2025 Maine Music Educators Association Conference

In this interactive roundtable discussion, choral teachers can attend and engage in open dialogue about the current All-State Auditions. Participants can exchange ideas, share their experiences with the current auditions, and give suggestions and feedback for improvement. This lively, collaborative session will begin the conversation on revamping the All-State Auditions for MMEA and lead the work of a larger committee in the upcoming fall.

All music educators enter vocal music classrooms having experienced a variety of “meals and recipes” such as ensemble participation and limited methods courses without really learning how the ingredients–the singers–are prepared and from where they are sourced. This session will director your attention away from focusing on the recipe and toward the quality of the ingredients: the training of singers as individual instruments. Immediately-applicable tools related to breath, posture, the vocal “cords,” and the relationship between vowels and consonants to an efficient vocalism will help you understand the why behind choral methods, allowing you to curate your ensembles with farm-to-table artistry.

Do your singers readily focus on the expressive elements of music they are preparing to perform? Do you wish you could find something extra special for them to sing? This session will feature a step-by-step guide to help you and your singers create a truly unique signature work that showcases your ensemble and its special talents. Students will gain new insights into the choral art as they adopt the role of composer, develop new musical and socio-emotional skills, and prepare a performance that will captivate any audience with a meaningful work that uniquely represents their collective musicianship.

Many of us have found ourselves in a situation where we needed a filler piece, or wanted to do an existing piece that wasn't available in the correct voicing. This interactive session aims to demystify the composition and arranging process, and offer some helpful tools for how to work with your choirs to create new music and arrangements. Part of the session will include a real-time, participatory demo of adapting existing music for new choral voicings

No matter the stage of career, conductors are tasked with engaging students to join and participate in their ensembles through a variety of pedagogical, musical, and marketing techniques; perhaps none as critical as closing the gap between the music students choose to listen to and the “choir songs” we painstakingly program for their benefit! This interactive session will guide participants toward the musical language of their students, where and how they collaborate outside the choir room, and how both conductor and student identify and share their implicit aesthetic preferences in any repertoire. Fresh perspectives on tried and true score preparation approaches through a “singer-songwriter” lens will illuminate ways you can tether students to the choral canon while affirming their musical taste and untapped potential as artists.