SCVA Newsletter (on-line version) - September 2011

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Message from the President - Rodger Guerrero
Welcome back SCVA members! Welcome back to the magic of choral music. Welcome back to another outstanding musical year replete with meaningful experiences created with your singers. Welcome back to students growing, music flourishing, and lives changing. Welcome back to feelings of purpose and conviction. Welcome back to the knowledge that we, the selfless choral music educators of Southern California, make a life-long impact upon the lives of thousands of youth. We matter, and so do our singers. We are important to them, and they are essential to us. Our symbiotic musical relationship is the nexus of an entire community of fervently dedicated choral music lovers. We are the movers and shakers of a musical society that helps to keep America on the right track

Welcome back to the 72nd year of the Southern California Vocal Association. Ours is the only area organization "dedicated to the advancement of vocal music at all grade levels in the schools of Southern California." This year SCVA will sponsor or co-sponsor eight categories of events throughout the year (Fall In-service, High School Honor Choirs, Vocal Solo Competition, Young Men's Harmony Festival [with the Masters of Harmony], Diva Day Young Women's Harmony Festival [with the Harborlites Chorus], High School and Junior High School Festivals, Vocal Jazz Festival, Show Choir Festival, Junior High School Honor Choir).

In addition to this comprehensive list of student-centered activities, the SCVA Website offers a multitude of resources for you the choral teacher. This includes links to other choral music educational sites (including the state Visual and Performing Arts Standards for K-12), lists of recommended choral octavos for all levels and voice parts, past SCVA Newsletters, and a regularly updated calendar of SCVA events, online registration forms and payment options. One new caveat: some of these resources are located within the friendly confines of the "Members Only" section. You must register and pay your dues before you can gain access to this cache of valuable information. Soon the SCVA Directory will be available for download as a PDF document, but only current members will have access to it. Finally, the Executive Board reviewed and recommended amendments to the SCVA Policies and By Laws. However, only current SCVA members will be able to comment on and vote for these changes.

Again, welcome back to everyone. SCVA is here to provide opportunities for your singers. Contact us. Communicate with us. Take advantage of our resources. Become actively involved in our activities. Most importantly, join us by signing up online because we are you. Help us to improve the face of choral music in Southern California one child at a time.

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SCVA High School Honor Choir - John Hendricks, Vice President, High School Honor Choirs

We are pleased to announce this year's conductors for the SCVA High School Honor Choirs:

   Mixed Choir: Dr. Cristian Grases, University of Southern California 
   Women's Choir: Dr. Anna Hamre, California State University, Fresno
   Men's Choir: Mr. Randy Stenson, St. Mary's International School, Tokyo, Japan

Students who have participated in SCVA Honor Choirs in the past have regularly cited the experience of singing in our honor choirs as musically highly satisfying, deeply inspiring, and even life-changing. Participants will have the unique opportunity of working with some of the most distinguished conductors in our field, and prepare a concert with the most accomplished choral students from Southern California. We strongly encourage our eligible high school students in the region to apply to audition for what promises to be an exceptional choral experience.

Please read all of the information that follows if you are registering to audition for the SCVA High School Honor Choirs
Approximately 260 students will be selected by audition to sing in one of three groups: Women's, Men's or Mixed Honor Choir.  They will receive a packet of music, meet for one rehearsal (October 29th) at Irvine High School and then (with music memorized) come together on Friday and Saturday, November 18th & 19th at Santa Monica High School for two full days of intense rehearsals and a Saturday evening concert.

Please Note:
Check your availability for all dates BEFORE auditioning.  Being accepted into an SCVA Honor Choir and then not participating in all honor choir rehearsals and the performance will exempt your school from participation in the SCVA Honor Choirs for one year.  Please see: Honor Choir Guidelines and Policies.

All-State Honor Choirs
Students who are interested in being considered for the California All-State Honor Choirs (comprised of the top-scoring singers statewide from the SCVA and California ACDA Central and Coastal Regional honor choir auditions) need only mark the appropriate box on their SCVA application.  There is no additional audition or fee to be considered for All-State, but the candidate must successfully participate in all 2011 SCVA Honor Choir events in order to be eligible.

