Northern California Choir Director's Association Honor Choir

Dear Choral Colleague,

Welcome back to another school year.I hope you are all refreshed and ready to inspire another group of music students.

My name is Kyle Thompson (Elsie Allen High School) and I am co-chairing this year’s Nor-Cal Honor Choir with Dan Sedgwick (Del Norte High School). We are ready and excited to prepare another great choral experience for our students.

This year’s Nor-Cal Honor Choir will take place at California State University Chico on February 2-4, 2012. The guest director will be Chico’s own Dr. David Scholz.

NEW APPLICATION DEADLINE! Please observe the application postmark deadline of November 1st, 2012 (one month earlier than the instrumental side). There will be a maximum of 120 singers because of space limitations so acceptance will be limited to the earliest applicants who include proper payment and paperwork. The student fee includes copies of music for each student and a parts rehearsal CD (although we are now asking students to download music files from the internet for their parts). After applications are received and processed, packets will be mailed out directly to each school.

Directors are expected to send capable and enthusiastic quartets that are ready to work hard for the duration of each rehearsal. Students will be tested on sections of the music chosen by Dr. Scholz on Thursday afternoon (while the band students are auditioning). Any choral students who do not know their music will be sent to a room where someone will help them with their part. This process will require some extra help from each of you.  Everyone that is not helping with the band auditions will be expected to help with the choir testing on Thursday night.  In the last few years, the Honor Choirs have achieved a high level of success because directors have emphasized the importance of coming prepared.

BRING TWO QUARTETS!!! This year, we are inviting you to send up to two complete quartets to Nor-cal.If you are unable to send a complete quartet, we will assist you in contacting another director to fill your quartet with other singers. Please contact Dan Sedgwick before sending in your application and student fees so that he can make certain to fill in all incomplete quartets. With your help, we should be able to give our guest director a full compliment of balanced voices. A complete schedule of the weekend will be sent in the acceptance packets – PLEASE TAKE NOTE OF THE NEW REHEARSAL AND PERFORMANCE TIMES. 

We will be posting the application forms and information on our web site www.ncbda.net where you can download them at your convenience.If you need help retrieving the forms, please feel free to contact us for help. Please let us know if you have any other questions or concerns. We look forward to working with all of you.

Kyle Thompson – Elsie Allen High School, Santa Rosa

            Office:              (707) 528-5746

            Cell:                  (707) 291-5024

            e-mail:              kthompson@srcs.k12.ca.us or eahsmusic@hotmail.com

Dan Sedgwick – Del Norte High School, Crescent City

            Office:              (707) 464-0272

            Cell:                  (805) 453-5871

            e-mail:              dsedgwick@delnorte.k12.ca.us