Choir Festival
After receiving only a little sleep last night, this morning it was quite the struggle to make it out of bed and prepare for the day. Which, of course today was an important day: it was choir festival day. I managed to throw some stuff together in my lunch box, put on my blue jeans and a "Doctor Who" shirt, then walk out to the car.
Every Tuesday I have Student Council, and today was no exception. The only tricky part of the situation is I was borrowing my friend's choir shirt for the festival since I couldn't find mine and I wasn't sure how much time in between that and getting on the buses at 8:30. The meeting today went abnormally long and even after they released everyone from the commons a particular student was arguing with one of the sponsors. Once they finally excused the rest of us to leave, I sprinted down the hallway to find Kaylie to grab her choir shirt from her and go change into it. I made it back to the choir room with only minutes to spare before singing the national anthem and reciting the pledge.
Mrs. Elliott instructed all of the SOUL choir kids to get in our places on the risers in order to warm up. (There are four choirs at my school: SOUL, LOVE, MOVE, and Vocal Ensemble. All except SOUL are audition choirs, and SOUL was the first group to perform for the judges in the morning out of the four groups, so we got prepared first.) We sang a couple of our vocal exercises then jetted to the buses that were waiting outside for us. Each person was assigned to certain buses based on what choirs you were apart of; I was put on bus three. Where we were singing was about 30 minutes away, and I didn't really have much to do with most of my friends being on different buses than I was. I mainly gazed out the window and hoped for time to pass quickly.
Upon arriving at the church, our choir director signed us in then allowed us to sit in the sanctuary and listen to another group perform. The acoustics in the church were INCREDIBLE and the stained glass windows were captivating. We listened to one group, but after that it was time for us to warm up before going on stage so we exited that room just to walk into a different one. By this point in the day our group has already received multiple weird looks due to our overall appearance as a choir. We all wore our baby blue SOUL t-shirts along with blue jeans, whereas every other choir was in tuxes or dresses. We lined up in our spots and found our "windows" and went through both of our pieces, "Jambo" and "Cantate Hodie". Typically you're supposed to perform three pieces, but due to the snow days they made an exception for most of the schools. As a non-audition choir, we struggled with unified vowels and supported breath in the practice room, but otherwise we were prepared to go in there and blow away the judges.
Almost one hundred of us walked on stage with anxiety creeping through the atmosphere. Our student teacher Ms. Schneider directed our first song "Cantate", while Mrs. Elliott directed "Jambo". In my personal opinion, I think we did the best on "Jambo", with it's more exciting vibe and easier pronunciation. Even then our judging was not over, we had to go sight-read. Sight reading is pretty self-explanatory: you are handed a score of unfamiliar music and you must read a line of it rhythmically and melodically. In class we had done more intimidating sight-reading exercises than what we were given today. Ironically, the judge asked us if we were middle schoolers. We all laughed it off but were very concerned by the fact he made that comment early on. Luckily, we found out later we scored superior in that category!
Before we left, once again we sat and watched more choirs perform. I found it interesting that most of the choirs seemed to fall into algorithmic pattern of faces. Each group brought about the same appearance and only different in voices. I began to lost interest in the similarity of the voices and paid more attention to the stained glass windows. I remember a couple of years ago my mom told me that in order to not cry she'd count the tiles on the ceiling to distract herself. Which, I wasn't about to cry but it definitely proved to be more entertaining to appreciate the intricacy of the designs inside the stained glass. Almost every panel repeated a different scene in the life of Jesus in vibrant colors.
Mrs. Elliott called all of the SOUL choir out into the parking lot to send us and tell us our scores. Like I said earlier, we scored a superior in sight-reading, but only an excellent in our performance. To get to state festival, though, you have to get a superior. We were all bummed but she praised our efforts and stated that this year was one of the first for out choir to earn that high of a rating for sight-reading. The rest of the choirs did not go on 'till much later, so they stayed at the church while we boarded the buses to go back to school just in time for lunch, part of third block, and fourth. I napped on the way back and was dissatisfied to feel like the trip back took a shorter amount of time.
