In the fall of 2018, Research Memorandum Series: A Journal of The American Choral Foundation released No. 211 in their series of bibliographic journals to assist conductors and others in the choral field in their search for repertory and new sources of interesting programming. “Choral Music by American Composers for Treble Voices since 1988” was compiled by Dr. Jennifer Flory and Meagan W. Johnson, a BME/MME alumna of Georgia College. In her time in school at Georgia College, Meagan was very involved in Women’s Ensemble as a singer and then as assistant director.

The editor of vol. 211, Matthew Bumbach, acknowledges that women outnumber men in American choral singing and that choirs at all levels struggle to recruit enough men to balance the legions of singing women. For this reason, American treble choirs are commonplace, yet gaining access to quality treble repertoire remains a challenge for choral directors. “Choral Music by American Composers for Treble Voices since 1988” laid the groundwork for addressing this challenge with its 1500-title index. We plan to continue this work by incorporating these titles into a larger and more inclusive online database. It is our hope that this index will provide a more accessible and media rich environment which will serve as a repertoire resource for choral directors of middle school, high school, collegiate, community, and professional choirs.

Sarah Clegg has also been very active in Women’s Ensemble at Georgia College and is currently serving as assistant director. Her interest in, experience with, and passion for choral music for treble voices will be instrumental in her success with this project. Since January, we have been working on developing and designing the American Treble Choral Index, an open-access online database. We have reviewed the original selection parameters from the initial index and will make any necessary revisions to the existing database in its spreadsheet form. This will allow our focus to be on the creation and optimization of the new format. 

We have surveyed conductors of treble choirs from multiple levels to determine the most practical database components and user-friendly format. Once the online index is designed and implemented, the importation and conversion of the database will be relatively automated. Then our attention will turn to dealing with any conversion issues and testing the website with a focus group of directors. Following the release of the American Treble Choral Index, the site will be shared with professional organizations in the field of music education and choral music.