed with the quality of auditions. Thank you to Cameron Johnson for continuing to facilitate our All-State Show Choir. The All-State Show Choir Festival will be held at Hartselle High School on April 24-26.

All-State Choral Festival

I am looking forward to seeing you all at the All-State Choral Festival on February 29-March 2 at the Birmingham Jefferson Convention Complex. I am excited for our conductors Eric Barnum, Julie Yu-Oppenheim, Jeffrey Benson, Alex Gartner, and D’Walla Simmons-Burke. This year, we are thrilled to have as our guests at convocation, the Miles College Choir under the direction of Mrs. Valerie Harris and the University fo Alabama Singers under the direction of Dr. Morgan Luttig.

A few reminders for our upcoming festival:

• All students who were selected for All-State must pay the registration fee, even if they choose not to participate in the festival.
• Please encourage students to review their music prior to the festival.
• The state high school basketball championships will be happening at the Legacy Arena during this time, so please be aware that parking will be even more difficult than usual.

Reminders

Deadlines for State Choral Performance Assessment and Solo and Ensemble are quickly approaching. Please be sure to register early in order to secure your preferred performance time. Please remember to check deadlines prior to registering so that no late fees are incurred.

I hope that your semester is going smoothly and is filled with beautiful music-making with your students. I look foward to seeing you at All-State. As always, if you have any questions, suggestions, or concerns, please contact me at hilen.wilson.ava@gmail.com.

Thank you, Hilen Wilson

It was wonderful to see so many of you at this year’s Fall Workshop. We greatly appreciate Dr. Melinda Doyle and the University of Montevallo for hosting us again this year. I want to reiterate my gratitude to you for being flexible and positive throughout the workshop as we encountered obstacles. I walked away from the workshop with lots of beneficial activities and ideas for my classroom. Thank you again to Matthew Gawronski for serving as our clinician and the AVA Board for helping facilitate a successful event.

CHANGES FOR 2023-2024

Here are the changes that were shared during our Fall Workshop General Membership Meeting:

• We have accepted a bid from Sweet Spot Live Recordings to record our All-State Choral Festival performances. Recordings and videos will be sent via Dropbox link to each director to share with students and will not be on a flash drive this year.
• The State Choral Performance Assessment Standing Rule E.1.a.ii now states:
• “Any director of any level choir may choose to read an example with one voice part less than their highest performance voicing but must provide a rationale for this adjustment on the auxiliary information form. For example, a choir performing SSA and SA on stage may sight-read SSA or SA in the sight-reading room.”
• Judges for State Choral Performance Assessment will participate in a training that consists of watching three different level choirs, completing an adjudication rubric, and scoring the choirs.
• The membership voted and approved the following proposal: “Any community choir student who does not have a school choral program may participate in AVA events with a director who is an AVA member.”
• An All-State Teacher Panel has begun working on evaluating our All-State audition process and will continue working throughout the year to implement changes for the 2024-2025 school year.
• All-State Show Choir will be held on April 24-26 at Hartselle High School.

ALL-STATE AUDITIONS AND FESTIVAL

All-State auditions are fast approaching.  Prior to the auditions, please make sure that your students have all of the required pieces, including “Alabama;” that all of their measures have been numbered; and that their adjudicator forms have been signed by a parent. Please ensure that all adjudication forms have been completely filled out prior to the audition. Also, be certain to follow the instruction pages included in the music packets to ensure that your students are learning the correct notes for your district.

A few reminders about auditions:

• There may be no substitutions the day of the audition. The students that are registered are the ones who audition.
• Students who are sick on their audition day are welcome to audition at any other site, but virtual or makeup auditions will not be accepted.
• Students who are accepted into the All-State choirs will have to pay their registration fee, whether or not they attend the festival.

