UT Men’s Chorale received the opportunity to sing at this year’s American Choral Directors Association Southern regional conference that was held in Memphis, Tennessee.

The Men’s Chorale director, Andrew Skoog, went into more detail about the conference.

“We have members all throughout the country, and we have some international members as well,” Skoog said. “So there’s a national organization, and they have their conventions for an odd number of years. Then we have regional conventions on even number years.”

The American Choral Directors Association was founded in 1959 for choral directors across the country. ACDA is divided into six geographic regions that are split into Eastern, Midwestern, Northwestern, Southern, Southwestern and Western. Tennessee is part of the Southern region.

The choir was one of the 16 groups chosen to sing at the conference out of the hundreds of choral groups that sent in audition tapes. They were also one of the two all-male vocal groups in attendance. ACDA chose the selected choirs through a blind audition process.

“If you are interested in submitting your choir, you send in three recordings that represent three consecutive years,” Skoog said. “They had no idea that I was the choir director or that we were from the University of Tennessee. All they had was the title of the piece and the composer.”

For Skoog, he began the audition process back in the spring of 2025. The process took about two weeks to get all the recordings, create the program and submit all the materials.

“The hardest part was trying to come up with a program,” Skoog said. “Trying to see what kind of group I would have this past fall and spring and put a program together.”

Men’s Chorale has a total of 46 members who auditioned for placement in the choir. Although there are music majors in the group, the majority of the members are non-music majors, including freshman management major Wesley Boggs.

“I’ve been in the Men’s Chorale all year, ” Boggs said. “I really enjoyed my senior year of high school because of the choir. Wherever I went to choir, I knew I was going to do choir. I was super happy because I love the tenor and bass choir and the sound they create.”

Six weeks after Skoog sent in the audition tape, ACDA notified him that Men’s Chorale was selected as one of the choirs. Skoog excitedly shared the news with both his colleagues and the choir. Choral conducting second-year master’s candidate Gavin Lester shared what was going through his mind when he heard the news that Men’s Chorale was singing at ACDA.

“I already planned on going to the ACDA conference, and it was my first time,” Lester said. “When we found out that men’s chorale would also be performing, it was just mind-blowing.”

The Men’s Chorale performed their set on March 5 at the Cannon Center for the Performing Arts. The choir sang a total of five songs during their 25-minute concert. The songs, in order, included “I See the Heaven’s Glories Shine,” with soloist James Wilbanks, “Salmo 150,” “Earth Song,” “Armistice 1918 (Everyone Sang)” and “Fever.” The group not only got to perform together, but also got the chance to get to know each other more.

Sophomore mechanical engineering major Grayson Nelms spoke about his experience at ACDA and about some of the songs.

“It was a lot of fun exploring the city, then coming back to rehearse and being able to perform with the same group of guys that I was closer with now,” Nelms said. “I think the writing of the vocals and everything in ‘Armistice’ is beautiful, but I really like the text and accompaniment for ‘I See the Heaven’s Glories Shine.’ They are both just really well written.”

Being able to sing at ACDA was not only an honor — it also brought back a lot of memories for Skoog. His father, Alfred Skoog, was a charter member who helped build the organization from the ground up.

“We actually gave the concert on his birthday, and he would have been 99,” Skoog said. “And not because we picked it. That’s just how the stars aligned. It was cool because I had my brother and sister there from out of state, and my sister-in-law, and it was just kind of a cool, sort of, full-circle moment.”