Browse details of our Convention sessions below. Our timetable is a mixture of plenary sessions and breakout sessions, from which you will have choice of three, and exhibition and networking time. Details are subject to change.
Convention starts at 10.30am on Saturday, with three strands of sessions running through to 6pm. Registration, coffee and the exhibition start at 9.30am.
Saturday sessions
Choose from sessions including:
- Repertoire discovery sessions. With a diverse range of new repertoire from our member publishers and composers, these brilliant sessions introduce you to new music for all kinds of voice combinations. This year’s topics include SATB sacred, SATB secular, and children’s voices, with sessions led by Nicholas Cleobury, Mark Jordan and Suzzie Vango. Two further sessions will include new repertoire: Singing pop with your choir, and Taking flight. All our submitted repertoire is uploaded to our Convention site so that you can peruse it at your leisure.
- Brave New World? From our phone recognising our face to Siri and Alexa, AI has rapidly become part of all our daily lives. But what place, if any, does it have in the creative industries? What is the impact on our creators and performers? The ISM’s groundbreaking report, Brave New World?, was written in collaboration with industry leaders and paints a worrying picture, detailing major income losses for photographers, illustrators, and musicians. It calls on government to put fairness at the heart of their approach to generative AI. How does all this affect choir leaders and how can we help ensure creators are fairly treated? Our expert panel is led by the ISM’s Senior AI Policy Advisor Ed Phelan.
- Journeys in voice with James Rose. Come and sing together a selection of James’ vocal explorations, written to bring singers of all kinds into new experiences and harmonic landscapes. These warm ups have taken the Internet by storm, offering a joyful approach to musicmaking, whilst deepening and strengthening key elements of ear training. As a non-binary human, part of James’ journey here will be sharing and exploring different, fluid and more neutral understandings of voice parts to create a sense of freedom and inclusivity for singers of all different kinds.
- Taking flight, with Sarah Tenant-Flowers and Suzzie Vango. Led by the directors of the renowned female a cappella vocal quintet Papagena, this session delves into some of the opportunities and issues for adult female voice groups. Topics such as sourcing and developing repertoire and challenging assumptions around vocal ranges and colours will be discussed, together with a chance to sing and hear new works for women’s voices.
- Pedagogy into part singing, with Jenny Trattles. This practical session provides a clear, step-by-step approach to developing confident part-singing using accessible, diverse repertoire. Suitable for teachers and community choir leaders, participants will explore how to scaffold vocal skills from unison singing to independent lines. Delivered by ABRSM Voices Consultant Jenny Trattles, this session is packed with practical activities, innovative strategies you can take away and use in your next rehearsal. By the end of this session, you will be able to
- Apply progressive vocal techniques for developing part-singing.
- Choose and teach songs that support confidence and musical independence.
- Use layering, call-and-response, and simple harmonisation effectively.
- Support singers of differing abilities within the same activity.
- Working with young singers: conducting masterclass. We’re delighted to partner with Dr Rebecca Berkley and her choir, Universal Voices, to offer a masterclass session for conductors working with young singers, led by Dr Rebecca Berkley and Suzzie Vango. Universal Voices is a community choir for children in Reading aged 7 – 11 and you can find out more about them on Instagram: universalvoices.readinguni. Up to 3 conductors will direct Universal Voices, teaching the children a song and developing it into a mini performance; observers are also very welcome. Conductors will receive practical feedback about how to teach the song efficiently; using singer-friendly conducting gesture to get the best out of your choirs for enhanced technique, clarity, relevance and communication. If you would like to take part as one of the three volunteer conductors, please contact Elisabeth Brierley (elisabeth.brierley@abcd.org.uk) by 4th September, providing a brief summary of your conducting and music education experience to date and any issues with which you would like particular help. Selected conductors will be asked to choose two pieces to work on from a shortlist, which will be provided at least three weeks in advance.
- Working with young singers: how to inspire, energise and develop your children’s choir. In this session, Susan Hollingworth (Vice-President of the Scunthorpe Co-operative Junior Choir) and Dr Rebecca Berkley (Associate Professor in Music Education & Director of Universal Voices, Reading University’s children’s choir) will share their ideas for best practice when working with young singers. This session will explore teaching strategies, repertoire selection, how to plan and pace your rehearsals, managing vocal health including ideas for warm-ups and cool downs; as well as the opportunity for Q&A. We’re also delighted that Universal Voices will be attending the session as our guest children’s choir; this is a unique opportunity to see Rebecca and Sue working with young singers in person.
- Commissioning new works for today’s choirs – and performing them. Have you and your committee ever thought about commissioning a new work for your choir but not been sure where to start? Our Saturday afternoon panel session addresses what to consider to ensure a successful experience for you, your choir – and the composer. We’ll also explore practical ways for choirs to perform new works, for example with reduced instrumentation. Brian Kay leads our panel of composers and conductors.
- Plus: internationally established singer and choir director Emily Dickens leads a session on the voice through life, Matt Roughley, Director of the Hallé and Liverpool Philharmonic Youth Choirs and conductor of the National Youth Choir (9 – 15), gives inspiration and new ideas for teachers.
- Watch this space for details of more sessions soon!
Saturday evening
Join our birthday sing!
We’re delighted that Sir John Rutter, our President and one of our founders, is joining our celebrations. Join him for a post-dinner sing, interspersed with anecdotes from a lifetime of music-making and memories of abcd, and some birthday cake! There will be a mixture of choral favourites old and new, including some of John’s own music, and a few surprises. Don’t miss it! Dinner is bookable separately, but the evening sing is included in Saturday and weekend delegate rates.
Sunday sessions
Convention sessions start at 9.30am on Sunday, with three strands of sessions running through to lunch at 1.15pm. The exhibition is open from 9am.
Choose from:
- From average to excellent, with Amy Bebbington. Amy will work with a scratch delegate choir to share a variety of approaches to polish and refine your amateur choir’s sound, accuracy and ensemble ready for memorable performances. Come along to sing and/or observe. Music will be available.
- Using Dorico for choral composing, arranging, and publishing. Join Steinberg’s Daniel Spreadbury for an introduction to the music notation and composition software, Dorico, and how it can be used to produce beautiful and functional choral scores more quickly than other tools. Whether you are new to Dorico, or have been producing choral music in scoring software for years, you’ll get useful hints and tips, and have a chance to ask questions directly to the software’s developers.
- Getting to the heart of the music, with Peter Broadbent. Peter looks at the art of leading a good rehearsal, one of the fundamental aspects of leading a choir, and yet often a neglected one. This session will cover structure and tempo of rehearsing, practicalities such as singer commitment and rehearsal space, getting to know the music, and ultimately enabling singers to sing as much as possible and enjoy the rehearsal. Peter was part of the team that instigated the abcd conducting courses and was our first Director of Training.
- Plus: nationally renowned conductor and vocal arranger, and founder of the Manchester Vocal Ensemble Matt Roughley demystifies performing pop arrangements with your choir.
- Watch this space for details of more sessions soon!
