Join us January 9-11, 2013, at Naples United Church of Christ in beautiful Naples, FL for the first annual National Conference for Sacred Music. The NCSM is a unique conference designed to provide the practicing Church Musician with fresh new ideas to help create a vital, growing music ministry. The emphasis of this conference is to provide a wide variety of new approaches to revitalize and reinvigorate the Church's passion for music in worship. Sessions will include the following:

• Choral technique classes with an emphasis on deepening the spiritual experience for the choir member
• Instrumental workshops for both traditional and contemporary worship music
• Reading sessions featuring new publications from Augsburg-Fortress, Hinshaw, and MorningStar Music Publishers
• Worship services led by three different denominational groups: The Association of Lutheran Church Musicians, The Presbyterian Association of Musicians, and the Fellowship of United Methodists in Music and Worship Arts
• Classes on growing the choir, attracting young adults into the music ministry, strategic planning, and educating the congregation about worship
• The latest ideas on how to use social media with your church and choirs
• Plus... much, much more

Featuring Aaron David Miller and Ann Howard Jones with Jean Ashworth Bartle, Vern Sanders, Marian Dolan, Sid Davis, Randy Edwards, Deb and Bob DeGaetano, and more.

Sponsored by Augsburg Fortress, Hinshaw Music, MorningStar Music, and ALCM, FUMMWA, and PAM A portion of your registration fee will go towards supporting your professional denominational music organization.

Registration: $150.00 Hotel costs, meals, transportation on your own.

The first 100 registrants will receive a $25.00 gift certificate to one of the exhibiting publishers' booths!

Lodging Information

There are many hotels in the area, but we have reserved a block of rooms at the following locations. Please call the hotel direct and reserve your room. The conference rate is good Monday through Saturday for those who may be planning a few days of vacation on either side of the event. Please reserve rooms early as it is "the season" in Florida and rooms go quickly.

Staybridge Suites Naples Gulf Coast; 4805 Tamiami Trail; Naples FL 34103 $189.99 This rate includes: full hot buffet breakfast at no extra cost as well as a complimentary light dinner on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights from 5:30-7:30 including free beer, wine and soft drinks. Less than 1 mile from Naples UCC.

Call: 239-643-8002 and ask to reserve a room under the NCSM group block.
Call: 239-200-0000 Taxi Time for best rates from the airport to the Staybridge Suites.
Deadline for reserving rooms is December 7th.

Hilton Naples; 5111 Tamiami Trail North, Naples FL 34103 $199.00 This rate includes complimentary fitness center, beach package which includes transportation to the beach, towels, chairs, bottled water and cooler; complimentary bicycles to explore Naples. Walking distance to Waterside shops, beach and Naples UCC.

Call: 1-800-HILTONS and reference the group code: NCSM.  Deadline for group rate is December 11.

Courtyard Marriott, Naples; 3250 Tamiami Trail North, Naples FL 34103 $139 (M-TH) $179 (F-S)
Less than a mile from Naples' pristine beaches and unique shopping. Approximately 2 miles to Naples UCC, you will need to provide your own transportation.

Call 239-434-8700 ask for the Augsburg Fortress National Conference Sacred Music (NSCM) block rate. Deadline for reserving rooms is December 14th

About Naples

Naples boasts 10 miles of beach on Florida's Paradise Coast. The city is home to several major land reserves, among them being Everglades National Park, Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge, and Ten Thousand Islands National Wildlife Refuge. Naples Zoo at Caribbean Gardens is a popular tourist attraction, dating back to 1919. The city also has top-notch community theater and golf.

Naples Tourism

Naples Zoo at Caribbean Gardens

Schedule of Activities

Clinician Descriptions:

Ann Howard Jones, Professor of Music and Director of Choral Activities at Boston University, conducts the Boston University Symphonic Chorus and Chamber Chorus, administers the Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees in choral conducting and teaches advanced choral conducting.  Dr. Jones' degrees are from the University of Iowa.  She has been a member of the faculty at the Universities of Iowa, Georgia, and Illinois, and at Wittenberg and Emory Universities.  While a Fulbright Senior Lecturer in Brazil, she consulted in the development of a university choral program and taught choral and vocal pedagogy.

Recognized for her expertise in conducting technique, choral and vocal pedagogy, rehearsal procedures, and performance practice, Dr. Jones has recently appeared as guest lecturer for the American Choral Directors Association Division and National Conventions, the American Guild of Organists Region I Convention, the Long Island Choral Festival, the Tennessee Arts Academy, on the summer session faculty in the Central Connecticut State University's graduate music program and at Westminster Choir College.  Equally acclaimed as a conductor, her guest conducting appearances have included many All State, district, regional and festival choruses.  Dr. Jones is currently conductor of the Boston University Tanglewood Institute Young Artists Chorus, a summer program for high school musicians and was previous conductor for the Choruses with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.

Aaron David Miller is known as one of the finest organ improvisers in the country having won numerous international awards and given concerts across the country.  Dr. Miller's performances have been heard on Pipe Dreams and numerous television programs.  His orchestra works have been performed by such ensembles as the Seattle Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Zurich Symphony, and the Toledo Symphony Orchestra.  His organ, choral and orchestra compositions are published by Kjos Publishing House, Augsburg Fortress, and Paraclete Publishing.  In addition to many performance prizes, Dr. Miller was recipient of the 2004 Hellenikon Idyllion Prize for Composition, Athens, Greece.  Dr. Miller is Music Director at House of Hope Presbyterian Church in St. Paul.  He lives in Bloomington with his wife, Nina, and son Zachary.  He is represented by Penny Lorenz Management; www.organists.net.

