Phase One: (1986 – 1991)
The first five years
CME Mission: To provide professional development opportunities for the choral teacher based on the principles of music performance in education; teaching teachers to conduct and conductors to teach; lecture-demonstrations with the Glen Ellyn Children’s Chorus, training choir, touring choir; to open the artistic, educational and administrative programs of the GECC community-based children’s chorus as a resource and paradigm for developing young choirs and emerging choral teachers in America.
Institute Goals: To develop a performance teaching paradigm for music education.
Phase Two: (1991 - 1999)
The next eight years
CME Mission: To support and enrich the developing choirs of cme certified choral teachers by inviting their choristers to participate in the Institute for Choral Teacher Education; to create a “living laboratory choir” for demonstration rehearsals, master classes and culminating lecture-concerts with Doreen Rao and guest artists (the cme young artist choirs were developed as educationally centered “summer choral camp/concert tour experience”); to create a “community of colleagues” and to develop an on-going support system among cme certified choral teachers toward the goals of partnership concerts and consortium commissions, exchange tours and various performance and research projects.
Institute Goals: To develop an intergenerational community of singers, conductors, teachers and composers working together to support the professional development of the choral teacher and the music education of young singers and emerging composers.
Phase Three: (2000-2006)
The last six years
CME Mission: To develop an educationally oriented choral festival for children and youth choirs (The New Millennium Festival) dedicated to the performance of new music and peace education; to support the cme performance teaching paradigm by linking the standards of professional performance with the goals of music education exemplified by the Institute/Festival program; to enrich the professional development mission in choral teacher education in an authentic performance context; to support the concept of an interdependent, organic “process and product” relationship, and to show “teaching-as-performing” and “performing-as-teaching;” to expand the CME “community of colleagues” internationally with an emphasis on developing international relationships in choral music education with colleges, teacher training institutions and choral colleagues.
Institute Goals: To develop an interdependent, educationally situated education through performance festival context dedicated to the goals of choral teacher education, where the choristers and the conductors develop their musicianship, work with composers, study and perform concert programs.
Phase Four: (2006)
The next ten years
CME Mission: To broaden the educational, artistic and social mandate of the Choral Music Experience (CME) professional development programs, new music initiatives, commissioning, music publishing and festivals as an interrelated series of distinct education through musical performance projects guided by the principles of mindfulness, social awareness and ethical discernment, 21st century imperatives for a sustainable world.