Students will be asked at their auditions to confirm their interest to be considered for All-State.  After a student has successfully completed their participation in the SCVA Honor Choirs and officially elects to be considered for All-State, then they have committed to participate if accepted.  A student's school will be subject to a one-year suspension from All-State Honor Choir if a student is considered, accepted, and misses any rehearsals or the performance at the All-State event.  Please refer to the participation policy on the California ACDA (acdacal.org) webpage for complete details.  The All-State Honor Choir will be held March 22-24, 2012 in Pasadena.

IMPORTANT ELIGIBILITY RULES FOR AUDITIONING STUDENTS AND THEIR CONDUCTORS
All students auditioning for SCVA Regional and California All-State Honor Choirs must be members in good standing with their school choral program and their conductors must be paid members of SCVA. Teachers may pay their dues online or by contacting Lisa Lopez at llopezscvamem@hotmail.com.

SCVA ONLINE AUDITION APPLICATION
All students in Southern California should use the online application on the scvachoral.org website. DO NOT use the ACDA application from the California ACDA website, as the regional honor choirs in Southern California are solely administered by SCVA.

Important Dates and Deadlines
All deadlines are firm and WILL NOT be extended, and the guidelines CANNOT be altered. Keeping strict deadlines allows your students and our staff the greatest amount of time to prepare for the Honor Choir rehearsals and performance.

***REGISTER TO AUDITION AT SCVACHORAL.ORG AND PAY VIA PAYPAL***
On-Line Honor Choir Audition Application

$$$ Pay with PAYPAL $$$
SCVA has been using PayPal for the past five years with great success. It's the convenient way to pay audition fees, SCVA dues, Honor Choir fees, Festival fees, etc. And coupled with the required ON- LINE REGISTRATION, it's even easier! You may use any major credit card for a $0.50 processing fee. REMEMBER: All monies must be paid by PayPal, a school check, a booster check or money order. NO PERSONAL CHECKS from directors, students or parents will be accepted. AUDITION TIMES WILL NOT BE CONFIRMED UNTIL A STUDENT'S AUDITION FEE HAS BEEN RECEIVED BY SCVA, and booster/ school checks must be received at the address listed below (in the "FEES" section) by September 15.

FEES (non-refundable)
SCVA Honor Choirs Audition Fee..................................................................$5.00
Audition fees cover adjudicators, audition materials, and audition site costs.

Regional Honor Choir Participation Fee (due after the student has been accepted and prior to the start of the October 29 rehearsal, payable via PayPal).........$75.00
Regional fees cover music, rehearsal downloads, facilities, conductor, and accompanist.
Singers are responsible for their own transportation, lodging, and meals.

All-State Honor Choir Participation Fee (due if a student is accepted into the All-State Honor Choirs—no additional audition is required)
(Fee does NOT include housing or food cost)…………………………………………………………..$ 200.00
All-State fees cover: music, Friday lunch, rehearsal CDs, facilities, conductors and accompanists, T-shirt

Singers must provide their own transportation to/from the SCVA and ACDA All-State events.
Absolutely NO PERSONAL CHECKS will be accepted. Refunds will not be issued if a student signs up for an audition time and later withdraws.

Payment Options: PayPal/School/Boosters/Community organization check or money order.
DO NOT SEND CASH. ***Please use PayPal if at all possible!***

PLEASE SEND ANY OFFICIAL CHECKS TO:
John Hendricks
Director of Choral Music
The Buckley School
3900 Stansbury Ave.
Sherman Oaks, CA 91423

Please include an e-mail address on your school or booster check or money order. You will receive a confirmation via e-mail upon receipt of your official check.

Director Responsibilites:
Directors who have two or more students participating in honor choirs are expected (and needed) to help with the logistics the day of the honor choir events.

Volunteers and Adjudicators
For questions about SCVA Honor Choirs or to volunteer to assist at the honor choir event, please contact John Hendricks at jhendricks@buckley.org.
To apply to be an adjudicator, please contact Tina Peterson, our SCVA Senior Honor Choirs VP II, at tpeterso@iusd.org.