Our All-State Choral Festival will be held at the Birmingham Jefferson Convention Complex in Birmingham, Alabama on February 29-March 2, 2024. Our clinicians will be:

• High School SATB: Eric Barnum, Drake University
• High School SSAA: Julie Yu-Oppenheim, Oklahoma City University
• High School TTBB: Jeffrey Benson, San Jose State University
• Middle School Mixed: Alex Gartner, Pensacola Children’s Chorus
• Middle School Treble: D’Walla Simmons-Burke, Winston-Salem State University

AMEA CONFERENCE

The 2024 AMEA Conference will be January 18-20 at the Von Braun Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Our guest clinician will be Francis Cathlina, the Director of Choral Activities at University of Memphis. He will present three sessions including: Intentional Voice Building Through an 8-Step Warmup, 7 Essentials for Developing Voices in Choir, and a conducting masterclass with 4 of our directors. I am thrilled to have him at our conference, and I hope you all will attend his wonderful sessions!

Congratulations to all the choirs who were accepted to perform at the conference.  We are looking forward to performances from the Hewitt-Trussville High Chamber Choir, University of North Alabama Collegiate Singers, Jacksonville State University A Capella Choir, Hartselle High School Chamber Choir, and Indian Springs Chamber Choir. It is a great honor to be selected to perform during this state-wide conference, so please be sure to come and support these groups and enjoy the music they are going to share.

We will also have a Gospel High School Honor Choir led by Valerie Harris, the Director of Choral Activities at Miles College. Directors may send up to two balanced quartets of students in grades 9-12 to participate in this honor choir. This is going to be a fantastic experience for our students and I cannot wait to hear them on Friday night at our AMEA conference.

I am looking forward to seeing you all at our upcoming All-State auditions as well as at our conference in January.  Until then, if I can be of help in any way or if you have any suggestions or ideas, please contact me at hilen.wilson.ava@gmail.com. See you soon!

Hilen Wilson

AVA President

Greetings directors!

I hope you all have had a restful summer and have hadtime to renew and refresh for this school year. Though each school year comes with challenges, I hope that you continue to find joy in teaching your students and are excited to make music with them this year! I have spent a lot of time this summer reflecting on my teaching and I am thankful for the continuous support I have received from this organization and the many opportunities I have been provided to learn and become a better teacher. I am entering this school year energized and excited about the direction of the Alabama Vocal Association and how our events can support our teachers and students. The AVA Governing Board had a productive summer board meeting and we are looking forward to this year’s AVA events.

NAfME Membership

If you have not already done so, please renew your NAfME membership.  You can do so at www.nafme.org. NAfME membership is required to register for any AVA events.

NEW WEBSITE

Our brand new website is now live. I am very thankful to Matthew Gardner for building us a new website. Please be sure to unbookmark all “myamea.org/ava” pages and exclusively use the new site: alabamavocalassociation.org. If

you see any errors or notice any potential mistakes, please contact matthew.gardner.ava@gmail.com.

Summer Board Decisions and Changes for 2023-2024

Matthew Gardner is our new digital director. He will be taking over the website and our social media accounts. He built us a new website and I would like to personally thank him for all his hard work!

A bid from Sweet Spot Live Recordings was approved for our All-State Choral Festival recordings. The recordings will now be delivered via Dropbox and can be downloaded onto any device.

A teacher panel has been formed to discuss and evaluate our All-State audition process. This panel will be working throughout the year to analyze our process, look at adding a sight-reading component and make sure our audition process aligns with the goals and mission of AVA.

For State Choral Performance Assessment, the board clarified one of the sight-reading rules to read:

Any director of any level choir may choose to read an example with one voice part less than their highest performance voicing but must provide a rationale for this adjustment on the auxiliary information form. For example, a choir performing SSA & SA on stage may sight-read SSA or SA.

For Honor Choir this year, we will have a gospel choir with conductor Valerie Harris from Miles College. We are looking forward to this fantastic experience for our students!

We would like to thank Holly Luke for stepping in as District IV Chair for this school year.

We are in the process of hiring a new Executive Secretary and will hopefully have someone in place by August 31.

Our clinicians for this year’s All-State Festival chose fantastic repertoire and I cannot wait for our students to work with them!

• MS Mixed: Alex Gartner, Pensacola Children’s Chorus
• MS Treble: D’Walla Simmons-Burke, Winston-Salem University
• HS TTBB: Jeffrey Benson, San Jose State University
• HS SSAA: Julie Yu Oppenheim, Oklahoma State University
• HS SATB: Eric Barnum, Drake University

2023-2024 AVA Events

Please visit the new AVA website: alabamavocalassociation.org to find the dates for all events for the year.  Be aware now of all registration deadlines and plan ahead to avoid paying any late fees.

