Thursday, Feb. 13, 2025
Two Choirs
This year we are excited to offer two different choirs for students to participate in!
We will be splitting them by voice classification instead of gender. All are welcome in either choir.
High Voices
- Soprano 1
- Soprano 2
- Alto 1
- Alto 2
Low Voices
- Tenor 1
- Tenor 2
- Bass 1
- Bass 2
Registration
Use the same registration for all students no matter what choir they will be sorted into. If you are bringing more than 25 students, please submit more than one registration.
Festival Representatives
TTBB
- Stars I Shall Find – Victor C. Johnson
- Sorida – Rosephanye Powell arr. William Powell
- Cantate Domino – Alec Schumacker
SSA
- Where the Light Begins - Susan LaBarr
- Be the Light – Franklin Willis
- Crowded Table – arr. Andrea Ramsey
Schedule TBD
Highlights for the 2025 Festival will include:
- Workshops and masterclasses with the faculty of the School of Performing Arts.
- Scholarship auditions opportunities for high school seniors.
- A side-by-side rehearsal and performance with the members the SDSU Vocal Department.
- The chance to make music with talented students musicians from a multi-state radius.
Lynne Gackle to serve as director for SDSU’s Festival of Song
High Voices Chorus
Lynne Gackle is a Professor Emeritus of Baylor University. Prior to her retirement she held the Mary Gibbs Jones Professor of Music Chair and served as Baylor’s director of choral activities. Gackle holds degrees from LSU (B.M.E.) and the University of Miami (M.M./Ph.D). Recognized for her research on the female adolescent voice, Lynne is the author of Finding Ophelia’s Voice, Opening Ophelia’s Heart and is a contributing author for other books. She was awarded Baylor’s Outstanding Faculty Award in Research (2012) and the highly coveted Texas Choir Masters Award (2021).
She actively serves as a choral clinician and conductor, nationally and internationally. She has conducted All-State, festival choirs and clinics in more than 30 states, several regional ACDA honor choirs and two ACDA national honor choirs. Her choirs have performed at American Choral Directors Association state, regional and national conferences as well as at the Music Educators National Conference Biennial Convention (currently known as NAFME). For the past 20 years, she has served as guest conductor for various National Honor Choirs at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
William Powell to serve as conductor of SDSU’s Festival of Song
Low Voices Chorus
William C. Powell is a professor of music and the director of choral activities at Auburn University (Alabama). His duties include conducting the Chamber Choir, Men's Chorus, Concert Choir and Gospel Choir, and teaching choral-related courses.
Powell has guest conducted throughout the United States and abroad, including Australia, Italy and Eastern Europe. He serves as a regular adjudicator for various choral festivals such as Festival Disney. He also gives presentations for the National Association for Music Education, American Choral Directors Association, Intercollegiate Men's Choruses, College Music Society, Hawaii International Conference on Arts and Humanities and the National Society of Music in Technology.
His choral arrangements are published by Hal Leonard Corporation, Gentry Publications and Oxford University Press through which he and his wife, Rosephanye Powell, co-edited a collection titled "Spirituals for Upper Voices." He also has a choral series published by Gentry Publications.
An active member of the American Choral Directors Association, Powell has served as the repertoire and standards chair of the Committee on Ethnic and Multicultural Perspectives for the both the southwestern and southern divisions. He also holds memberships with the National Association for Music Education and the American Society of Composers and Publishers.