AUDITION FORMAT

ALL SINGERS

• If you are new to honor choirs this year, upon acceptance, you will be randomly placed into the SCVA Honor Choir, and if applicable, into the All-State Mixed, Men's or Women's Honor Choir.
• Singers who sang in a Regional Mixed Honor Choir last year will be placed into the Regional Women's or Men's Honor Choir this year. Singers who sang in a Regional Women's/Men's Honor Choir last year will be placed into the Regional Mixed Honor Choir this year.
• Singers who sang in the All-State Mixed Honor Choir last year will be placed into the All-State Women's or Men's Honor Choir this year. Singers who sang in the All-State Women's or Men's Honor Choir last year will be placed into the All-State Mixed Honor Choir this year.
• Directors: Please make sure that all singers understand this before they audition. They need to make intelligent, committed choices about their involvement in the honor choirs.

Selection Process
Singers will be selected for SCVA Regional Honor Choirs participation according to the raw scores received at the time of audition. Singers who desire to be considered for the All-State Honor Choirs need only mark the appropriate box on the application form. Singers will be asked at their auditions to reconfirm their interest in the All-State Honor Choirs. Singers will be selected for the All-State Honor Choir according to the raw scores received at the time of the initial audition process. 

THE AUDITION (100 points)
We recommend that you review each of these skills with your classes so that all your singers are prepared. (These are good skills for your singers to have anyway.)

• SOLO: (40 points) Prepare an Italian song to be sung from memory. We recommend Schirmer's 24 Italian Songs and Arias or 26 Italian Songs and Arias edited by John Glenn Paton. The singer will sing the song once through with NO repeats or da capo. Each singer must provide an accompanist or recording with sound reproductive equipment. (Most sites will have CD players available for student use.) Singers must provide two copies of music for the adjudicators. The key selected for the solo should be appropriate for the singer's voice part.
• TONAL MEMORY: (25 points) Five-note passages will be played on the piano for the singer to repeat, sung on any syllable.
• SIGHT-READING: (20 points) A single-line, unaccompanied melody will be supplied, sung on any syllable.
• SCALES/TRIADS: (15 points) Sing the following: ascending and descending: major scale, major triad, minor triad, and chromatic scale, sung on any syllable.

Rubric for Solo Portion

Acceptance Notice and Fees
Those accepted for the Mixed, Men's or Women's Honor Choir will be notified by their directors during the week of October 11th. You may pay via PayPal in advance of the rehearsal weekend. A $75.00 fee will be collected at the first rehearsal on October 29th if you have not already paid via PayPal. The fee provides for music, accompanists, directors and facilities. ONLY PayPal verification, a school check, booster check or money order will be accepted. NO PERSONAL CHECKS WILL BE ACCEPTED from students, parents or teachers.

Honor Choir Guidelines and Policies
A student must be enrolled in his/her school's choral program in order to be eligible for participation in Honor Choir. If a student drops out of the school program, he/she will be dropped from Honor Choir as well. No sanctions will be imposed on the school in this case.

However, when a student drops out of an SCVA Honor Choir, the student's school may not be allowed to participate in Honor Choir the following school year. Given our time constraints, when a student drops out of Honor Choir it is impossible for us to fill their vacancy. Therefore, when a student drops out, another deserving student misses out on this wonderful opportunity. Students who must, out of extreme necessity, drop out of Honor Choir after being accepted are required to provide a signed, written note from their parents and from their school choral director stating the reasons for the drop out. The note MUST be sent immediately to the Honor Choir coordinator by mail or hand-delivered by the student, parent or director as soon as possible.

Acceptable reasons for dropping Honor Choir: Death in the family just before the concert, a serious medical problem, or other matters of an equally serious nature.

Unacceptable reasons for dropping Honor Choir: Schedule conflicts of any kind, a student deciding he/she would rather not participate, doesn't like the music, or doesn't want to work with a particular conductor.

If a student drops for any reason, a panel of members from the SCVA Board will consider the reason given and decide whether it is an unacceptable or acceptable reason.

Choral directors are responsible for remaining informed about their students' continued participation in the Honor Choir.

