High School Choir Setting Ambitions

Fair Grove High School choir students took big steps and auditioned for district choir on September 10th.

The high school choir took students to audition for district choir at Kickapoo high school. As stated by Audra Harmon, “Anyone who wants to audition can. The only stipulations I would have is I can only allow so many students per voice part, but we have never had a problem with that.” Those students were Hannah Bruner (10), Easton Beltz (12), Hadie Wingo (10), Torri Dugan (12), and Matthew Cockroft (12).

In order to go to districts, these students had to prepare in many different ways. Harmon explained, “We spent class time and some time after school learning their pieces. For the 9/10 students, they had to learn their specific part to a song and sing with a recording. For the 11/12 students, they had to learn a solo piece. Both groups of students then had to sight read music.”

For every single audition the rules and regulations can depend on what you are doing. For this audition, because of COVID-19, everyone had to have their masks on while auditioning. Which can lead to various problems. “I prepared a lot differently than I should have. I have never done an audition with COVID-19 so I had no clue we had to wear masks while singing in the audition room, so I rehearsed with my vocal trainer and director with no mask, not realizing what a big difference it would make,” explained Hannah Bruner.

Overall, the auditioning process itself was pretty standard but it is very strict. The audition process is pretty quick. Bruner expressed that, “you wait until your number is called (i.e. Alto 1 or Soprano 5) then you go into the room which is just a normal classroom. The judges are never facing/ talking to you so you just stand there until someone presses play on your audition track. After it starts the recording will play your song and you’ll sing your part you’re auditioning for. After you finish the song the recording will ask you to sing a song corresponding to your part and then you will sight read. Once the sight reading is done, you leave the room silently and that’s the end of it.”

Joining and getting involved with new extracurricular can be scary for most people. Although Harmon had explained, “Do it! I know that people get scared to share their voice with others. It is one of the most personal things you can do. But we try to make choir an open environment where everyone can share what they love. There are truly very few people who cannot sing, so just come give it a try.”