At last week's ACDA Summer Dialog Conference. Accolades invited All-State choir attendees to "Sing Accolades"  -- that is to sing our new theme:

With such talented singers choosing a winner was difficult -- especially since the primary goal was to have fun.  In the end, we selected an ensemble made up of members from the Champlin Park High School Choir. Congratulations!

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Sydney Opera House, one of the world’s most famous music venues, has long had a problem. Everyone loves the building, but not everyone loved the way it sounds, especially in its largest venue, the Concert Hall, Some felt that the acoustics lacked power; actor and director John Malkovich quipped (of the old design) that "an airplane hangar would sound better".  

A sneak-peek at the acoustic improvements

An included poll asked about students' opportunities to access and engage in music, both in and outside of school.  The reporting method of the study allows you to break down the results by ​various student groups.

​The foundation stone for the German signal instrument factory Max B. Martin GmbH & Co. KG which opened in 1880 were hunting horns, cavalry trumpets and fanfare trumpets for two- or four-note signals. The now-famous Kaiserfanfare signal, "now here, now there," announces vehicles of the royal family.

In the early days, motor car horns and fire horns were production-priorities. These were also the years when many volunteer fire brigades called Martin Chapels were already responding to fires using onboard 8-tone Martin trumpets, 

In 1932 they developed the German signal instrument factory to manufacture for fire and police departments a horn with a "prescribed priority warning". Up to World War II, these horns were made for emergency vehicles only.

Nicole Pesce at a 2011 concert displayed virtuosity, creativity, and humor as she speculates on how master composers might have performed "Happy Birthday".  We've also included a Victor Borge performance recorded 60 years earlier..

Excerpt from Neuroscience news:

If you’re a musician, this sounds too good to be true: UChicago psychologists have been able to train some adults to develop the prized musical ability of absolute pitch, and the training’s effects last for months.

Absolute pitch, commonly known as “perfect pitch,” is the ability to identify a note by hearing it. The ability is considered remarkably rare, estimated to be less than one in 10,000 individuals. It has always been a very desired ability among musicians, especially since several famous composers, including Mozart, reportedly had it. The assumption has been that this special talent has a critical period to be established in childhood based on early musical training and that it was not possible for adults to acquire this skill.

In this 2015 study published by the journal Cognition, Howard Nusbaum, professor of psychology, and colleagues tested how much an individual’s general auditory working memory capacity can predict the success of acquiring absolute pitch. Other UChicago authors on the paper are psychology doctoral student Stephen C. Van Hedger, post-doctoral scholar Shannon L.M. Heald and College undergraduate Rachelle Koch.

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