New to the Audition Application Process?
Our audition application process is a simple on-line entry form on the SCVA Website that your students can use to submit their audition application electronically by clicking on the following link:
On-Line Honor Choir Audition Application

Each student who wishes to audition for Honor Choir will enter all of his/her information (including name, address, phone number, voice part, age, etc.) and his/her first & second choice audition sites into the on-line form. (We will do our best to accommodate the student's choice of audition sites. Please register early for the best availability.) The student must also enter his/her director's e-mail address—please enter this accurately. In addition, students should indicate if their audition should be considered for the All-State Honor Choir. After clicking on the "Submit Application" button, the student can optionally use Pay Pal to pay the $5.00 audition fee using any major credit card (MasterCard, Visa, Discover, AmEx).

An automated e-mail message will be sent to the director for each student who applies. The e-mail message will include a link to a special web-page that allows the director to see a list all of his/her students who have applied, and allows a selection of "Approve" or "Reject" for each student. The first time the director approves or rejects a student's application for the current Honor Choir cycle, an additional form allows the director to indicate, review, and/or change contact and school information. The director's information is then stored for each new applicant (Information from directors whose students participated last year was previously stored).

The on-line audition application process was designed to reduce the amount of logistics and paperwork for everyone involved. Directors need to have an e-mail address (please use only one!) and a computer system with Internet access. This process has eliminated a tremendous amount of paperwork and manual data entry by the Honor Choir coordinators. It has also drastically improved the accuracy of our information, making the entire Honor Choir experience more positive for everyone.

AUDITION SITES

Any Questions?
Please direct all questions regarding our SCVA Senior Honor Choirs to John Hendricks, SCVA Senior Honor Choirs Vice-President:  jhendricks@buckley.org.

On-Line Honor Choir Audition Application

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Fall In-Service - Sheri Nelson, Past President
Mark your calendars, our annual Fall In-Service is being held on Friday October 21, 2011. It will be a great opportunity to learn new teaching techniques, be reminded of some old techniques, listen to some outstanding ensembles, explore new music, and network with colleagues.

We have several wonderful clinicians and sessions planned for the day. Dr. Jayne Campbell, from Glendale Community College, will present a session titled Choral Warm-Ups: Are you Creating or Solving the Problem? Dr. Chris Peterson, from California State University at Fullerton, will hold a session titled Engaging Choirs Of All Ages: Strategies for increasing singer interest, reducing boredom, and fostering fun and artistry. This session will be an interactive exploration of methods and strategies that can be used to raise and maintain singer interest (and artistry) in your rehearsals. Topics will include: Ways to turn off "autopilot", multi-modal instruction, creating functional approval and disapproval ratios, dynamic pacing, and honing a positive approach to teaching.

Other sessions will include a reading session lead by Jayne Campbell with music for Elementary, Middle, and High Schools and a session on Arts Advocacy lead by Patricia Wayne who is the Director of Programs and Education with Arts Orange County. The day will also include performances by two wonderful choirs during our Adjudicators Certification Clinic.

The venue for the day will again be the Placentia Presbyterian Church located at 849 N. Bradford Ave. in Placentia. The In-Service will officially begin at 9am but you'll want to arrive early to check-in and enjoy the coffee-juice-pastry social time. This is a great time to invite a new teacher or a colleague who has not attended SCVA events in the past to come spend the day!

Register today at www.scvachoral.org 

  $45 Early Registration (before October 7th)
  $55 Late/Walk-on Registration (reading session packet cannot be guaranteed)
  $10 Collegiate Membership Registration

DR. JAYNE E. CAMPBELL is well known as a music educator, choral director, voice teacher and classical performer. She has been published in the National Association of Teachers of Singing journal and is the composer and co-lyricist of several children's musicals. Her award-winning choirs have toured both locally and abroad, and have been featured performers at ACDA and CMEA conventions. She has a B.M. (cum laude) and M. M. in Voice Performance and a D.M.A. in Music Education from the USC Thornton School of Music. In addition to middle school and secondary teaching at the Los Angeles High School for the Arts, Westlake School for Girls, Harvard-Westlake and Crossroads School for the Arts and Sciences, she has also taught choral methods classes at USC and Cal-Poly Pomona, and voice and conducting for the Summer Masters of Choral Conducting program at Cal-State Los Angeles. She is currently a full-time assistant professor of music at Glendale Community College, where she teaches voice, choir, opera and music theory.

