Only nine universities in the United States were selected to perform at the 2019 National Collegiate Choral Organization (NCCO) Conference Nov. 7-9 in College Park, Md.
Arkansas Tech University is one of those nine.
It will be the first time that an ATU choir has performed at the NCCO Conference. The only other choir from the Natural State ever selected for the honor was the University of Arkansas in 2017.
“I want these students to know they are part of something really special,” said Dr. Christopher Harris, director of choirs and assistant professor of music at ATU. “Often times we get caught up in the daily struggle of whatever it is we are engaged in. It’s easy to not fully understand what you have access to and the experiences you are having. I want these students to have a clear picture of the experience they are providing to the listener when they sing, the value and beauty of music and why they are pursuing degrees in this discipline.
“There’s a moment in time when you have listeners completely captured and you have the opportunity to speak directly to their soul and spirit,” continued Harris. “I want the students to be painfully aware of that. There is enough bad stuff happening in the world. We talk about terror, shootings and illnesses all the time. We’re not over here studying to be medical doctors, but what we are doing is allowing people to forget about all those things when they are immersed in the beauty of what our music offers.”
NCCO Conference participants are selected through a blind, peer-reviewed adjudication process. Recordings from multiple years are submitted for review.
Even before he was offered his current position at ATU in 2017, Harris knew the choir students at Arkansas Tech could perform at a national conference level.
“It began when I interviewed and auditioned here,” said Harris. “I heard a lot of great things about Arkansas Tech and the singers here, but I also heard things like ‘this is a small school’ or ‘we have a certain kind of singer.’ Once I got here, 30 or 40 seconds into conducting the choir and teaching a piece as part of my audition, I was immediately struck by the potential that I saw and heard. I wanted to take these students to the highest heights, give them experiences they’ve never had and ensure their time at Tech is the greatest it can possibly be. I knew these students were capable of great things.”
Harris credits his predecessor, Gary Morris, with putting the current choirs in position to succeed. Morris directed choral music at Arkansas Tech from 2002-17.
“It’s a standing on the shoulders of giants thing,” said Harris. “What are we doing well? How can we expand our success? I wanted to expand the repertoire and genres that we sing. I have pushed our students, sometimes, past their area of comfort. It’s about growing their limits and their abilities. It’s only when we explore new territories and ideas that we really, truly grow.”
For the ATU choirs, those new territories included singing in six languages — English, French, German, Italian, Russian and Spanish — during Harris’ first year at ATU. Pop, R&B, contemporary music and the classics have all been part of programs offered by the ATU choirs.
At the NCCO Conference, the ATU Choral Artists will perform works by Ēriks Ešenvalds, a Latvian whom Harris described as one of the most prolific living choral composers in the world.
“He’s such a profound and deeply emotional composer,” said Harris. “I chatted with the students and asked what songs they enjoyed and which composer they wanted to pursue more, and many of them said Ēriks Ešenvalds. I wanted to give them the opportunity to have an intensive experience with music they love.”
The national conference is one performance in what stands to be a landmark academic year for choral music at Arkansas Tech. The ATU Choral Artists have also been invited to perform at the 2020 Arkansas All-State Music Conference in Hot Springs, and choral students from ATU will join instrumental musicians from Arkansas Tech for a concert at the world-famous Carnegie Hall in New York City on May 22, 2020.
Visit www.atu.edu/music to learn more about the ATU Department of Music.
