Welcome! COCDA stands for Central Oklahoma Choral Director's Association. This organization is made up of choral
music educators from all over the Oklahoma
City metro area. The mission of COCDA is two fold: we want our students to have an excellent honor choir experience, and we want to help prepare our students for state
choir auditions. COCDA hosts a one day honor choir festival in the fall.
Use the tabs at the top of the page to find information about the audition and festival, including audition date and location, repertoire, procedures, and
schedule.
As we know, the fall will look much different for choral activities than it has in years past. Here are the plans that COCDA has for the fall:
1. Instead of students receiving their cuts in the listening room 90 minutes before their audition time, we will be releasing cuts at 5:00pm on Friday, September 25.
Cuts, including the cut tracks that students would normally hear in the listening room, will be uploaded into each school's COCDA Google Drive folder, so that they will be accessible to each teacher,
and teachers can then distribute the cuts to their students. Additionally, we will also post the cut tracks on the COCDA website (probably in the form of a YouTube video) so that students can access
them that way. We do recommend that students access the tracks thrugh their teachers rather than through the website if possible, so as to keep website traffic down to a manageable
number.
2. The listening room will be eliminated in order to maintain social distancing. Students will be expected to have practiced the cuts at a location other than the
audition site.
3. The holding area will also be eliminated in order to maintain social distancing. Students will only be allowed into the building 15-30 minutes before their
scheduled auditions, which will give them enough time to have their temperatures checked (details on that below), register, and get to their audition room. If schools bring their students on a bus,
this will mean that students will need to remain on the bus until that 15-30 minute window before their scheduled audition time.
4. Parents will not be allowed into the audition site for any reason. We realize that more parents may want to bring their own students to the audition site this
year, since the audition process will be quicker for each student and parents may not want their students riding a school bus, but we need to limit the amount of people in the building as much as
possible. Parents may wait in their vehicles or outside the site.
5. All students and teachers inside the audition site must wear masks. The only exception is that students may remove their masks when
auditioning.
6. Temperatures of both teachers and students will be taken by an on-site nurse before entering the audition site. Anyone with a temperature above 100.4 will be
asked to sit and cool of for 15 minutes, and then their temperature will be taken again. If their temperature is still above 100.4, that person will be sent home. If a student is made to retake their
temperature, we will, of course, be flexible with their audition time. Any parents who are dropping off their students and then returning to pick them up should not leave until they have made sure
that their student has passed the temperature check. Also, any schools who bring students on vans or buses are encouraged to check students' temperatures before they ride the van/bus. We also
encourage teachers to check their temperatures before coming to the site, especially if that teacher is assigned a job at auditions, so that we have some notice that that teacher is running a fever
and we can work to find a suitable replacement.
7. COCDA does not plan to cancel the auditions for any reason except the following:
a. The audition site (Edmond Memorial High School) is unable to host auditions
b. The city of Oklahoma City or the city of Edmond goes back into a strict quarantine to the extent that it makes auditions
impossible
c. OSSAA deems it necessary
8. Per OSSAA guidelines, COCDA will allow virtual and distance learners to audition this year, as long as they are enrolled in virtual or distance school in the
district where they would typically be attending in-person classes. For example, a student of Oklahoma City Public Schools would be eligible to audition for COCDA if that student is enrolled in OKCPS
virtual school (or if the student is atttending OKCPS in-person and the district transitions to distance learning), but not if that student has chosen to attend a virtual school outside of their
district, such as Epic.
What is COCDA?
COCDA has two junior high choirs: a mixed choir made up
of approximately 170 students, and a treble choir made up of approximately 130 students. Students in grades 7, 8 and 9 audition in September for this honor. They audition with the
OCDA Junior High All State audition selections. The students audition on voice parts exactly like they would for Junior High All State (S1, S2, A1, A2, T1, T2, B1, B2). Clinicians from
all over have been brought in to work with students. Previous clinicians for this festival include Dr. Terry Barum, Dr. Steven Curtis, Ms. Janis Dawson, Dr. Darla Eshelman, Mr. Victor
Johnson, Dr. Mark Lucas, Ms. Laura Farnell, and Dr. Judith Willoughby. The mixed group performs the three OCDA Junior High All State audition selections, and one other piece of the director's
choice. The treble group performs four pieces of the director's choice (two of which are from the OCDA Treble Chorus Rep list).
COCDA is in its fifth year of having an auditioned high
school choir. Students in grades 10, 11 and 12 audition using two of the four OkMEA All-State audition pieces. The number of students accepted depends on how many audition. The officers work to make
sure the choir has a balanced number of students per section.
Print 