DR. CHRISTOPHER PETERSON is Associate Professor of Music at California State University, Fullerton where he directs the CSUF Concert Choir, the Titan Men's Chorus, and teaches classes in choral music education. In spring 2011 he was named the 2010-2011 Cal State Fullerton ASI Outstanding Educator of the Year. From 2001–2007 he was Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Dr. Peterson taught music in the public schools of Maine for nine years, including elementary, middle, and high school music instruction. He is the author of articles published in the Music Educators Journal, is a contributing author for the textbook series Experiencing Choral Music, published in the United States by Glencoe, and is Series Editor and a choral arranger for Hal Leonard's Close Harmony Series for Men and the Close Harmony Collection. In his spare time, Chris sings bass with the Masters of Harmony, eight-time International Men's Chorus Champions of the Barbershop Harmony Society. He earned the Bachelor of Science in Music Education from the University of Southern Maine, and the Master of Music in Choral Conducting from the University of Maine. He earned the Doctor of Philosophy in Choral Music Education and Conducting from Florida State University where he studied with Rodney Eichenberger, Andre Thomas, and Clifford Madsen.

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Host an SCVA Choral Festival! Register Online Today!!
Jennifer Stanley, VP of High School Festivals
Maria Fritts, VP of Junior High & Middle School Festivals

"I love SCVA festivals. They are always professional, appropriate--and affordable. Thank you for providing such wonderful festival experiences." 
-Janice Hague, Sycamore Canyon Middle School

TOP 10 REASONS TO HOST AN SCVA CHORAL FESTIVAL:
10. It's easy to register a festival ONLINE at SCVACHORAL.ORG - register by November 1.
  9. You get FREE festival registration for one of your choirs at each festival you host.
  8. You get excellent networking opportunities with other directors and adjudicators.
  7. Your students have the familiarity of performing in their regular venue (home court advantage!)
  6. SCVA enrolls choirs in your festival and gives you contact information for each director.
  5. SCVA provides all forms and plaques needed to run the festival.
  4. SCVA schedules certified adjudicators for your festival.
  3. You don't have to get a bus to go to festival.
  2. You can choose the date that works best for you, and set the date on your calendar NOW!
  1. You provide an opportunity for many students to see other choirs and hear quality repertoire.

Submit your festival host registration at SCVACHORAL.ORG - deadline is November 1, 2011. 

If you are interested in hosting an ELEMENTARY FESTIVAL, or if you have questions about elementary festivals, please email Maria Fritts.

Please contact us with questions you have!
Jennifer Stanley -  jstanley@emuhsd.k12.ca.us
Maria Fritts - mfritts@temeculaprep.com

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SCVA Recommended Festival Music List - Sheri Nelson, Past President

"The quality of a person's life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor" - Vince Lombardi

SCVA began in 1939 for the advancement of vocal music at all grade levels in the schools of southern California. The founding members saw a need to provide non-competitive festivals where singers could listen to other ensembles in an educational environment which began our long tradition of SCVA Choral Festivals. Although the organization has expanded over the last 70 years to include three high school honor choirs, a middle school honor choir, a vocal jazz festival, a show choir competition, a vocal solo competition, a directors in-service and Barbershop Harmony Festival, the 45 middle school and high school festivals is still a large focus for the organization.

The selection of quality festival literature is one of the most important decisions the choral director makes. We do not have a state approved textbook adopted by our districts that is the guide to our curriculum. Our literature selection is the core of our curriculum and the selection of literature should be an area where we have a commitment to excellence. As you select your literature do you ask yourself if your literature:

- Reflects a variety of time periods and composers
- Includes both sacred and secular pieces
- Has an appropriately high difficulty level that will challenge your singers and allow for success
- Fits the ranges of the singers in the ensemble
- Includes text in a foreign language(s)
- Is both accompanied and a cappella
- Includes a variety of styles and tempos

Where do we go to find quality literature? One place you maybe have not looked to is the SCVA Recommended Festival Music List posted on our website (www.scvachoral.org). The list has evolved over the decades and includes well established works that are the "tried and true" from experience choral directors who have found quality literature, from all time periods, that maintain that commitment to excellence.

