Governor’s Message

We hope to open registration for the 67th Texoma NATS Regional Conference and Student Auditions at Texas A&M Commerce on September 10, and registration will close on October 10 at 6pm.  The conference begins on Wednesday, November 8 and concludes on Saturday, November 11.  Jennifer Glidden, site coordinator, and her faculty colleagues have all been excellent partners.  Their campus has stunning facilities for our conference, and I look forward to seeing you all there.  Hotel information is currently posted on our website, www.texmoanats.org, under the “Region Conference” tab.  Conference registration is $50, and each student audition entry is $20.  Parking will be free, with details on location to be communicated closer to the conference.

TAMU-Commerce will present soprano Elizabeth Baldwin in recital on Thursday evening, November 9, and they will present Handel’s Xerxes, trimmed to about 2’30” on Friday evening, November 10.  Recital tickets are $20, and opera tickets are $15, all purchasable with your conference registration.

Registration will again occur through Auditionware.  However, this year National NATS has standardized the registration process throughout our organization.  There should be several advantages in this process.  First, although you will begin the process at www.texomasnats.org, your payment will be processed through the NATS website.  This process will allow a detailed receipt to be stored in your member account for you to reference at any time for tax or reimbursement purposes. Second, it will save our region from paying PayPal fees on each transaction.  Third, singers who advance to later rounds of NSA will automatically be imported to the system for the next round so when you go in to register them all their information should already be available to you.  I offer these positives because, at the same time, anything new is bound to have its complications.  Please extend your graciousness as we all grow into this new system together.

The Texoma NATS Board of Control approved a new rule for any teachers interested in bringing only high school students to the auditions in November. Per the new rule, Texoma NATS will allow teachers only entering high school students the option of attending the Saturday events of the Conference at a reduced registration fee of $20. At this time, our registration system will still require you to pay $50 for conference registration when you register. We will refund to you the $30 balance at the time you check in on Saturday morning for the secondary judges meeting for all teachers who have selected ‘Saturday only’ attendance.  Teachers entering only high school students are, of course, also welcome to attend the entire conference beginning on Thursday, for the full conference fee of $50. This change has been implemented in hopes of increasing the numbers of high school students that are able to participate in the competition.