The Notre Dame Children's Choir Community Festival is an annual opportunity for local choirs from churches, schools, community ensembles, as well as individual child choristers to join together in a large ecumenical choral setting to sing sacred music. Choristers spend all day Saturday, May 31 together learning music and getting to know singers from across our community. The festival culminates with a performance at 5pm that showcases their accomplishments and invites families and community members to join us in song.
Guest Conductors:
Ruth Dwyer, Associate Director of the Indianapolis Children's Choir
Katherine Strand, Associate Professor of Music Education at Indiana University
Choirs:
Nuner Primary Center Choir - Cindy Berryman
Monroe Primary Center Choir - AnneMarie Dawson
Dickinson Fine Art Academy Choirs - Candace Archer
Treble Clef Singers - Susan May
Notre Dame Children's Choir - Mark Doerries, Anna Cooper, Andrew Jennings
Ruth Dwyer - NDCC Community Festival Chamber Choir Director
Ruth E. Dwyer is a frequent guest conductor and clinician for festivals, conferences, colleges and universities across the United States and abroad. She is internationally recognized as a treble choir specialist and Kodály educator. She has conducted numerous MENC, OAKE and ACDA All-State and Honor Choirs throughout the USA. Mrs. Dwyer has also directed the Field Studies International National Children’s Choir held in Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, New York City.
Mrs. Dwyer is the director of education and associate director of the Indianapolis Children’s Choir (ICC). Her work with the children’s choir has allowed her to tour and conduct in a wide variety of venues. Choirs under her direction have performed for the Indiana Music Educators Association, the National Orff-Schülwerk Conference, the Pacific Rim International Children’s Choir Festival, and in Carnegie Hall, Canada, Alaska, Hawaii and across Central Europe. As the ICC director of education she is highly involved in curriculum development, program development, and assisting and mentoring the teaching staff.
Mrs. Dwyer is also the artistic director of the Columbus Indiana Children’s Choir, a cooperative effort of the Columbus Indiana Philharmonic and
the Indianapolis Children’s Choir. This program helps meet the choral arts needs of seven counties in South-Central Indiana. She occasionally teaches music methods for Butler University and is a published composer, choral arranger and editor. She is also a consultant for Hal Leonard’s choral textbook series. Presently, her choral works are available through Colla Voce and Hal Leonard.
Prior to her fulltime position with ICC, Mrs. Dwyer served the State of Indiana for 19 years as a public school music educator. In 1996, Mrs. Dwyer was named the Outstanding Elementary Music Educator of The Year by the Indiana Music Educators Association. Her work in the education field involves multi-cultural activities, educational needs of inner city youth, and a particular awareness of special needs students. Her teaching experiences have included K-12 choral/general music, collegiate studies, handbell and church choirs.
Ruth Dwyer earned both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Indiana University where she majored in music education, voice and secondary education. While attending Indiana University she also received her Kodály certification under the tutelage of Mary Goetze and Jean Sinor. She is currently a member of the Organization of American Kodály Educators (OAKE), AOSA, IMEA, MENC, and is a life member of the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA). Mrs. Dwyer has served as chair of the Children’s Choral Repertoire and Standards Committee for the Indiana Choral Directors Association (ICDA) and the Ethnic and Multicultural Concerns chair. She is a past member of the executive board for the Indiana Music Educators Association.
Dr. Katherine Strand - NDCC Community Festival Descant Choir Director
Dr. Katherine Strand teaches undergraduate and graduate general music methods courses, directs the International Vocal Ensemble, and is the advisor for the Indiana University Collegiate Chapter of the Music Educators National Conference. She is also the director of the Descant Choir for the Indiana University Children's Chorus. She has taught pre-kindergarten through twelfth-grade public school in several venues, including West Point and Hanover counties in Virginia and the Chicago Public Schools.
Strand specializes in classroom composition, action research, and integrated arts curriculum development. She has presented sessions at The Orff Schulwerk Association National Conference, the 5th Annual Music Education Research Conference, the Music Educator's National Conference, the College Music Society, NIME 1 and NIME 2 (Narrative Soundings: Conference on Narrative Research in Music Education), the Mountain Lake Colloquium, Eastern Division MENC, and the Indiana Music Educators Association conferences, and the 6th International Conference on Music Cognition and Perception.
Her articles have appeared in Music Education Research, Journal of Research in Music Education, Journal of Music Teacher Education, Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, Arts Education Policy Review, Philosophy of Music Education Review, General Music Today, Music Educators Journal, Indiana Musicator, and Teaching Music.
Notre Dame Children's Choir Community Festival
Saturday May 31, 2014
5:00pm at South Bend Christian Reformed Church
1855 N. Hickory Rd., South Bend, IN 46637
FREE and open to the Public