I do hope your calendars are marked! Our annual Winter Conference is coming up on Jan. 12-13 at San Jose State University. I am getting excited at all the Choral events that will be taking place.

Choral Sessions
Both reading sessions will take place on Friday. The elementary reading session will feature songs appropriate for elementary and middle school, and the secondary reading session will feature songs for junior high and high school. We hope you can find literature for your needs from either or both reading sessions.

I am very honored to have noted composer Victor Johnson to direct the reading sessions. Victor is in his 5th year of teaching at the Ft. Worth Academy of Fine Arts, and is in his 5th year as director of the Children’s Choir of Texas. Victor’s works can be found in the catalogues of Heritage Music Press, Lorenz and Hal Leonard Publishing.

Also on Friday, Anthony Arnold will present a session entitled “Make It A Great Day or Not. The choice is yours.” He will share what he does to make his program work besides just looking at music catalogs for repertoire. Anthony has been successful in building successful programs in short periods of time. Featured performers will be Anthony’s advanced choir from Miller Middle School.

On Saturday, Lou De La Rosa, Director of Choral Activities from West Valley College, will present “Choir 101 for Instrumental Teachers.” This session is for directors who have vowed would never be caught dead teaching choir, and has to because choir is part of the teaching load. What does one do? Lou is a veteran teacher of 23 years and band teacher for 7 of those years. He will share vocal exercises, repertoire ideas, rehearsal techniques and ideas to achieve excellence with your choral program.

Conference Choir
Our Junior High Conference Choir will be conducted by Sharon Vela, who recently retired from 38 years of teaching. She had a superior program in Antioch, where her students actively participated in CMEA festivals and conference groups, and ACDA honor choirs. Sharon was also a former CMEA Choral Representative and presented various sessions for the Bay Section Conferences. She was perhaps best known for her workshop on “Juggling for Better Reading,” a technique she still uses with her private students. Sharon is looking forward to sharing this experience with your students.

I am looking forward to working with you and your students as well. Letters of acceptance, rehearsal and performance schedules will be sent out in early November. Please note that there will be a mandatory rehearsal on Saturday, Dec. 8th at CalState East Bay in Hayward. The rehearsal will run from 8:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. Please make sure your students are there. Students who miss this rehearsal will be dropped from the choir.
It is your responsibility to make sure your students learn the music before the December 8th rehearsal. It is my hope that the rehearsal will be a positive experience fo all, polishing music instead of teaching notes. Please order the music from JWPepper in Fremont (510) 796-1525, as soon as possible so that the learning process can begin immediately. Pepper has the music especially prepared for Bay Section. Thank you, Scott Grady!
I encourage you to attend the rehearsal with your students. If you can be of assistance in any way — leading sectionals, accompanying the sectionals, or simply sitting with the students and helping them with their parts, please contact me immediately at school (510) 293-8532 or (510) 293-8501, or send me an email at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it The more the merrier. I am looking forward to hearing from you.

Festivals
And if you haven’t done registered for our 2008 choral festivals, please do so. Remember that all festival registrations are now done through solochair.com.

See you soon!