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opening concert

COMBINE COLLEGIATE CHOIRS with TRAM SPARKS

NORTHWEST SINGS

The NWACDA conference, “Sing for a Change,” opens with Northwest Sings in the acoustically remarkable Lagerquist Concert Hall, on the campus of Pacific Lutheran University.  The evening includes a performance by the Portland State University Chamber Choir, under the direction of Dr. Ethan Sperry, a collegiate showcase featuring each of the participating seven college choirs, and the combined NWACDA Choir with more than 225 singers.  The Combined Collegiate Choir will be under the direction of Dr. Tram Sparks, Professor of Practice at USC. The Combined Collegiate Chorus is performing a newly commissioned work by Saunder Choi, with an original text by Brian Sonia-Wallace, entitled, “Citizens of the Neon Republic.” The text, created in conjunction with ChatGTP, imagines a dystopian future where AI reigns.  Paired with this new work is Brahms’ lament of the death of beauty, Nänie, and an arrangement of Vienna Teng’s “The Hymn of Axcion.”

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TRAM
SPARKS

Tram Sparks is a professor of practice at the USC Thornton School of Music and serves as Choral Music Department Chair. She holds degrees in piano performance and a Master’s in Music in Choral Conducting from Temple University you and a Doctorate of Music Arts from Yale University.  Prior appointments include the Associate Director of Choral Activities at Temple University, Boyer College of Music & Dance, and Dordt University.  Sparks’ research interests include conducting technique rooted in modern dance theory (specifically, Graham Technique® and Laban movement analysis) and cheironomy’s forms and functions in contemporaneous early communities of worship. A child refugee of the Vietnam War, Sparks’ early musical training was in Okinawa, Japan and subsequently, at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Pre-College Division. 

March 4, 2026 at 8pm 
Lagerquist Concert Hall
Pacific Lutheran University

Opening Concert

Participating Collegiate Choirs

  • University of Montana, Stevie Hirner

  • Eastern Washington University, Kristina Ploeger-Hekmatpanah

  • University of Portland, Davd De Lyser

  • Shoreline Community College, Anjali Chudasama

  • Oregon State University, Steven Zielke

  • Boise State University, Richard Hutton

  • Pacific Lutheran University, Raul Dominguez 

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