Silence. The only thing you can hear is your heartbeat. The choir director begins to move their hands to an imaginary beat, the altos start humming in their low tones, sopranos joining in to form a harmony echoing throughout the auditorium.
On March 8, the Advanced Choir went to the MCPS High School Choir Festival and on March 10, the Madrigals went to the Chamber Choir Adjudication. The choir festival, also known as a choir adjudication, is a place where high school choirs from MCPS and neighboring counties go to perform a set of songs for scoring judges, who grade the performance based on both technical and artistic aspects. This year it was hosted at Clarksburg High School for Advanced Choir, and Damascus United Methodist Church for Madrigals.
“It’s not necessarily a competition to get a ranking out of all the other schools, but it is competitive in the fact that choirs who get a score of majority 1’s, which is the highest score you can for any category, qualify for States,” senior Madrigal singer Sarah Beebe said.
Advanced Choir
Walter Johnson’s Advanced Chorus students are skilled in vocal tone, intonation and musical reading skills. They perform level IV and V festival music repertoire while learning about the music’s context, allowing them to show off their skills at performances.
“There are judges who grade us upon how we sound [and] like a whole bunch of different things like dynamic tone, volume, and then there’s also the sight reading and reading rhythmic test,” Advanced Choir senior Izzy Garza said.
Aside from the judges, the Advanced Choir needed to memorize over 5 different songs, some even in different languages. They sang 5 Hebrew love songs, “Dies Irae” and “Praise his holy name”.
The prep for the county festival involves lots of trial and error over weeks and even months, spending class time working on songs they are performing, and fixing what they need to in order to perfect the song to the best of their abilities. This year, the advanced choir moved on to states, getting scores of ones (superior) across the board. Their hard work has paid off and is going to continue as they move on to their final few performances before the end of the year.
“My favorite part was taking that W for AC. I’m proud of everyone as a collaborative,” Advanced Choir senior Ava McKnight said.
Madrigals
The WJ Madrigals are a small ensemble for experienced high school chorus singers. They sing a variety of music written for small vocal groups, usually without background music. Students can take part in leadership activities with the ensemble, and they can also perform at other schools and in the community.
“It was my first time going to a festival in high school and it was really fun. We did really well which was nice,” sophomore Madrigal Ben Kish said.
They are usually dressed in renaissance clothing connecting their presentation with the songs they sing, they only sang three songs this year; “El Grillo”, “Mothers Song”, and “Kalējs Kala Debsīs”. From songs from the 16th century to a folk song, Madrigals showed range.
Their prep started in early January, spending their class periods practicing and sound-checking. They make sure that their voices are blended together to make it sound harmonized. The Madrigals also made it to States, with great scores also ones across the board, and they are starting to practice now.
“Being in Madrigals has been an amazing experience in my junior and senior years at WJ,” Beebe said.
Moving forward
Only a select few school choirs will move forward to States and because this is a statewide festival, the Maryland State High School Choral Festival will only happen in April or May.
In States, the choirs will do the same thing but the competition has increased since those in State are of higher level, as they have managed to end at the top of their competitions. This choral festival will have both the Madrigals and Advanced Choir.
“Props to Ms. Butler for just being awesome. She brings the choir down to its roots and brings out an excellent performance out of each one of us. As a senior, her optimism and enthusiasm that she brings to school every day is a motivator to keep my head up,” McKnight said.
