Category: Conducting, Education, and Vocal Technique
Length: 60 minutes
Language: English

Presenters: Kiera Galway, Sarah Workman

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a pedagogical framework designed to optimize accessibility and inclusion for all learners. While many teachers use UDL to guide their practice in classroom contexts, practical applications of UDL in ensemble settings are not as well understood or implemented. While every ensemble is guided by a different set of goals, one of the implicit aims of group singing is often to prepare a “polished” performance at the highest level possible for the ensemble, a goal that can require a high level of neurotypical focus from singers. We ask: are there particular ways of knowing and learning that are overvalued in ensemble music? Might certain rehearsal/performance strategies and structures limit accessibility? In this participatory interest session, presenters Kiera Galway and Sarah Workman draw on their experiences as teachers and ensemble leaders to explore strategies for incorporating UDL in group singing, with the goals of increasing accessibility and inclusivity, deepening learning experiences and offering opportunities for learner agency.

Category: COVID-19, Technology, and Wellness
Length: 60 minutes
Language: Bilingual (FR/EN)

Presenters: Louise Drouin, Jane Gosine, Francine Ranger

Choral singing is said to reduce anxiety, improve quality of life and possibly lung capacity, and reduce stress: all valuable benefits when breath is in decline. Within an "arts and health" framework, innovative choral singing programs for people with chronic lung disease (Chant-MPC) are enjoying growing enthusiasm nationwide in the UK, Denmark, and gradually in English Canada. Our multidisciplinary research team, having compared the effects of Chant-MPC with PR, is proposing a post-Covid version, in hybrid mode: the Respire-Chœur/SingWell research project. The session closes with a public performance broadcast on Radio-Canada's téléjournal! Although the chronic disease persists, the fact that it prolongs breath and the pleasure of learning and singing with peers encourages participants, like us, to promote the development and national implementation of such a program in French.