GOVERNOR’S NEWSLETTER, FALL 2007
NATS INDIANA CHAPTER Greetings! I hope that your school year is off to a wonderful start. It was good to see so many of you at the State Student Auditions last October. The judging schedules were purposefully organized to allow most everyone a bit of time to catch their breath, grab a bite to eat, and chat with old and new colleagues. I was particularly pleased to see so many of you finding time to visit with each other in the hospitality room. A hearty THANK YOU to David Mannell for the countless things he did to make the day such a success! Congratulations to the many Indiana students among the winners at the Regional Auditions, held March 3, 2007 at Ball State University. This year’s INDIANA STATE STUDENT AUDITIONS will be held SATURDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2007 at Indiana State University in Terre Haute. All the information you will need for October’s State Auditions is contained in this mailing. The postmark deadline for applications is SATURDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2007. Please note that in order to have students participate in the State Auditions, a teacher must be a current member in good standing, with both National and Indiana State Chapter dues paid in full. Our Chapter dues are $30.00 per fiscal year. If you have not yet joined either National NATS or State NATS, or are in arrears, please make a point to update your status at your earliest convenience, so that you may participate in October. Winners from our state auditions will advance to the Great Lakes Region Student Auditions, to be held March 1, 2008 at Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana. It is possible that these auditions will begin in the afternoon of Friday, February 29, depending on the number of students who participate. Please mark your calendars now for Friday afternoon/evening (tentatively) and Saturday! The Indiana NATSAA (NATS Artist Award) competition will be Saturday, February 16 at Butler University. Further information and application forms are available at www.nats.org. There is a space on the Teacher Registration Form for the October Auditions where you may make a special contribution to the Indiana State NATSAA fund. These monies are a particular help to our winners, helping them to travel to the next level of the competition. Our Indiana Chapter of NATS is becoming more and more vibrant each year, thanks to your participation. Do you have voice-teaching friends who are not yet members of NATS or who may have once belonged to the organization and have let their memberships lapse? Please encourage them to apply or re-apply for membership! Our State Chapter’s website, http://www.nats-in.org was a great help us in the student auditions last year, saving the chapter many, many dollars’ worth of postage. There will be more frequent updates to the site during this school year. A new feature on the website is a list of (most of) our current State Chapter members. There are photos of many of you there, taken last October. This can help us all put names and faces together! If you find mistakes in your e-mail address, your name, etc. (as I am SURE that there are many there), please contact me: kkelton@butler.edu, with the correction. All of the information and forms that are contained in this mailing are also available to download from our website. We also now have a BLOG. The address is www.nats-in.blogspot.com. There is a link to this address on our website. You will be receiving an e-mail “inviting” you to use the blog, so you might adjust your spam filter to accept mail from blogspot.com. It is my hope that we can continue to communicate more easily with each other during the year, using this tool. Never used a blog? It’s not difficult! I hope you will try it! I have posted several questions (kind of “survey” questions) that my colleagues and I have often wondered about, pertaining to how other institutions handle various matters pertaining to vocal study. Ron Berry is generously continuing to give his time to maintain our web site. We would like to post information about your upcoming performances and master classes. We want to know about faculty recitals and opera/musical theatre events, guest master teachers, etc. By spreading the word amongst our membership, we hope that more of us might attend each other’s performances, as well as encourage our students to support their peers at other institutions. Have a wonderful school year! I look forward to seeing many of you in October! Sincerely, Kathie Kelton District Governor, Indiana NATS (317) 940-9217 (work)
(317) 257-5825 (home
kkelton@butler.edu