Greetings to ACDA-PA Members!

 

This month, I would like to share with you something from Tim Sharp, Executive Director of ACDA.  This was a blog posted on ChoralNet, and I think as we all head back to the podium, this is essential reading!

 

I would encourage each of you to go to ChoralNet, select “Communities” at the top, and join the Pennsylvania-ACDA Community.  There are terrific articles of interest posted every day.  You can join as many communities as you wish, and you can subscribe to receive information daily via email, if you so choose! 

 

ACDA and ChoralNet joined forces in July, and the more time on spend on this site, the more I realize what a valuable “marriage” this is for choral directors everywhere!

 

All the best to you as you prepare your concert seasons!  If you haven’t already done so, please remember to vote for the ACDA-PA President Elect Designate!  You can vote on the ACDA-PA website.  Our two outstanding candidates, Jason Bishop and Peter DeMets, have posted Biographies and Vision Statements in order for you to make an informed choice!  The polls will close on September 1, so take a moment now to make your voice heard!

 

ACDA – It’s the membership, not the leadership!

 

Robert Drafall,

President – ACDA of Pennsylvania

 

Truths* about Choral Leadership

Date:August 17, 2010

by Tim Sharp

 

Truth #1 As Conductor, You Make the Difference. Before you lead you have to believe you can have a positive impact on others. When you believe you can make a difference, you position yourself to hear the call to lead. 

Truth #2 Integrity is the Podium on which you Stand. If people don’t believe in you, they won’t willingly follow you. You must do what you say you are going to do. This means being so clear about your beliefs that you can live them every day. 

Truth #3 It is the Why that Motivates the Work. You need to know why you do what you do, because you can only fully commit to the organization or cause when there is a good fit between what you value and what the organization values. This is true too, for the people you lead. 

Truth #4 Your Focus on the End Goal is what makes you a Leader. You have to be forward looking. Just look at your choir--they are looking at the present--YOU are looking at the future. This is the quality that most differentiates leaders from individual contributors. You need to spend time reflecting on the future. It is the vision that resonates with others, inspiring and energizing.

Truth #5 You are Not doing this Alone. Leadership is a team sport, and you need to engage others in the cause. You need to enable others to be even better than they already are. Make that the goal of every rehearsal, and make better mean something better than only correct pitches and rhythms.

Truth #6 The Glue for your work is Trust. To enlist others, you need trust. Build mutual trust; you must trust others too. 

Truth #7 Problems Define you as a Leader. Great achievements don’t happen when you keep things the same. Change invariably involves challenge, and challenge tests you. It introduces you to yourself. It brings you face-to-face with your level of commitment, your grittiness, and your values. It reveals your mindset about change. 

Truth #8 There is a Reason that you as conductor are the one standing in front, and easy to identify by the audience. You have to go first as a leader. That’s what it takes to get others to follow your lead. 

Truth #9 The Maestro is also the Allievo. Learning is the master skill of leadership. Leaders are constant improvement fanatics. The teacher (maestro) is also the never-ending student (allievo).

Truth #10 Conducting is your passion. Leaders love what they’re doing and those they lead. Leaders make others feel great about themselves and are gracious in showing their appreciation to others.

 

*Adapted from the research of Kouzes and Posner as outlined in their book The Truth About Leaderhip.

 

 

My idea for this week's blog was to talk about my first rehearsal of the concert cycle and, while it is what I'm going to do, it will be in a different direction from the way it would have been.

 

This concert cycle seemed to fall in place at the last moment---I accepted into my ensemble a wonderful tenor last week and was confident with the rest of my singers for a change.  The day of the rehearsal was bright and summer-y and it seems everything was going my way.  About ten minutes before rehearsal began, I received a call from one of my basses.  He told me he had to work overtime and wouldn't be able to make it that day but........that was not why he was calling.  He told me my other bass had left him a message---he had had a heart attack.  The good news is....W  actually left him a message, so that means he wasn't in the CICU. The bad news is, he had a heart attack.

 

My first thought was....what will I do with only one bass?  Then I snapped out of it....this person/singer I admire and count on is ill.....what I can do to make it better for him?

 

We work with people and we have to think about them as people, not only as parts of our whole, but people, first and last.  I will do what I can to help him....he can either sing with us for this concert cycle or next, when he feels better but.....I will listen to him.  I will try to think about him and not just my choir.  In the last day or so, several of my singers have contacted me to find out how he's doing, so I will call his wife to check up on him later today.

 

In my rush to have everything qued up for our concert cycles, at times I forget about the people part of our work.  W's heart attack was a wake-up call for me as well as W.... I will try to do better and be a person working with people.  I now know what is  important.

 

As of yesterday, this feature is now activated.  Any message you send to someone else on ChoralNet will also be sent to you so that you can keep a copy for your records.  Another feature that moves ChoralNet into a more professional mode of communication.

If you are a registered user of ChoralNet you already have a personal user page.  Clicking this new tab takes you to your personal page.  You should set up your page as your professional choral identity.  You can add photos, links, and other formatting to personalize yourself to the choral world.  Mine has hyperlinks to important non-ChoralNet websites and also lists the ChoralNet communities which I have joined.

But the new  My ChoralNet   tab has additional areas that allow you to better personalize and control your ChoralNet experience.

Read My Subscriptions channels onto a single page everything on ChoralNet about which you have indicated interest. If you want to better manage how you receive your ChoralNet information, this is where you do it.  Make this page your browser homepage and it becomes your professional choral mailbox!

Subscription Email Options gives you the ability to finetune the ways in which you receive ChoralNet information. Many of the "old-timers" will remember the early days of Choralist when everyone suddenly gained access to the Internet and began posting anything and everything to ChoralNet.  Suddenly our mailboxes were bursting with Choralist messages! This feature allows you to tell ChoralNet what subscriptions you wish to receive as individual email messages and which you might prefer as an index or digest. For instance, I might want to receive my SD-ACDA community messages as individual emails because I'll get them in my email inbox as soon as they are posted to the community forum. But there may be less need for immediacy for one of the other ChoralNet communties or forums to which I have subscribed.  I can set those to index or digest.  The Subscriptions Email Options page is accompanied by a great set of help instructions for those confused over the many possibilities.

There is an item on my screen labeled South Dakota. When I registered with ChoralNet I indicated that I lived in South Dakota. So, all items on ChoralNet that are pertinent to South Dakota are listed on that page with hyperlinks that allow me to quickly jump to them.  Another way that ChoralNet is quickly becoming uniquely personalized to every individual user.

Want to change your password without trying to find out how?  Now you have a tab labelled Change Password which will allow you to quickly and easily change your password for ChoralNet.

I would be remiss if I were to not acknowledge the work of webmaster Allen Simon and systems manager Martin Knowles. They are very good at taking our suggestions and making them work.

 

ChoralNet exists because choral musicians wanted to be able to do something and created a mechanism for doing so. It has always been a "bottom-up" process. Try these new features. Tell us what you find useful and what you do not. ChoralNet will be what you make it.