Fall Workshop

Our next event will be the Fall Workshop at the University of Montevallo on Friday, September 8.  I am excited to have Matthew Gawronski from Weber Middle School and Schreiber High School in New York as our clinician this year. He will be presenting relevant sessions on embracing technology in the 21st-century choral rehearsal, navigating the changing voice, as well as a reading session. We will also have mini break-out sessions, a performance from the University of Montevallo Concert Choir, and our General Membership Meeting. Thank you so much to Melinda Doyle for hosting us again this year. All teachers in years 1-5 are invited to our New Teacher Luncheon for a refresher on all AVA events and to connect with teachers in your district. I hope to see you all there!

Thank you for taking the time to read about our organization. Please know that the AVA board is diligently working to improve and provide the best opportunities for our students. Please reach out if you see any area of our organization where you feel you can serve, or if you have any questions, concerns, or suggestions. Please see below the contact emails for members of the Executive Board as well as District Chairs. We all look forward to hearing from you and serving you this year.

• Hilen Wilson, AVA President: hilen.wilson.ava@gmail.com
• Amanda Slay, AVA President-Elect: amanda.slay.ava@gmail.com
• Jody Powell, AVA Vice President: jody.powell.ava@gmail.com
• Nichole Hill, AVA Recording Secretary: nichole.hill.ava@gmail.com
• Matthew Gardner, District I Chair: matthew.gardner.ava@gmail.com
• Frank Andrews, District II Chair: frank.andrews.ava@gmail.com
• Zachary Banks, District III Chair: zachary.banks.ava@gmail.com
• Marlin Ward, District III Co-Chair: marlin.ward.ava@gmail.com
• Holly Luke, District IV Chair: holly.luke.ava@gmail.com
• Debbie Flynn, District V Chair: debbie.flynn.ava@gmail.com
• Sallye York, District VI Chair: sallye.york.ava@gmail.com
• Christie Breland, District VII Chair: christie.breland.ava@gmail.com

Our district chairs will be holding virtual district meetings at the following dates and times. Please plan to be there to learn about the upcoming school year and have any questions you may have answered.

Please be sure to follow the Alabama Vocal Association on Facebook and Instagram for updates and reminders. I hope everyone has a wonderful start to their school year and I look forward to seeing you all at Fall Workshop!

Sincerely,

Hilen Wilson

All-State
Thank you again to everyone who contributed to making this year’s All-State Choral Festival a success. This event would not be possible without so many of you being willing to serve as choir coordinators, transportation coordinators, rehearsal monitors, concert coordinators, and so many other jobs. It takes all of our wonderful directors to put on such a successful event. I hope the festival was a wonderful experience for your students and that they brought their enthusiasm back to your choir rooms.

At our general membership meeting, we discussed forming a teacher committee to reevaluate our All-State audition process. Please be looking for an email from me regarding the next steps. If you have not already indicated that you would like to be part of that committee, please contact me.
We will be returning to the BJCC for All-State Choral Festival on February 29-March 2, 2024. I look forward to seeing you all there.

Fall Workshop
We had a wonderful time this past year at the University of Montevallo and we are so excited to return there this fall! Our clinician this year will be Matthew Gawronski. Please go ahead and mark your calendars for September 8 and make plans to join us!
If you have anything you would like to present at Fall Workshop or if you have ideas for sessions, please let me know.

AMEA
We will be moving to Huntsville for the 2024 AMEA Professional Development Conference. Our guest clinician will be Dr. Francis Cathalina who serves as the Director of Choral Activities at the University of Memphis.
Please consider submitting to present a session or to have your choir perform at the conference. The deadline to apply is June 1 and the application may be found on the AMEA website under the “Conference” tab under “Apply to Perform or Present.” There were so many great performances and sessions at the conference this year, so please submit so we can continue highlighting the excellent choral music from across our state.