Randy Edwards is Founder & Director of Programs for YouthCUE, a multidenominational ministry network which includes over six hundred youth choirs in twenty-four states. Randy has conducted over seventy major YouthCUE festivals across the U.S, Canada, and Korea. Prior to devoting his full-time efforts to YouthCUE in 2005, Mr. Edwards served for more than thirty years as minister of music at First Baptist Church in San Antonio, First Baptist Church in Shreveport, Trinity Baptist Church in San Antonio, and now at Woodland Baptist Church in San Antonio.

Mr. Edwards has authored the most comprehensive textbook to date on youth choir ministry, entitled, Revealing Riches and Building Lives: Youth Choir Ministry in the New Millennium. Randy Edwards is one of the premiere specialists in youth choir ministry today. He is sought widely as a conductor, clinician, consultant, and teacher. He currently has eighteen published anthems in print. His most recent book, Lessons Learned: Practical Insights into Developing an Effective Adult or Student Choir Ministry, was published September 2012 by MorningStar Music Publishers.

Sid Davis is the Director of Music and Fine Arts at St. Luke's United Methodist Church in Houston, where he oversees a program including music for children, youth and adults as well as the Rotunda Theatre and Art Gallery. He graduated from Centenary College of Louisiana and did graduate work at the University of North Texas.  Sid is a published composer/arranger and has recently become a Melodious Accord Fellow, studying under Alice Parker, as well as having toured with Fred Waring's Pennsylvanians as a soloist and instrumentalist. He enjoys traveling as a clinician for choral workshops around the country, but makes his home in Houston with his wife Cindy. The Davises have three adult children:  Taylor, Meredith and Peyton.





Vern Sanders – Templeton, CA

In addition to being the publisher of Creator magazine, Vern has served in some form of church music and worship leadership for 40 years in a variety of denominations both in the US and in Canada. He is currently Director of Music at First Presbyterian Church, Templeton, California.

William P. Carroll is in his twenty-ninth year on the faculty of the School of Music, Theatre and Dance at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro where he serves as Associate Dean and Director of Graduate Studies.  A native Mississippian, Carroll holds the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in choral conducting from the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati, the Master of Music in choral conducting and the Master of Sacred Music degrees from Southern Methodist University, and the Bachelor of Music in piano performance from Millsaps College.

A frequent guest conductor, adjudicator, and clinician for workshops and festivals throughout the country and in venues abroad, Carroll has guest conducted more than 300 choral events for singers of all ages.  Additionally, he serves as Choral Editor for Hinshaw Music, Inc. in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and Director of Music and Organist at Ebenezer Lutheran Church in Greensboro.  He is the national President of the Fellowship of United Methodists in Music and Worship Arts.  In 2001 Dr. Carroll was the recipient of the Lara Hoggard Award for distinguished service to the choral art presented by the North Carolina chapter of the American Choral Director’s Association and was also the recipient of the Award of Merit from the Euterpe Federated Music Club of Greensboro.

Marian Dolan is the Founding Artistic Director of The Choir Project (Naples, FL, USA), an organization seeking to "build community chorally" through collaborative choral events of local and international caliber. She has served on the faculties of Emory University (Atlanta), Haverford College (Philadelphia), University of Wisconsin, Florida Gulf Coast University, and Westminster Choir College's Summer School. While at Emory, her choirs gave concerts honouring visiting professor Archbishop Desmond Tutu and his work on the Truth & Reconciliation Commission. A conductor of national and international festival and workshop choirs, she has taught, written and lectured about international and multi-cultural choral music in the USA, Estonia, Finland, Germany, the Philippines, Canada and Sweden. She edits multi-cultural choral scores for IFCM's Cantemus series, Augsburg-Fortress Press (USA) and Astrum (Slovenia).  A review panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts, she has commissioned over 35 choral scores.  She writes the repertoire articles for the International Choral Bulletin, led the Artistic Committee of IFCM's 2009 "Voices of South Africa," 2007 "Voices of the Baltics" and 2003 "Voices of Origin" (Sweden) conferences, and organized the reading sessions for the 2003 World Symposium. She holds an MA in musicology from Boston University and MM, MMA and DMA choral conducting degrees from Yale University's School of Music where she received the first choral conducting doctorate granted to a woman. 

Jean Ashworth Bartle’s contribution to the art of choral music for children has evolved over 40 years into one of international distinction. During her thirty-year tenure with the TCC or sharing a wealth of knowledge with choral directors and choirs worldwide, she has demonstrated a steadfast dedication to choral excellence and has exerted a profound influence on all youth with whom she has worked. In 1998, she received the nation’s highest honour, the Order of Canada, for taking children’s choirs and Canadian choral music to unprecedented heights.  In 2002 she was recognized with the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal, awarded in London, England, and in 2012 she was awarded both the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal and the President’s Leadership Award from Choirs Ontario.
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Widely sought-after as lecturer, clinician, adjudicator and guest conductor of children’s and youth choirs, Ms Ashworth Bartle has travelled throughout Europe, the Far East, the Pacific Rim and North America. She edits three music series for children, and is author of two books, Lifeline for Children’s Choir Directors (Alfred), Sound Advice (Oxford University Press),and a co-author of A Young Singer’s Journey-An Integrated Approach to Musical Literacy (Hinshaw).
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Fundamental to such achievements is Ms Ashworth Bartle's passionate pursuit of the highest artistic standards and the conviction that all young people can and should learn to sing, prompting Globe and Mail writer Urjo Kareda to comment: "The invaluable Jean Ashworth Bartle has shaped the artistry of several generations of young choristers, urging them to commanding musicality and interpretation.”