Concordia College Choral Festival Featuring Dr. Andrea Ramsey

Oct. 4-5, 2024

Join us on campus with your singers in grades 10-12 (ninth graders are welcome if you have a 9-12 choir) for our annual choral festival. We are especially excited to welcome Dr. Andrea Ramsey to campus to work with your choirs.

There is no cost for students to attend this festival unless they choose to eat lunch on campus. The cost for lunch is $15 per student. We are excited to have you bring as many students as you would like in as balanced of SATB numbers as is possible for you. Register early to reserve your spaces for this year’s festival!

Friday, Oct. 4, will consist of a Song Share event that is open to all interested schools. Our guest choirs will all perform a couple of selections that night and offer a short workshop that will be interactive with the entire audience. The Concordia Choir will also sing at that evening’s Song Share event, and the night ends with snacks and refreshments for all attending.

Saturday, Oct. 5, will be a full day of rehearsals and performances beginning with registration at 9 a.m. and ending by 5:45 p.m. There will be three massed choir selections that will be carefully selected so that they may be great candidates for fall programming at your high school. The day will feature great musical performances, exciting rehearsals, and a grand finale concert event that will be out of this world!

Register Now

Repertoire

You should plan to purchase music for your students. The selections should be well prepared prior to the festival.

The Gift to Sing (SATB) — Andrea Ramsey | MusicSpoke
Common Threads (SATB) — Andrea Ramsey | MusicSpoke
Oh, My Luve's Like a Red, Red Rose (SATB) — René Clausen | JW Pepper

Note: We invite you to use the music retailer of your choice to purchase the scores for our festival. For your convenience, we include links to the exact scores/editions from popular music retail websites. Please understand that illegal photocopies are not allowed to be used at this festival. Order your scores early to ensure delivery and preparation time is maximized.

Frequently Asked Questions

The registration is $15 per student if they are eating lunch on campus, otherwise there is no registration fee. But, as you work on budgets and students ask how much money they should bring, there are a few "travel expenses" you should consider. As choir director, you will be responsible for your personal Friday night housing expense (if needed), as well as breakfast on Saturday. As far as student expenses, if you are traveling ahead of time, factor in Friday evening dinner expense on the road. The other meal on the road may be Saturday evening after dismissal. And lastly, your transportation expenses. 

You should plan to purchase music for your students. The selections should be well-prepared prior to the festival.

Note: We invite you to use the music retailer of your choice to purchase the scores for our festival. For your convenience, we include links to the exact scores/editions from popular music retail websites. Please understand that photocopies are not allowed to be used at this festival. Order your scores early to ensure delivery and preparation time is maximized.

The Friday Song share registration time will be decided soon. Registration will be Saturday morning from 9-9:30 a.m.

Driving Directions

Bring your music and a pencil, as both will be used throughout the day. Please have your singers label their music with their name and school in case it is lost or left behind.

Please have your students dress as though they were going to their grandmother's birthday party. In other words, look sharp.

The concert will be at 4:30 p.m. on the campus of Concordia College. There will likely be seating available for guests (pending total festival numbers). We are pleased that our campus can be "home" to the choral festival.

Dr. Andrea Ramsey

Dr. Andrea Ramsey enjoys an international presence as a composer, conductor, scholar, and music educator. Her teaching experiences range from work with adolescent and children’s voices to high school and collegiate voices. She enjoys regular opportunities to conduct all-state and divisional-level honor choirs, festival events at Carnegie Hall, and served as a principal conductor for the Pacific International Young Women’s Choral Festival in Eugene, Oregon, and conducted the National ACDA Junior High/Middle School Honor Choir in 2023. Before leaping into full-time composing and guest conducting, Ramsey held positions in music education and conducting at The Ohio State University and the University of Colorado, respectively.

An ASCAP Plus award-winning composer, Ramsey believes strongly in the creation of new works. Her compositions are available with traditional publishers and also through MusicSpoke, a digital sheet music marketplace. She enjoys residency collaborations with ensembles and festival choirs, some of which have included the University of Oregon, the Allegro Choirs of Kansas City, and the Crescent City Choral Festival in New Orleans.

As a scholar, she has presented for state, divisional, and national conventions of the American Choral Directors Association, the 6th Annual Symposium on Sociology in Music Education, as well as The Phenomenon Singing Symposium in St. Johns, Newfoundland, Canada. She has co-authored articles published in the Choral Journal, as well as the Journal of Research in Music Education. A native of Arkansas, Ramsey has experienced in her own life the power of music to provide a sense of community, a better understanding of our humanity, and rich opportunities for self-discovery.