The South Dakota Chapter of the American Choral Directors Association (SDACDA) has awarded its Lifetime Achievement Award for 2010 to Dr. James Feiszli, director of music at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology.
Each year the SDACDA presents the award to a choral director working in South Dakota. The honor recognizes significant impact on the lives of students pursuing excellence in choral music throughout the director's teaching career.
Feiszli has served as director of music at the School of Mines since 1983, where he oversees the music program, directs three choirs and the brass choir and teaches applied voice. He is active as a tenor with Dakota Voices, his six-voice vocal ensemble.
Feiszli also serves as committee chair of ACDA ChoralNet, the premier communications and social networking site for the global online choral community. First founded in 1993 by Feiszli as an e-mail distribution list, it transformed into an independent non-profit corporation supported by the major choral associations of the world including ACDA, the International Federation for Choral Music, Chorus America and many commercial entities.
Feiszli served as the president and chief executive of ChoralNet for 17 years and recently engineered the merger of ChoralNet with ACDA, creating the most comprehensive and innovative source for information and collaboration between choral directors, with more than 12,000 registered members from six continents.
