Student Chapter – St. Olaf

St. Olaf’s chapter of the American Choral Directors Association is the place to be! Well at least we, the executive team, think so. We’re excited to share our love of ACDA with you. Read on for a rundown of what the past few years have looked like, acquire a taste of our organization right now, and find out where ACDA is heading.

Our chapter works to provide intentional professional development opportunities to members. ACDA encourages budding music educators and choral nerds alike to take initiative in their education. This allows students to pursue unique interest areas and workshop skills in lower-stakes environments. We look forward to attending the MN-ACDA Fall Conference each year and have benefited immensely from the network and knowledge that the conference provides. Throughout the school year, we focus heavily on community building, providing meaningful opportunities for student choristers to connect through their shared experiences. Former St. Olaf ACDA President Emma Silvestri wrote, “My experience as an ACDA student leader allowed me to build skills that are essential to music education, such as communication, community building, support and advocacy, and professional development.”.

We have coached students through preparation for their on-campus choral auditions, hosted guest composers like Kyle Pederson, Andrea Ramsey, and Eriks Esenvalds and learned about their works, and bonded with each other and with other student chapters (every year, we have dinner with Concordia’s ACDA at fall conference!). As Dr. Armstrong says, “Let the football teams fight it out on the field. Let music connect these two colleges”. We also regularly host reading sessions on campus, which not only allows student conductors to gain valuable experience on the podium, but also exposes our members to choral works they might not know or works that have been historically marginalized. Through these events, we not only build a community of college students, but we also prepare our members by helping them create a strong network in the choral music world.

In addition to our regular events, St. Olaf ACDA members also work to enhance and support the vibrant choral community on this campus and in the area around us. In the spring of 2024, St. Olaf’s Manitou Singers hosted four high school treble choirs, See Change Treble Choir, and several guest artists to present a concert entitled “Lifting as We Climb, Forward Into Light” featuring Andrea Ramsey’s Suffrage Cantata. St. Olaf ACDA volunteers were instrumental in maintaining the logistics of the weekend by guiding our guest choirs around campus and preparing spaces for the choirs to use throughout the weekend. Our faculty advisor and Manitou Singers conductor, Dr. Therees Tkach Hibbard, expressed her gratitude for the group’s contributions to the weekend: “We truly could not have done this in such a professional and organized way without your dedication and support of our guest choirs, and all of us!!”

Like many choral groups, our chapter struggled throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to the pandemic, ACDA at St. Olaf did exist, but was loosely defined and primarily existed only to attend yearly ACDA conferences. Students were sent home in March of 2020 due to the pandemic, and the student leadership of ACDA graduated, leaving no one in charge. Thankfully, new student leaders stepped up and worked over the next year to revive and redefine what ACDA at St. Olaf could be, and what it could provide our students. Josie Lynn (St. Olaf class of 2023, former St. Olaf ACDA president) said of this time: “I think the time COVID hit benefitted the organization in the sense that we were forced to take a step back and reflect on what was missing in the vocal music ed world, the community that people needed, and how ACDA could fills those gaps as an organization.” As college campuses around the country began to come back to life after a year of pandemic learning, St. Olaf’s ACDA did too. We found a newfound appreciation for choral communities after that year of separation. Students joined together with greater energy around the opportunities that ACDA can provide. This created a strong runway for us to continue strengthening the organization.

This brings us to today, where life here at ACDA is pretty sweet. What started from three students starting the chapter up again after COVID has grown into over one hundred members, including forty new members gained this past month at the college’s Student Organization Fair.

This organization has connected choir nerds from far and wide, maintaining the strong St. Olaf choral tradition. We are reaching for the stars with our plans for the future and are so grateful for the support from our faculty advisors, Dr. Anton Armstrong and Dr. Therees Hibbard. Dr. Armstrong remarks that “The St. Olaf Student Chapter of ACDA has provided a marvelous entry point for students who enjoy choral singing and want to explore more of the choral world.  Whether you have future aspirations to be a vocal music educator, church musician, conductor, or an ensemble singer, the St. Olaf ACDA Student Chapter sponsors activities to delve deeper into the choral ecosystem.  These include on-campus sessions with choral professionals, attending choral concerts, to facilitating participation at state, regional, and national choral conferences. It has provided a meaningful way to network with others who share the love of choral music!” We are continuing to nurture a community of love, passion, and dedication for choral music and are excited for what the future holds.

One of our major goals for St. Olaf ACDA’s future is to provide each member the opportunity to attend and learn from ACDA’s regional and national conferences, namely the upcoming national conference in Dallas, Texas. Presently, we are exploring options to fundraise and support our members in this endeavor. We have appreciated the years of support from MN-ACDA and look forward to continuing this relationship as we look forward to bigger and brighter goals for St. Olaf ACDA. A special thank you to Emily Chmielewski (a former St. Olaf Chapter president!) and Star of the North for allowing us to share our experiences at the collegiate level of ACDA. Um! Yah! Yah!

Collaboratively written by St. Olaf ACDA

Rand Matheson ‘25 – President 

Charlotte Buchman ‘26 – Vice President

Zoe Vorbach ‘25 – Secretary

Heather Wallace ‘26 – Treasurer

Amelia Wise ‘27 – Social Media and Outreach Coordinator