2010 Choir Connection

The 2010 Choir Connection held concurrently with CWTA is an outstanding opportunity for teen and children's choir singers and their directors to work with nationally respected choir directors. The five-day program is offered to choir directors and youth who want a summer opportunity to grow and learn together and for the children of families attending the conference.

Kenney Potter
Teen Choir Director

The teen choir (rising grades 7–12) will sing under the direction of Kenney Potter, an active clinician and adjudicator throughout North Carolina. Hinshaw Music and Chorister's Guild publish his choral compositions. He serves as a Repertoire and Standards Chair for Male Choirs in the Southern Division of the American Choral Directors Association. As an Associate Conductor with the Charlotte Children's Choir, Potter conducts the male ensemble, Cantare. Potter is also the choir director at First Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church in Gastonia.

Heather Williams Potter
Youth Choir Director

The director of the youth choir (rising grades 4–6, unchanged) will be Heather Potter, Associate Conductor of the Charlotte Children’s Choir in Charlotte, N.C., conducting the Lyric Choir. She also serves as the Director of Youth and Children’s Music at First Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church in Gastonia, North Carolina. As an active clinician, Williams Potter frequently conducts treble ensembles for music conferences and festival choirs and presents children’s choir training workshops. She serves on the Choristers Guild National Board and on the advisory board for the Choristers Guild Institute. Williams Potter is also the Repertoire and Standards Chair for Children’s Choirs for North Carolina American Choral Directors Association (ACDA). 

Program Features

There will be one one-hour rehearsal on Monday and two one-hour rehearsals Tuesday through Thursday.

Christian education classes divided by ages will he held Monday through Thursday.

Supplementary musical activities will be led by teachers and assisted by St. Olaf College students and Northfield High School students.

Recreational activities will be supervised by teachers and assistants.

The housing on campus includes Monday through Thursday nights (non air-conditioned residence hall, bring a fan) and all meals from Monday lunch through Friday breakfast. A non-residential option is also available. Rooms are doubles and singles, typically in a "pod" with four to five rooms around a central lounge. Bathrooms and showers are separate from the rooms, so bring flip flops and bath robes. Bed linen, pillows and one towel are provided. Bring all toiletries.

The music packet is for the participants to take home with them at no additional charge.

Each singer will receive a T-shirt with the colorful Choir Connection logo.

Participants registering as a choral group must include no fewer than one adult chaperone per six singers. Chaperones may register for the CWTA conference, but it is not required.

Registration will be Monday from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in Buntrock Commons (running concurrently with adult registration for CWTA), followed by a kick-off meeting with singers, parents and chaperones at 12:45 p.m. in the Boe Memorial Chapel lower level classrooms. Monday activities conclude at 6:30 p.m.

From Tuesday through Thursday, the program begins at 9:30 a.m., after the morning worship service. On Thursday evening, the Teen and Youth Choirs are leaders in the worship service, A Service In Song.

On Friday, the program begins at 8 a.m. and concludes at 12 p.m. following the closing worship service.

Families and/or chaperones are responsible for the supervision of participants at all other times than listed above, including breakfast and morning worship.

For additional program information contact Linda Hagan Kvanbeck at kvanbeck@stolaf.edu or 507-786-8254.

For additional housing and registration information,
contact Conferences and Events at 1-800-726-6523 or summer@stolaf.edu.

 

 

2010 Registration

Registration forms for 2010 will be available in early January.

Program Fees Singers:

$225, non-residential, lunch Monday through Friday

$325, includes housing Mon. through Thursday, and meals Monday lunch through Friday breakfast

Chaperones:

$235, includes lodging, meals Monday lunch through Friday breakfast, and T-shirt

$435, includes lodging, meals Monday lunch through Friday breakfast, T-shirt and CWTA full-conference registration

Health Form to complete

Mary Albing

Tuesday and Wednesday

Mary Albing taught homiletics for two years at Luther Seminary. She has published a number of parish education materials for the ELCA and the book Called Into Ministry. She is a pastor of the ELCA, ordained for word and sacrament ministry in 1988. She has served parishes in eastern North Dakota and Minneapolis, and as a chaplain and Clinical Pastoral Education Supervisory candidate at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis. Mary currently serves Lutheran Church of Christ the Redeemer in southwest Minneapolis, a congregation devoted to worship and social justice. Visit her church web site at lccronpenn.org.

Randy Engle

Thursday and Friday

Randall Engle is the Pastor of the North Hills Christian Reformed Church of Troy, Michigan. After graduating from Calvin College and Seminary, he was the first-ever ordained minister of Music in the Christian Reformed Church, a position he held at the Calvary Christian Reformed Church of Bloomington, MN. After moving to Michigan he received a Ph.D. from Oxford where he researched the organ controversy in the Netherlands during the Reformation. His current project is a book entitled Sound Theology, an examination of protestant conceptions of sound, and how sound (instrumental, choral, spoken) could best be used, or not used, in worship. Engle is President-elect of the Choristers Guild. Visit his church web site at northhillscrc.org.