The new UPDATED list is now available on the website. Last year a review committee looked at more than 250 pieces suggested by the membership and the SCVA board approved, based on the committee results, to add pieces to the Recommended Repertoire Lists. This list is an excellent way to find some new gems that have stood the test of time. Our students deserve to have quality literature so I encourage you to visit www.scvachoral.org and look for some literature to add to your library. 

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Junior High Honor Choir - Vanessa Ventre, VP-Junior High Honor Choir
It seems like ages ago since the 2011 Junior High Honor Choir performed last May. I am currently in the midst of planning for this coming school year's honor choir auditions, rehearsals, and performance!

Congratulations to our guest conductor, Mr. Lou De La Rosa, and all the 2011 Junior High Honor Choir students for their hard work! A special thank you to my super star helpers: Cecile Blanchard, Mark Freedkin, Amy Loch and Debbie Montpas; I couldn't have pulled this event off without you. Thank you also to all the teachers who helped with auditions, regional rehearsals, and the performance. I hope to be able to call upon all of your help and enthusiasm again this year!

By the time you get this newsletter, I should have all the details concerning auditions, rehearsals, and the performance posted online through the SCVA website. Please start encouraging your students to audition and have them put aside the time to participate in this amazing group!

I got a lot of great feedback and would welcome more via email. I found that most people appreciated the one regional rehearsal with the all-day rehearsal and then the performance in the evening. However, the all-day rehearsal the day of the performance seemed really long for the students. I think a longer rehearsal is needed for the regional rehearsal, and then perhaps the performance day rehearsal can be a bit shorter. Also, I still found we have many qualified treble singers that audition but end up getting cut in order to balance for a mixed ensemble. PLEASE start encouraging your changed voices to audition. Hopefully, we'll get enough to balance a mixed ensemble or even add a treble ensemble!

Looking forward to making this year's 2012 Junior High Honor Choir outstanding! 

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Young Women's and Young Men's Harmony Festivals - Mark Freedkin, VP of Barbershop Harmony Festivals
We are pleased to invite you to this year's Barbershop Harmony Festivals for Young Women and Young Men. Both events will be held at the Robert B. Moore Theater on the campus of Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa. The 7th annual "Diva Day" Young Women in Harmony Festival, sponsored by the Harborlites Chorus, will be held on Saturday, February 4, and the 12th annual "Young Men's Harmony Festival" will be held on Saturday, February 18, sponsored by the Masters of Harmony. Both of these events will provide a unique musical opportunity for your singers and will provide a positive boost to your choral music program.

Each event will consist of morning and afternoon clinics and rehearsals, followed by a public performance in the evening with the respective adult choruses. There will also be a clinic for music educators who would like to participate in a hands-on demonstration of how the barbershop style is taught and how it can be used to attract more young men and women into your program.

The early application fee is only $20 per singer for applications that are submitted by November 11. After November 11, the application is fee $25 per singer. The sponsoring choruses will cover the remaining costs for all sheet music, practice CDs, rehearsal facilities, guest clinicians and performance costumes. Each singer will receive a commemorative t-shirt. We will also provide lunch and dinner for the singers, choral directors and any adult chaperones accompanying the singers.

Please download and print the appropriate application forms from the SCVA website. Complete and return the applications and forms, along with payment by cash, check or money order payable to Harborlites (for Diva Day) or Masters of Harmony (for the Young Men's Festival). Each event is limited to 250 participants, so be sure to submit your applications early. Note that these festivals are separate events, and you must send the appropriate forms and payments to the proper recipient.

Young Women's Festival Only:
In order to accommodate more schools, we are limiting the number of singers per school to twelve (12). Ideally we suggest 1-2 tenors, 3-4 leads, 2-3 baritones and 3-4 basses. This will allow you to perform the music as a group and use this group to help your other students learn the joy of singing four-part harmony, barbershop style. Send applications for all students you wish to participate, indicating those students beyond the initial 12 that you wish to put on the Waiting List. We will try to accommodate as many as we can.

Young Men's Festival Only:
There is no limit to the number of singers from your school who wish to participate, but please submit your applications early to ensure that all of your singers can be accommodated.

We look forward to receiving your applications. Please contact us if you have any questions about our festivals.