Honor Choir
During this year’s AMEA Professional Development Conference, we will have our Honor Choir Festival for 9th-12th grade students. Dr. Valerie Harris from Miles College will be joining us as our clinician for our gospel honor choir. Directors can send up to 2 balanced quartets and students will learn all music on-site during the festival.

ASSC
Thank you so much to everyone who participated in our All-State Show Choir Festival. Thank you again to Cameron Johnson for running such a successful event as Show Choir Coordinator and to Jim Schaeffer at Spain Park High School for hosting. Next year’s show choir festival will be April 10-12, 2024.

Summer Board
This year’s Summer Board meeting will be held on June 25-27. If you have feedback or any items you would like me to add to our agenda for discussion and review during our meeting, please provide that to me through written feedback before June 1. You may do that by emailing me at hilen.wilson.ava@gmail.com or by completing the membership survey that was sent to your email at the beginning of May.

I hope you all have a wonderful summer and can find some time to reflect on this school year and to rest and refocus for this coming fall. If I can be of help to you in any way, please let me know.
I look forward to seeing you all at Fall Workshop!

Hilen

AMEA Conference Recap

It was great to see so many of you at the AMEA conference. We enjoyed the wonderful sessions from Maria Ellis and many other presenters from across our state. I hope you were able to take away some new ideas and strategies to use with your choirs.

We also enjoyed performances by the Buckhorn High School Bella Voce, Florence High School Chamber Choir, Iron City Singers, the University of Alabama at Birmingham Concert Choir, and the Miles College Choir as well as lobby performances from Gardendale High School and Pinson Valley High School. The performances were a wonderful showcase of the thriving choral music that is occurring throughout our state. A special thank you to Jody Powell from St. Paul’s Episcopal School for supplying choral risers and a shell for the performances. I encourage you all to apply to perform and present at next year’s conference in Huntsville.

If you have not already done so, please complete the post-conference survey sent to you from AMEA. The conference is moving to Huntsville in 2024 and I know the feedback will be greatly appreciated as we move to a new venue.

General Membership Meeting Recap
During the general membership meeting at AMEA, the membership voted to disband the Outstanding Accompanist competition. We also discussed the removal of our honor choir. However, the membership voted to table the discussion until our next meeting to research an immersion choir format.

A proposal to include community choir students that do not have a school choral program was discussed. The board will revisit this proposal at our summer board meeting to confirm details and qualifications.

There was also discussion on a proposal to include sight reading in the All-State audition process. The discussion included many ideas about the audition process as a whole. I encourage you to complete the Google form that was sent via email to have your thoughts heard and considered as we review our audition process.

I appreciate everyone having productive discussions at these meetings. The AVA board is always thriving to improve our events and provide the best opportunities for our teachers and students, and I am thankful that we can have constructive conversations while working toward that goal.

ASSC Auditions
Thank you to Cameron Weiler for coordinating our new online audition process. We had approximately 80 students audition over the two days and I appreciate all of our students and directors for being flexible and navigating a new process. If you have any feedback about the process, please let us know. The All-State Show Choir Festival will be held at Spain Park High School on April 12-14.

All-State Choral Festival
I am looking forward to seeing you all at the All-State Choral Festival on March 9-11 at the Birmingham Jefferson Convention Complex. I am excited for our conductors Francisco Nunez, Meredith Bowen, Jose Rivera, Charlotte Botha, and Bridget Sweet. This year, we are thrilled to have as our guests at convocation, the Jacksonville State University Choir under the direction of Dr. Eliezer Yanson and the Alabama State University Choir under the direction of Dr. Kristofer Sanchack. Communication will be sent via email from our President-Elect, Amanda Slay, with rehearsal assignments, procedures, and schedule.

Reminders
Deadlines for State Choral Performance Assessment and Solo and Ensemble are quickly approaching. Please be sure to register early to secure your preferred performance time.

If you have not already done so, please complete the Google form sent via email from AVA. Your feedback is valued and appreciated and truly helps the AVA board in the planning and execution of our events.

I hope that your semester is going smoothly and is filled with beautiful music-making with your students. I look forward to seeing you at All-State. As always, if you have any questions, suggestions, or concerns, please contact me at hilen.wilson.ava@gmail.com.

Thank you,
Hilen Wilson