SATB Choir
Dr. Brad Holmes
Millikin University, Decatur, IL

Dr. Brad Holmes has been Director of Choir Programs at Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois since 1991.  In his nineteen years at Millikin, Dr. Holmes has overseen the growth of the choral program to five traditional choirs and a variety of smaller vocal ensembles involving 300 students and eight choral/vocal ensemble staff.  The Millikin University Choir has been a regular performer at state and regional MEA  and ACDA conferences.  Their recent performance before the 5000 choral directors at the National Convention of ACDA garnered new attention on the choir’s approach to tonal variety.  Dr. Holmes's extensive guest conducting schedule has included All-State and District festivals as well as church music clinics throughout the United States.  Internationally, he has been a Visiting Fellow at Cambridge University.  His choirs have sung in 33 countries, most recently in China and Taiwan.  Brad Holmes’ choral arrangements are available through First Step Publishing, Millikin’s student-run publishing house and through Santa Barbara Music Press.

TTBB Choir
Gabriel Crouch
Depauw University, Greencastle, Indiana

From 1996 until 2004, Gabriel occupied the second Baritone position in The King's Singers, the post formerly held by Simon Carrington. In those eight years, he made a dozen recordings on the BMG label (including a grammy nomination), and gave more than 900 performances in almost every major concert venue in the world. His work took him from the Lincoln Center in New York to the Suntory Hall in Tokyo, from Opera houses in Cape Town and Vienna to the great recital halls of the Santa Cecilia (Rome) and Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), and included two performances at the PROMS festival in London's Royal Albert Hall. Special collaborative projects saw him working and performing with some of the world's most respected artists, including percussionist Evelyn Glennie, pianists Emmanuel Ax and George Shearing, singer Barbara Hendricks and 'Beach Boy' Bruce Johnston.

In 2002 he planned and coordinated, in partnership with the Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion, a special Jubilee concert in the Royal Albert Hall featuring seven newly commissioned works by Britain's leading composers and poets, all performed by the King's Singers and televised by the BBC.

During this time he developed a passion for choral coaching and the nurturing of student choirs, and since leaving the King's Singers he has thrown himself into educational work alongside his continuing singing career. He has given workshops in the USA both independently and with the King's Singers, notably at ACDA, SPEBSQSA, Amerifest and MENC conventions, with the Harlem Boys Choir and at a special festival of 10 high school choirs in Dallas. This year he served as guest conductor and vocal coach at the Feliciana International Choral Festival and prepared four New Jersey high school ensembles for performances in front of former President Clinton. Across the Atlantic, Gabriel has given a 4-day series of workshops to choirs from across Europe at the Schleswig Holstein Festival in northern Germany (2001 and 2003), has been part of the Ensemble in Residence at London's Royal College of Music, and he now regularly coaches around a dozen young professional groups across the European continent. His achievements in the choral world have led to many invitations to adjudicate choral competitions, notably the mixed choir final of 'Sainsbury's Choir of the Year' (televised by the BBC), and in 2004, he adjudicated every round of the "Vereins und Westbank Jugend Kulturell A Cappella" competition in Germany.
Still only 31 years of age, Gabriel is nevertheless a veteran of the professional music world. His career began when he was barely eight years old, in the choir of Westminster Abbey, where he served as Head Chorister and performed a solo at the wedding of HRH Prince Andrew and Miss Sarah Ferguson. After taking up a choral scholarship at Trinity College, Cambridge, (under Dr Richard Marlow) he co-founded and directed a male voice ensemble, Henry's Eight, with whom he undertook a series of tours and recordings (for Hyperion) of music of the Flemish Renaissance.
His work as a singer, coach and musical director recently led to his name appearing in the London Times' list of 'Great British Hopes'.              http://www.depauw.edu/music/people/faculty/crouch.asp

• All State Chorus Acceptance Form (Form D) (must contain all   signatures) due to State Choral Chair.
• All State Medical Form (one per student) due to State Choral Chair.
• All State Rules and Regulations for Participation Form
 (one per student) due to State Choral Chair.
• All State Chorus Music Order Form due to KMEA Office.