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Advocacy Initiatives

The NATS Advocacy Committee is continuing with our charge to promote diversity in repertoire. We now wish to broaden our efforts to advocate for diversity and inclusion in all areas of our organization. We will continue to have repertoire initiatives that highlight diverse repertoire. We will continue to spotlight diversity through the achievements of our members. We will continue to provide resources to help in your search for more diverse repertoire to program and assign to students. We hope you will take advantage of these resources and share with us in advocating for diversity, inclusivity, and equity.

2023-2025: Music by Latin American Composers and Composers from the Iberian Peninsula

The NATS Advocacy Committee announces our next two-year advocacy repertoire initiative. We have chosen to spotlight Music by Latin American Composers and Composers from the Iberian Peninsula because of the strong Latin American roots in the United States and our continent. We encourage NATS teachers and their students to program music by Latin American composers and composers from the Iberian Peninsula including Zarzuela and other song in Spanish or Portuguese.

Check out these resources:

Journal of Singing

Music Publications

Previous Initiatives

2021-2023: Music by African American Composers

The NATS Advocacy Committee is excited to announce our next two-year advocacy repertoire initiative. We have chosen to advance Music by African American Composers for 2021-2023. We want to encourage the membership to join us in programming music by African American Composers during the competition and recital seasons through the summer of 2023. Check out the resources on this page, including The African American Art Song Alliance.

Additional sources on this topic or overlap with this topics already posted:

RESOURCES AND LINKS

  • Composer Diversity Database
    A free online resource created to allow conductors, performers, presenters, educators, and researchers a tool with which to expand and broaden their scope of composers and repertoire. This easy-to-use site displays every composer in the database and features an efficient set of search filters. SEARCH THE DATABASE

NATS Celebrates Composers

The Lost Romantic Songs of Louise Reichardt, by Amy Pfrimmer

Advancing the music of women composers

The NATS Advocacy Committee, with the support of the NSA Committee and NATS leadership, is supporting an endeavor to promote diversity in repertoire selection by choosing a different theme biennially. Our first initiative will be music by women composers. We want to encourage the membership to program music by women during the competition and recital seasons. READ MORE

We invite you to join us and invite you to send resources you may have to Advocacy Committee Chairperson, Loraine Sims at .

Spotlight on Diversity

Adolphus Cunningham Hailstork, PhD

headshots/Adolphus_Hailstork.jpgAdolphus Cunningham Hailstork, PhD born in 1941, is one of the most prolific composers of our generation.  He has composed works for symphony, solo keyboard (piano and organ), chamber ensemble, choral ensemble, opera, solo instrumental, and solo vocal.  Each work reveals his refreshing originality and unique musical voice. He received his doctorate from Michigan State University and has studied under the likes of Nadia Boulanger, H. Owen Reed, Vittorio Giannini, David Diamond, and Mark Fax.  Hailstork’s compositions are sought after by leading conductors and orchestras in the United States while new works continue to be commissioned by organizations including Trilogy Opera Company, the Cincinnati Opera Company, the Houston Choral Society, Orlando Symphony, the Atlanta Festival, Myrelinques Festival of France, and the Grand Rapids Symphony. Contributions to American operatic repertoire include Joshua’s Boots, Paul Laurence Dunbar: Common Ground, and Rise for Freedom: The John P. Parker Story.  Hailstork was inducted into Norfolk, Virginia’s Legends of Music Walk of Fame in 2017. He resides in Virginia Beach, Virginia and is a Professor of Music and Eminent Scholar at Old Dominion University in Norfolk.
      In addition to opera, his vocal output consists of approximately 80 songs.   Although most of his output (approximately 54 songs) were written for soprano, he has also written and continues to compose songs for mezzo-soprano, countertenor, tenor, baritone and bass.   The entirety of his song output written from 1959 to the present day explore themes such as love and relationships, provide beautiful religious stories or prayers, and examine narratives that document African American culture including musical responses to social justice.   While many of the songs are written for voice and piano accompaniment, Hailstork also presents a variety of musical collaborations, i.e. voice with other instruments.  Within the corpus of his songs are six songs for voice and harp; a set for voice, string quartet and clarinet; another set for voice with strings and timpani, some songs for voice, clarinet, and piano; songs for voice with string bass and a song for voice and viola.  Although his spirituals are absent from the solo works, spirituality, the musical form of call and response, and occasionally the contour of a spiritual is present in some of the works set to religious texts.  The songs of Adolphus Hailstork have been heretofore underexplored.   I hope many more will sample the potpourri of musical experiences his vocal repertoire offers.

-Louise Toppin, DMA
 Professor of Music (Voice)
 The University of Michigan

Find Hailstork’s music at Classical Vocal Reprints

Previous Spotlights on Diversity 

Willis Patterson 

Willis Patterson became a pioneer in the world of opera when in 1963 he integrated the NBC-TV production of headshots/Willis_Patterson.jpgMenotti’s opera Amahl and the Night Visitors. This was the first time American audiences had seen a Black man cast in the role of King Balthazar in this holiday favorite and it marked an important milestone in television history. READ MORE

Patricia Caicedo 

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Recognized as The Voice of the Latin American and Iberian Art Song and often described as its ambassador, Colombian-Spanish soprano and musicologist Patricia Caicedo has sung in the United States, Canada, Denmark, Holland, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Russia, Germany, Puerto Rico, and Latin-America. READ MORE

 

 

 

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Randye Jones

So You Want to Sing Spirituals: A Guide for Performers

The NATS Advocacy Committee would like to encourage you to celebrate Black History Month. In the United States, Black History Month runs through the month of February. READ MORE For more resources also see www.artsongalliance.org.

 

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Anna Hersey

Scandinavian Song: A Guide to Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish Repertoire and Diction

"Scandinavian art songs are a unique expression of the cultures of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. Although these three countries are distinct from one another, their languages and cultures share many similarities." READ MORE

 

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Kathleen Roland-Silverstein

Romanser: 25 Swedish Art Songs with Guide to Swedish Lyric Diction

"My experience with the beautiful romanser repertoire of Sweden has been a wonderful resource for me as a performer and scholar, and for my students who look to add varied and unusual repertoire to their performances." READ MORE

 

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Mutsumi Moteki and Kumiko Shimizu

Japanese Art Song Anthology, Volumes 1 and 2 for High and Medium/Low Voice
Edited by Kumiko Shimizu and Mutsumi Moteki, Classical Vocal Reprint. READ MORE

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RESOURCES AND LINKS

The Charge to the Committee

from NATS Past President Karen Brunssen

The Advocacy Committee shall work in the best interests of NATS for means and information about:

  1. Advocacy that encourages music/singing in education.
  2. Advocacy that encourages diversity in our NATS activities and in the larger musical/singing community.
  3. Advocacy that encourages support of the arts, including music/singing, by government, businesses, and communities.
  4. Advocacy that encourages inclusion in our NATS activities and in the larger musical/singing community.

Possible initiatives befitting NATS may include:

  1. Resources, information and studies about arts/music advocacy
  2. Identify successful initiatives
  3. Connectivity and collaboration with other arts organizations
  4. Education about different aspects of advocacy
  5. Benefits of Singing

Committee Members    

  • Gregory Brookes, Co-Chair  
  • Albert K. Lee, Co-Chair
  • Diana Allan, President
  • Carole Blankenship, Past President
  • Nick Perna, Vice President for Outreach
  • Katherine Jolly                         
  • Isai Jess Muñoz
  • Marcía Porter
  • Darryl Taylor
  • Jill Terhaar-Lewis
  • Matthew Valverde

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