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Congratulations to the Masters of Harmony for winning their eighth consecutive International Chorus Championship at the Barbershop Harmony Society Convention in
Kansas City on July 8, 2011.

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WEBSITE UPDATE - Mark Freedkin, SCVA Webmaster
Over the past several years, we have greatly expanded the ability to register or apply for SCVA activities and events using on﷓line forms through our website. This has helped us to significantly improve accuracy and response times, as well as reducing postage expenses. You can also use the PayPal interface on our website to pay for membership renewals, festival registrations and other SCVA fees using a major credit card (such as MasterCard, Visa, Discover or American Express) as an alternative to sending school checks, booster checks, cashier checks or money orders. PayPal, which is owned and operated by e-Bay, is easy to use and ensures a timely and secure payment for those items. And you don't need to have your own personal PayPal account in order to use this interface.

For many of the on-line application forms, you can make the PayPal payment immediately after you submit the application form, and most of the information will be filled-in automatically. Otherwise, you can select the "e-Payments" item from the navigation menu of the SCVA website. You will then see a list of items that you can purchase. Fill-in the required information for the item you wish to purchase (such as "School Name" and "Choir Name"), and then click on the "Add to Cart" button for that item. If you wish to purchase additional items in the same transaction, you can return to the e-Payments page to select those additional items and add them to your cart. When you have made all of your selections and are ready to make your payment, you can click on the "Proceed to Checkout" button. Then select the link next to the line that reads "Don't have a PayPal account?" Then enter your name, email address, credit card account number and expiration date. If you continue, your credit card will be billed and you will be returned to the SCVA website. You will also receive a separate confirmation e-mail message, which you should print out and keep as proof of purchase. When you receive your monthly credit card statement, the transaction will appear as: "PAYPAL*SCVACHORAL". A modest processing fee will be added to each purchase to cover our costs for using this on-line service. Your private credit card account information is always protected and never divulged to anyone within the SCVA organization.

If you already have your own personal PayPal account, please always use the "e-Payments" page or the on-line application forms to select the items you wish to purchase and login to your account from the Checkout page, rather than creating your own independent e-check transfers. This will help us maintain accurate records of electronic payments that have been made.

New "Members-Only" Page
A new feature for this year is a password-protected Members-Only page that includes valuable information that is only available to active members of SCVA. When you renew your membership using the on-line membership application form, you must specify a password that you can use to access the new Members-Only page. You can then login to the Members-Only page using your e-mail address and the password that you specified when you renewed your membership. If you ever forget your password, you can click on the "Forgot Password?" link, and your password will be sent to your e-mail address.

E-mail Broadcast Messages
A number of automated e-mail confirmation and broadcast messages are routinely sent from our website to choral directors for various events. Please ensure that your e-mail system can accept incoming messages from "admin@scvachoral.org" so you can receive all of those messages. In some cases, you may need to contact your school district's network administrators to prevent those messages from being rejected as suspected SPAM (unsolicited e-mail).

Please also be aware that if you reply to any of those automated broadcast messages, your response will be sent to me (as webmaster), and I must then forward your message the originator. For more efficient communication, do not reply directly to any of those messages. Instead, please forward your response to the sender's e-mail address.

Hints for Using PayPal and Saving Money
When using PayPal to pay the application or participation fees for multiple students, you can minimize the processing fees by adding the desired item to your Shopping Cart only one time, and then specify a quantity for that one item. You should not add the same item to your Shopping Cart multiple times (once for each student), since that will result in a larger processing fee added to you total transaction.

You can also use a single PayPal transaction to pay the application or registration fee for multiple activities at the same time, rather than checking out after submitting each item. Simply add each item to your current shopping cart, and then click on the Continue Shopping link to return to the SCVA website. After you have completed all of the items you wish to purchase, you can then proceed to the checkout page and receive a single invoice that lists all of those items.

If you have any comments, questions or problems with any of the pages on our website, please contact Mark Freedkin at mfreedkin@yahoo.com or (714) 357-1187.

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Other Important Information
On-Line SCVA Membership Application (not required for students who are auditioning for Honor Choirs)
On-Line Festival Host Application
Calendar of Events