The James A. Young Memorial
Outstanding Choir Director Award

As the dates for the inaugural Choirs of Note™ approached in 2007, festival creators and founders Gordon Crow and Russell Svenningsen decided that choir directors needed to be recognized for their contributions of teaching and inspiring our youth through music. It was Mr. Svenningsen who suggested that an award honoring an outstanding high school choir director be established in honor of James A. Young… Mr. Crow’s much beloved high school choir teacher (see bio).

The James A. Young Memorial Outstanding Choir Director Award is conferred by Choirs of Note™ to a high school choir director who, reminiscent of Mr. Young, demonstrates an enduring devotion to exposing youth to the capacity of choral music to be a lifelong experience. Recipients of this award display a love of teaching. Over the course of many years, they reveal choral music to students as a source of wonder, and an enchanting art capable of opening hearts and minds. Honorees have given of their time and talents enthusiastically in ways that motivate youth toward accomplishment, fulfillment, and discovery. The high school choir directors honored use choral music as a means to instill a sense of teamwork, cooperation, and many other qualities that serve the youth they teach throughout their lives. Each individual choir director honored with this award is a credit to the school in which they teach, and in the communities in which they live.

Along with a beautiful plaque commemorating their receiving of the James A. Young Memorial Outstanding Choir Director Award, each honoree is also given a $500 award that they can designate for scholarship to the high school at which they taught, or they can use it for continuing education for themselves.

2008 Honoree

Mr. Michael Smith
Brainerd High School and Concordia College

Michael Smith, who has a background of 40 years in conducting choral music, epitomizes the characteristics of the James A. Young Memorial Award. He is today the conductor of The Concordia College Chapel Choir, Männerchor and Cantabile, working closely with Dr. René Clausen in developing the choral music program at Concordia. However, this does not tell the story of an incredibly committed teacher and choir conductor.

Mr. Smith began his career in music in 1966 at the high school in Aitkin, MN. In 1984, he began what quickly grew into a celebrated career as director of vocal music at Brainerd High School. He also taught music and conducted at Willmar High School and Brainerd Community College.

Mr. Smith is a 1966 graduate of St. Olaf College. He completed his master's degree at the University of Northern Colorado, and all but his dissertation of his doctorate in music education at the University of Minnesota, where he also served as director of the Male Chorus. Mr. Smith received the National Federation of State High School Associations Outstanding Music Educator Award in 2005. In 1990, he was named Minnesota Music Educator of the Year, and in 1999 the Minnesota American Choral Directors Association Choral Director of the Year. Mr. Smith has also served as Minnesota ACDA president. He was the first Minnesota high school director to conduct the Minnesota All-State Men's Chorus and the first high school director to conduct the Minnesota ACDA Dialogue Conductor's Chorus.

The choral tradition begun by Mr. Smith at Brainerd High School continues yet today. In 2007, the Brainerd High School A Cappella Choir was awarded first place at the inaugural Choirs of Note™ festival and competition. The same choir will perform at the 2008 Choirs of Note™, and be on hand to help honor Mr. Smith.

2007 Honoree

Ms. Melanie Benson
Dawson-Boyd High School

On the evening of April 21, 2007, very near the conclusion of the inaugural Choirs of Note™ Gala Concert at the Schwan Community Center for the Performing Arts, it was announced that Melanie Benson was the first ever recipient of the James A. Young Memorial Outstanding Choir Director Award. The announcement caused a spontaneous explosion of cheers and wild applause from the large contingent of concertgoers from the school district Mrs. Benson has served for many years.

In every respect, Mrs. Benson epitomizes the high standards sought in teachers to honor with the James A. Young Award. A native of Willmar, Minnesota, she has been the Choral Director for the Dawson-Boyd School District for more than twenty years. She received her B.S. in Music Education with a vocal emphasis from St. Cloud University. In addition to leading the choral program at Dawson-Boyd High School, she teaches elementary general music for grades three through six at Stevens Elementary in Dawson.

Mrs. Benson was the obvious choice to be the first-ever recipient of the award, according to the leaders of Choirs of Note™.

“Melanie Benson shares much in common with the namesake of this award,” Gordon Crow, President of Choirs of Note™ said. “She is adored and cherished by her students, current and past, and is treasured by the community she serves. She imbues to all an infectious excitement for choral music, and shares a more-than-obvious affection with every one of her students.”

“Absolutely no one would have faulted Melanie Benson if after a couple of years teaching at Dawson-Boyd she had moved on to advance her career,” Russell Svenningsen, Artistic Director of Choirs of Note™ said. “Instead, she chose to remain and has served thousands of children who have passed through the Dawson-Boyd School District. She is the model of what this award was designed to represent.”

