Large Group Contest

This past Saturday was State Large Group Contest at Kennedy High School. This contest consisted of individual singers performing solos, small band and orchestra groups, and small choirs performing in front of judges to get a rating. The ratings go from five being the least to one which is sounding outstanding. For almost all solo students, which is the main portion of the event, they are voice lesson students who have been practicing their songs for months at a time. I've never performed a solo at this annual event because I've never had a voice teacher. I've just sung how I do and if people don't like it then so be it. I've always thought that the sound I make is pretty good and acceptable into many choirs. Also I could never repeat the same song over and over with the same teacher for over four months. I would get so bored going into a lesson two days every week and working on the same parts over and over again.

This year however I did participate in a choir. The Kennedy Chamber Choir. We consisted of twenty four singers and we sang two songs at this contest. One interesting thing about this contest is that solo acts have seven minutes to perform their song while we as a choir only had five. A little bizarre right? The larger group has less time? But regardless we made it work and sang two beautiful songs. The first was Matona Mia by Orlando di Lasso and the second was Lay a Garland by Robert Pearsall. Both songs show off a lot of diversity that our group can do and allowed us to showcase some of our best work. As an assemble we have practiced these songs for about two months, really trying to perfect each one. We also prepared one other song but for the sake of the time limit we were not able to perform that one. Luckily our hard work paid off! We received a one rating and kept our group name at high standards.

It's crazy to think about how much time us as an assemble put in for five minutes though. We put months' worth of work into three songs in order to get a rating from one judge. What if she didn't like us? What if she didn't find our pieces difficult enough? Luckily she loved them and felt the energy and compassion from our music, but its crazy how this sort of a process works. Soon I'll discuss the All-State Music process and you will really find out how crazy some music contests are.

As a whole though I was glad to be a part of the State Large Group Contest and showcase what the Kennedy Chamber Choir has to bring to the table. And even though we only performed for five minutes, the music we made was better than any rehearsal we ever had and the memories of the feeling of performing it will never disappoint.