Overall, I really enjoyed today and it was nice not having to go to Trig today. But I should probably do that homework now that I've procrastinated long enough.
Love always,
Allison
Every Tuesday I have Student Council, and today was no exception. The only tricky part of the situation is I was borrowing my friend's choir shirt for the festival since I couldn't find mine and I wasn't sure how much time in between that and getting on the buses at 8:30. The meeting today went abnormally long and even after they released everyone from the commons a particular student was arguing with one of the sponsors. Once they finally excused the rest of us to leave, I sprinted down the hallway to find Kaylie to grab her choir shirt from her and go change into it. I made it back to the choir room with only minutes to spare before singing the national anthem and reciting the pledge.
Mrs. Elliott instructed all of the SOUL choir kids to get in our places on the risers in order to warm up. (There are four choirs at my school: SOUL, LOVE, MOVE, and Vocal Ensemble. All except SOUL are audition choirs, and SOUL was the first group to perform for the judges in the morning out of the four groups, so we got prepared first.) We sang a couple of our vocal exercises then jetted to the buses that were waiting outside for us. Each person was assigned to certain buses based on what choirs you were apart of; I was put on bus three. Where we were singing was about 30 minutes away, and I didn't really have much to do with most of my friends being on different buses than I was. I mainly gazed out the window and hoped for time to pass quickly.
Upon arriving at the church, our choir director signed us in then allowed us to sit in the sanctuary and listen to another group perform. The acoustics in the church were INCREDIBLE and the stained glass windows were captivating. We listened to one group, but after that it was time for us to warm up before going on stage so we exited that room just to walk into a different one. By this point in the day our group has already received multiple weird looks due to our overall appearance as a choir. We all wore our baby blue SOUL t-shirts along with blue jeans, whereas every other choir was in tuxes or dresses. We lined up in our spots and found our "windows" and went through both of our pieces, "Jambo" and "Cantate Hodie". Typically you're supposed to perform three pieces, but due to the snow days they made an exception for most of the schools. As a non-audition choir, we struggled with unified vowels and supported breath in the practice room, but otherwise we were prepared to go in there and blow away the judges.
Almost one hundred of us walked on stage with anxiety creeping through the atmosphere. Our student teacher Ms. Schneider directed our first song "Cantate", while Mrs. Elliott directed "Jambo". In my personal opinion, I think we did the best on "Jambo", with it's more exciting vibe and easier pronunciation. Even then our judging was not over, we had to go sight-read. Sight reading is pretty self-explanatory: you are handed a score of unfamiliar music and you must read a line of it rhythmically and melodically. In class we had done more intimidating sight-reading exercises than what we were given today. Ironically, the judge asked us if we were middle schoolers. We all laughed it off but were very concerned by the fact he made that comment early on. Luckily, we found out later we scored superior in that category!
Before we left, once again we sat and watched more choirs perform. I found it interesting that most of the choirs seemed to fall into algorithmic pattern of faces. Each group brought about the same appearance and only different in voices. I began to lost interest in the similarity of the voices and paid more attention to the stained glass windows. I remember a couple of years ago my mom told me that in order to not cry she'd count the tiles on the ceiling to distract herself. Which, I wasn't about to cry but it definitely proved to be more entertaining to appreciate the intricacy of the designs inside the stained glass. Almost every panel repeated a different scene in the life of Jesus in vibrant colors.
Mrs. Elliott called all of the SOUL choir out into the parking lot to send us and tell us our scores. Like I said earlier, we scored a superior in sight-reading, but only an excellent in our performance. To get to state festival, though, you have to get a superior. We were all bummed but she praised our efforts and stated that this year was one of the first for out choir to earn that high of a rating for sight-reading. The rest of the choirs did not go on 'till much later, so they stayed at the church while we boarded the buses to go back to school just in time for lunch, part of third block, and fourth. I napped on the way back and was dissatisfied to feel like the trip back took a shorter amount of time.
Overall, I really enjoyed today and it was nice not having to go to Trig today. But I should probably do that homework now that I've procrastinated long enough.
Love always,
Allison
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