Under the leadership of Mrs. Benson, the Dawson-Boyd School District has enjoyed a high percentage of student involvement in its music department and has consistently earned superior ratings at regional choral contests and festivals. In 1998, the Dawson-Boyd High School Music Department was awarded the Minnesota Music Educators Association's Outstanding Music Department of the Year. The district maintains a three-level string program, three-level band program. Mrs. Benson leads a junior high choir and senior high choir, both non-auditioned.

Mrs. Benson, a member of American Choral Directors Association, has consistently sent vocal students to statewide honors choirs at the elementary, junior high and high school levels. In recent years, she has been the driving artistic force in the music department to produce collaborative musical theater, drawing on the strengths of student musicians, adult musicians in the community and community volunteers.

James A. Young

James A. Young retired in 1978 after decades as a music educator. Over the course of an extraordinary career, he taught instrumental and choral music to thousands of elementary and high school students. He established and directed a host of church and community choirs, and combined choirs in small communities, where music opportunities were limited. Everywhere he taught, he presented classic works of great music. To generate support for his music programs, he took his high school choirs to surrounding communities to perform at service clubs, conventions, churches… just about anywhere they were welcome. His choirs consistently took high marks at music festivals. As a result, he became acquainted with music educators throughout the nation. Choral music was his great passion.

Mr. Young attended Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, on a football scholarship. Following graduation from Luther, he and his new bride, high school sweetheart Alice, took his first teaching job in Williams, Minnesota. There he organized the choral and band programs, as well as taught all science classes, and coached football and baseball. Coaching school sports teams became his trademark "hook" to get male voices to sing in his choirs. He also expected his band members to sing as well as play their instruments. During one school year, his band sang as a full choir at a music festival and came home with a superior rating.

Eventually, James and Alice Young moved their growing family to Sultan, Washington. There he taught music and general science. As much as he loved the more temperate climate of the west, he could not resist the call back to Minnesota where his people and teaching skills were widely regarded. He accepted an offer as high school principal in Warroad, Minnesota. There, he taught science, and was director of music in the public schools. While in Warroad, he developed a wonderful program that generated job offers back out west. He took teaching jobs again in the northwest, before settling in southern California.

In 1964, Mr. Young accepted the position as music director at a school that was just opening, Troy High School, in Fullerton, California. At Troy, he combined his love of choral music, and his people and teaching skills, into creating what became a nationally celebrated high school choral program.

Mr. Young’s choirs and other vocal ensembles at Troy earned many awards for excellence. The Troy High school Choir was one of fifteen in the nation to be invited to participate at and perform in a music festival in Vienna Austria. It was the only U.S. high school choir to be invited back twice more. Mr. Young was well known for the numerous choral clinics he conducted using his Troy singers. His choirs joined him at numerous festivals and worked with other choirs from many schools and states. Sometimes playful, attention to detail and vocal technique were always his focus.

Jim and Alice Young raised six children. Their eldest daughter, Janann Roodzant, said this of her father:

“A singer myself, I was trained by Weston Noble of Luther College fame. By the time dad was building a great choral tradition at Troy High School, I too was an educator. The difference he made with various groups was astounding. His passion for good choral sound, and the magic he worked with kids and all people was a gift from God. He could talk us all into becoming so much more than we even believed we could do, whether we were strangers he just met, beloved students, members of his groups, or close friends and family. Music to him was just a way to reach humanity. He had the audience in mind during concert planning. He inspired the best in his kids, students, friends and strangers. He built friendships across this nation, whether they were the next-door farmer friend and pal, the big shot directors of music from the university level, or the parents of a music student, his star performers, or his average struggling student — each knew he loved them for their unique abilities. He saw goodness and made us all shine.”

Gordon Crow, co-founder of Choirs of Note™ and a student of Mr. Young at Troy High School, had this to say:

“No single person outside of my immediate family has had a more profoundly positive influence on my life than Mr. Young had almost 40 years ago. I remain fascinated with choral music, and yet today seek out opportunities to participate in choirs. It is a fascination that began the summer before my freshman year at Troy High School when a kindly teacher, who would come to be addressed as “Papa Young” by me and hundreds of students, surfaced at a summer basketball league and asked me to give choir a shot. I did, and because of Mr. Young, I will enjoy choral music well done for the remainder of my life.”

James A. Young died in August 1998, at the age of 83. He was survived by his wife, four daughters, two sons, a sister, 14 grandchildren, four great-grandchildren, and thousands of students whose lives he touch so magically as a Choir Director. Literally hundreds of the students he influenced now teach, perform, or simply enjoy music because of James A. "Papa" Young.