About All-State Choir

Texas Two-Year College Choral Excellence

The Texas Two-Year College Choral Directors Association is committed to fostering exceptional choral experiences for students across Texas. We unite educators and performers through all-state auditions and premier events to elevate two-year college music programs statewide.

Texas Two-Year College All-State Choirs Conducted by Esteemed Maestros

Meet the dedicated professionals who drive our mission and inspire student musicians.

Dr. Lynne Gackle

2025-2026 Guest Clinician

Lynne Gackle is Professor Emeritus of Music at Baylor University where she served as the Director of Choral Activities, Chair of the Ensemble Division and held the Mary Gibbs Jones Chair in Music. In addition to her position at Baylor University, Dr. Gackle previously taught at the University of South Florida, the University of Mississippi, and the University of Miami (FL). She received her education from LSU (BME) and the University of Miami (MM/PhD).

Lynne is an active choral clinician and conductor, nationally and internationally. She has conducted All-State, Festival Choirs and Clinics in more than 30 states, several Divisional ACDA honor choirs and two ACDA national honor choirs. Her choirs have also performed at American Choral Directors Association state, regional, and national conferences as well as at the Music Educators National Conference Biennial Convention (currently known as NAFME). Internationally, she conducted the Australian National Choral Association’s High School Women’s Choir in Brisbane, the Alberta Choral Federation’s High School Honor Choir in Calgary, the DoDDS-Europe Honors Music Festival Mixed Choir, (Wiesbaden, Germany), the Haydn Youth Festival in Vienna, the Association for Music in International Schools (AMIS) International Women’s Honor Choir in Beijing, China as well as Luxembourg, and the International Honors Performance High School Honor Choir at the Sydney Opera House in Sydney, Australia. For the past 25 years, she has served as guest conductor for various National Honor Choirs at Carnegie Hall in New York City.

She has held various positions within the American Choral Directors Association, including National President, Southern Division and ACDA-Florida President, as well as National R & S Chair for Children’s Choir, Southern Division Chair for Women’s Choir and VP Collegiate/Community Choirs for the Texas Choral Directors Association (TCDA). She currently serves on the Past-National President’s Council of ACDA. The Florida ACDA awarded her the Wayne Hugoboom Distinguished Service Award for dedicated service, leadership, and excellence. Dr. Gackle was awarded the highly coveted Texas Choir Master Award by the Texas Choral Directors Association (2021). In 2023, she was awarded the MacPherson Choral Prize for choral excellence in the state of Texas by the San Antonio Chamber Choir and most recently, she received the 2023 Frost Centennial Medal for Outstanding Alumni in Music Education from the University of Miami.

Gackle has written several highly cited articles for the Choral Journal. She is also the editor of Choral Artistry for the Singer (Walton Music/GIA) and the Lynne Gackle Choral Series (Colla Voce Music). Internationally recognized for her research on the female adolescent voice, Lynne is the author of Finding Ophelia’s Voice, Opening Ophelia’s Heart: Nurturing the Adolescent Female Voice (Heritage Music)). She has also served as a contributing author several books published by GIA including Choral Repertoire by Women Composers, Conducting Women’s Choirs: Strategies for Success, and Teaching Music Through Performance in Choir, Vol. 4 and Vol. 5. Additionally, she has published articles for Choral Reflections (Insights from American Choral Conductor/Teachers (Hal Leonard Publishing), the Oxford Handbook for Singing (Oxford Press) and was a Lead Author for Voices in Concert (Hal Leonard/McGraw Hill). She holds memberships in ACDA, TMEA, and TCDA.

Lynne and her husband, Merlin Gackle, reside in Waco, Texas.

Audition Guidelines

The audition must be a live audition and alternates must be auditioned and selected at the same time with no additions or substitutions after the registration form has been sent to the Executive Secretary. If an institution does not have a complete octet, but more than one student on a given part, the additional singers may be certified as alternates at the time of the audition/certification process.
There must be at least three directors present and judging at each audition.
At each audition site singers will be seated in section configuration, with space allowing for adjudicating directors to hear individual performances.
Program repertoire must be sung in its entirety.
Students will be judged on correct intonation, rhythm, and diction.

Individuals are advised that during the section rehearsals on Wednesday evening they may be selected at random to demonstrate appropriate preparation. Directors at each college must plan to conduct review rehearsals in January before the TMEA Convention. An organized region rehearsal may serve this purpose.

From the TTCCDA Constitution and By-laws

SECTION 2 – AUDITION/CERTIFICATION PROCESS

Each institution will be allowed to certify an octet (one student on a part). This octet shall include Soprano I and II, Alto I and II; Tenor I and II and Bass I and II. If an institution does not have a complete octet, then any additional singers will be certified as alternates at the time of the audition/certification process. The purpose of the audition/certification process is to certify that each student knows his or her part. It is not sufficient that an individual has attended a group rehearsal. Students must demonstrate knowledge of all the selected music. There must be three judges at each audition/certification site. If it is not possible for all three judges to be a TTCCDA choral director, the additional judges may be a music teacher from a college faculty or community.