Choir students traveled to the First United Methodist Church in Beaumont on March 4 to participate in UIL Concert and Sight Reading. The Choir averaged a 1, the highest rating, in both Concert and Sight Reading and brought home a sweepstakes trophy.
“There are three judges for the concert portion and three for the sightreading portion,” choir director Stephanie Teague said. “There is a rubric that lists the expectations for each rating 1-5. Judges rate students on such things as: tone, technique, and musical understanding. Each judge gives the group a score based on what they hear, and the three scores are averaged into a final score for the concert portion and another separate score for the sightreading portion. A Sweepstakes trophy is awarded to those groups whose score’s average out to a final rating of 1 on stage and in sightreading.”
Teague said it was a bit complicated this year to prepare for the competition. The choir only has two weeks to prepare after they came back from winter break.
“I had to admit that I needed some help because we didn’t have a lot of time to prepare,” Teague said. “We came in for two weeks during advisory to work on sightreading skills so they could get used to singing in parts together. During class, Mrs. Cronin and I split up to divide the groups so we could get the concert music learned in such a short time. I couldn’t do it alone. I am usually a control freak, so letting someone else come in to help me teach was the hardest part. I know how to teach notes, rhythms, phrasing, dynamics, etc. But doing it in the time frame we had would have been too much for me to tackle on my own.”
Choir students had to work hard to prepare, inside and outside of class. Senior Kiley Reno said they sharpened their performance pieces during class and used their advisory time to master their sight-reading skills.
“Practicing outside of school was a big must-do,” freshman Ofelia Hernandez said. “We only had two weeks to get things into tip-top shape, and I am so proud that we decided to compete. Preparing included coming in for advisory, practicing outside of school, and lots of sightreading!”
Junior Levi Strother said the hardest part of the contest was having to sightread so early in the morning with such a limited time. During sight reading, the choir students receive a piece of music they have never seen before. The goal is to figure out the notes and be able to sing the whole piece with little to no mistakes.
“When students open their music, the group has six minutes to figure out what notes they will be singing,” Teague said. “Within those six minutes, I try to point out some of the harder spots,so students are aware of them before they sing. We try to focus on spots that may fall apart, page turns, difficult intervals, etcetera. When the 6 minutes are up, students try to sing the entire song without any help from me except to keep them together through my directing. After the first time they sing through it, we get 2 minutes to try and fix any mistakes or problems that are made during the first time before we sing it again – hopefully with improvements the second time around.”
Teague said her favorite part of the whole day was seeing student’s faces in between concert songs. She said she knew they could tell they sounded good, and it filled her with pride.
“I just want to thank Mrs. Teague for always showing up for us,” Hernandez said. “After all that she’s been through, just navigating like, she still shows us how to sing with strength and passion. Even if we feel discouraged, she lets us know that she is proud of us no matter the outcome.”
