CONFEFRENCE SCHEDULE

11:00 am - 1:00 pm Registration - Music Building Lobby (Park in Band Hall lot) 

1:00 pm Welcome - Choir Room

1:15 pm - 2:00 pm Conference Chorus Rehearsal - Choir Room

2:15 pm - 3:15 pm Singing In Sync - Choir Room

   Presenter: Ashley Dame 

• This practical, high-energy professional development session focuses on using team-building activities to strengthen choir culture, student connection, trust, risk-taking, problem-solving, and ensemble buy-in. In this session, we seek to frame team building as more than “fun games”; these activities become intentional deposits in the relationship bank that support morale, reveal emerging leaders, provide meaningful brain breaks, and help students rehearse with greater focus and ownership. With adaptable strategies for posture, breathing, rhythm, singing, gamification, and extramusical goals, this session gives directors ready-to-use tools for building camaraderie while keeping the choral rehearsal purposeful, musical, and joyfully connected.

3:30 pm - 4:10 pm Conference Chorus Rehearsal - Choir Room

4:20 pm - 5:20 pm Fostering Resilience through Failure in the Choral Classroom: Starting with the Warm-Up Presenter: Carlton Copeland

• Through a sequence of practical demonstrations, participants will explore how familiar warm-ups can be adapted to create increasing levels of challenge and productive struggle. Examples will include interval and audiation exercises, layered scale patterns, rounds and canons, and solfege activities that push singers beyond passive participation and toward deeper listening, risk-taking, and musical problem-solving. Attendees will leave with warm-ups ready to use immediately in their rehearsals.

5:25 pm - 5:45 pm SSA/TTB rehearsals 

• SSA - Choir Room

• TB - Room 224 

6:00 pm Social & Dinner (provided) - Circle & Square (Food: South Depot Taco Shop)

8:30 am-9:00am     Coffee & Donuts provided - Choir Room 

9:00 am - 9:30 am SSA/TTB rehearsals (except Vets home singers)

• SSA - Choir Room

• TB - Room 224 

9:30 am - 10:00 am Service Project Rehearsal*

10:15 - 11:00 am Service Projects

• Memory Makers - A Day Respite Program for People Living with Memory Loss

  • St. Peter's Episcopal Church
    113 S 9th Street, Oxford

• Beau Ridge Retirement Home

  • 2702 S Lamar Blvd, Oxford

• Mississippi Veterans Home

  • 120 Veterans Dr, Oxford

11:30 am - 12:30 pm Lunch provided at UM (Newks)- Band Hall

12:30 pm - 1:30 pm Mars, Venus, & the Space Between Us - Choir Room 

                                            Presenters: Ashley & Nathan Dame

• This session explores how tenor-bass and treble choirs can feel like they live on different planets, each with its own vocal, emotional, and cultural atmosphere, while still belonging to the same choral solar system. Through practical rehearsal strategies, warm-ups, relationship-building tools, assessment ideas, and shared leadership concepts, Nathan and Ashley Dame guide directors in understanding the unique needs of each ensemble while building bridges between them. At its heart, this session is about more than training singers; it is about helping students navigate pressure, change, connection, and artistry with confidence, joy, and purpose.

1:40 pm - 2:20 pm Conference Chorus Rehearsal - Choir Room 

2:30 pm - 3:30 pm Building a Musicianship-Focused Ensemble

Presenter: Jordan Langworthy

• In this session, we’ll look at how to build an ensemble where musicianship, not constant director input, drives the rehearsal. You’ll learn practical ways to strengthen students’ ears, boost their confidence, and help them take real ownership of the musical product. We’ll also try out an interactive activity that shows how shifting responsibility to the ensemble not only raises your group’s standards, but also creates a healthier, more collaborative rehearsal culture.

4:35 pm - 5:10 pm Conference Chorus Rehearsal - Choir Room

5:15 pm - 5:30 pm SSA/TTB Rehearsals

• SSA - Choir Room

• TB - Room 224 

6:00 pm Conference Social (dinner provided) - Funky's Pizza & Daiquiri Bar  

8:30 am-9:00am     Round Table Discussion, 

Building Excellence Through Connection: Strengthening  

Choral Music Programs in Schools, Dale Beech

Coffee & Donuts provided - Choir Room 

9:00 - 10:10 am     Conference Chorus Rehearsal  - Choir Room 

10:15-11:15 am     Interest Sessions  - Choose one:

 Tactics to Build Success for Novice Male Singers (Room 148)

Presenter: Dr. Chris Brown

• One of the hardest groups to reach for successful Choral ensembles is mid- or post-pubescent males. This session will demonstrate methods for encouragement and proven tactics to enhance self-confidence in novice to beginning singers by using a pitch analysis tool to determine their habitual speaking frequency. Once this is located, range building exercises can be implemented along with basic harmony strategies to build confidence, musicianship, and pitch accuracy.

      From First Note to Last Concert: Raising a Developing Singer Through Repertoire (Choir Rm)

Presenter: Dr. Eric Johnson 

• Repertoire is our choral textbook, but its sequencing is often not laid out in a cut-and-dry manner. The building of musical skill sets and literacy through a structured approach to repertoire is crucial to developing a well-rounded singer. We will be exploring how to develop harmony in an easy-to-access framework of steps and how to look for these steps in literature for differing levels, voices, and skill sets.

11:20 - 12:15 pm R&R Reading Session and "Joyful Rep" with Ashley Dame

12:20 -1:30 pm Lunch on your own /MSACDA Board Meeting

1:40 - 2:30 pm Walk Through Concert Rehearsal (Paris Yates Chapel)

3:00 - 4:00 pm Conference Chorus Concert (Paris Yates Chapel) - Concert black, but not formal