VPA’s Warren to travel to Cuba as part of ACDA International Conductor Exchange Program

John Warren, associate professor and director of choral activities in the Rose, Jules R. and Stanford S. Setnor School of Music in the College of Visual and Performing Arts (VPA), has been accepted into the American Choral Directors Association International Conductors Exchange Program (ACDA ICEP) for 2012. He is one of seven conductors chosen nationally and will represent the Eastern Division of the ACDA in May at the U.S./Cuban Choral Summit in Havana, Cuba, which will include workshops, rehearsals and performances by U.S. and Cuban choirs.

The ICEP exists to create connections between potential leaders of the U.S. choral community with their counterparts across the globe; to raise the visibility and leadership role of ACDA in the global choral community; and to forge stronger relationships between the ACDA and choral associations across the world. As part of the exchange program, the Setnor School recently hosted Carmen Collado López, director of Coro Polifónico de La Habana, for two days of workshops and observation with SU choirs and students. Learn more about the ICEP at choralnet.org/view/280632.

During Warren’s six-year tenure at SU, Syracuse choirs have sung at state and regional ACDA conferences and toured to Albany, N.Y.; Boston; Buffalo, N.Y.; Philadelphia; Washington, D.C.; Baltimore; and Hartford, Conn., as well as Argentina, Chile and Uruguay. He is a 2011 recipient of the Outstanding Faculty Award from VPA.

Warren has worked with numerous outstanding conductors, including Robert Shaw, Frieder Bernius, Christoph Eschenbach, Robert Page, Helmuth Rilling, Rodney Eichenberger, Jo-Michael Scheibe and Elmer Thomas. He served on the planning committees for the 2011 ACDA National Conference in Chicago and the 2004 ACDA Southern Division Conference in Nashville. He has lectured, adjudicated and conducted festival choirs throughout the eastern United States.