Iowa State’s all women’s honor choir, Cantamus, has been invited to the 2017 ACDA National Conference. The conference is being held in Minneapolis, Minnesota from March 8 to March 11.

The American Choral Directors Association was created in 1959 as a nonprofit music-education organization.

An invitation to this conference is not taken lightly. The ACDA National Conference is held every other year. This is the second consecutive invitation that Cantamus has received for nationals, the previous being held in 2013 in Dallas, Texas.

“Cantamus is the first collegiate women’s choir in the history of ACDA to receive consecutive invitations,” said Kathleen Rodde, director of Cantamus, “Only 30 choirs were invited to perform this year, with Cantamus being the only collegiate women’s choir to receive an invitation.”

This means that for most members like Kristen Frueh, Rachel Zimmerman, and Bethany Darr, it will be their first opportunity to attend. Kristen is a sophomore at Iowa State and is currently spending her fourth semester with Cantamus.

All three women have been practicing for the conference for the entire year. They sent in a video audition tape in search of their invitation.

“It is really interesting to see how the dynamic of the choir changes over time,” Frueh said.

The group has been working on six pieces to perform at the conference. Director Kathleen Rodde picks out the pieces for the choir to work on.

“My job is to work alongside Kathleen and help her in any way that she may need assistance as well as help with outside events that the choir does,” said Zimmerman, President of Cantamus and Senior at Iowa State University.

“We had some guest directors come in to discuss what we could change and improve,” Frueh said. “Right now we are just fine tuning things and gearing up for when we leave.”

Though they have known their songs for a while now, the fine-tuning process can be very stressful. There is a lot of pressure to perform to the best of their ability. Every single member is dedicated to the group and their best efforts are always given. The group meets three times per week during the day.

“Challenges come from the language pieces and just finding what the songs mean to us, so we have to research what the lyrics meant so that we can really portray that to the audience,” said Bethany Darr, who is currently spending her third semester with Cantamus and is a sophomore at Iowa State.

Another challenge comes from the fact that they are an all women choir, and the only women’s choir to be performing at the ACDA National Convention.

“Overcoming the stereotypes and proving to people that we are capable is really important to us as an all women choir,” Zimmerman said.

It seems as though they have overcome these challenges, and are creating so many memories because of the time spent together.

 “You really learn a lot about everyone you are working with, and you end up creating something so beautiful,” Frueh said.

The women of Cantamus gave a beautiful performance at the ISU Choirs Showcase on Feb. 12. They will be performing a preview called the “Bon Voyage Concert” on Sunday, March 5 at 4:30 p.m. in the Martha-Ellen Tye Recital Hall. The group will perform March 10, 2017 at 2pm in Orchestra Hall and 5:30p Central Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota.