2010 Summer Conference
July 8-10, 2010

Register Online: Click HereTopeka Holidome, Topkea, Kansas

featuring...

Dr. Anton Armstrong, the Harry R. and Thora H. Tosdal Professor of Music at St. Olaf College and Conductor of the St. Olaf Choir, is in wide demand internationally as a clinician and festival choir
conductor. He was a featured clinician at last year's eighth annual World Symposium on Choral
Music in Denmark and this season is leading choral festivals in Jerusalem, Prague, New York City, and Washington, D.C. 
 
In addition to taking the St. Olaf Choir on concert tours around the world, Armstrong has guest conducted such noted ensembles as the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, the Westminster Choir and the American Boychoir. Widely recognized for his work in the area of youth and children's choral
music, Armstrong conducted the World Youth Choir in 2001. 
 
A graduate of the American Boychoir School, St. Olaf College, the University of Illinois and Michigan State University, Armstrong returned to St. Olaf in 1990 after a decade at Calvin College. His work as a teacher, conductor and music editor touches thousands of singers every year. Armstrong's gifts as a teacher and mentor have been recognized by Baylor University in Texas, which awarded him the 2006 Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teaching. It is the single largest award given in the United States to an individual for teaching, and Armstrong was selected from a field of 118 distinguished nominees.
 
As editor of the Anton Armstrong Multicultural Series of Earthsong Publications and co-editor of the St. Olaf Choral Series, Armstrong also provides choirs around the world with exciting new music to sing. "Music has the deepest impact for me, the greatest import, when it serve others," he says. "When it fosters faith, hope, compassion and love. When it takes flesh."

Dr. David N. Childs, b. 1969 at Nelson, New Zealand, has a Bachelor's degree in composition and musicology from Canterbury University, Christchurch, New Zealand; a Master of Music degree in conducting from the Florida State University, Tallahassee; and a Doctorate of Musical Arts degree from Louisiana State University. Dr. Childs serves as tenured Associate Professor of Choral Studies at the Blair School of Music, Vanderbilt University, Nashville. He was music director for the Vanderbilt Opera Theater program from 2000-2006, having conducted performances of Mozart’s The Magic Flute, Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, Menotti’s Amelia Goes to the Ball, Fantasticks, Kirke Mechem’s Tartuffe, Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance, and Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music. He has received conducting instruction from Dr. Kenneth Fulton, Dr. André Thomas, and Professor Rodney Eichenberger, with additional instruction from Helmuth Rilling as a master class conductor at the Oregon Bach Festival. Dr. Childs is an active clinician and adjudicator in the United States, working at the grade school, college, and community levels. He has conducted All-State and honor choirs in Tennessee, Maryland, Virginia, Louisiana, Oregon, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. Future engagements include New Zealand, Japan, and New York City (world premiere of New Work in 2011). His compositions frequently appear at state festivals and workshops, and at ACDA state, regional, and national conventions. They are performed in many parts of the world, including Asia, Europe, the Americas and Australasia. He has received commissions from around the world, including Japan, New Zealand, and South Africa. In 2008 he was commissioned to write an SATB work for the 2009 American Choral Directors’ Association High School National Honor Choir. In June 2009, he conducted a world premiere of his Requiem mass for chorus, soloists, and chamber orchestra, receiving a standing ovation in Carnegie Hall.
 
 

Future Conventions

2010
July 8-10

2011
July 7-9

2012
July 6-8