Sunday, May 9, 2010

Short People

We recently had our end of the year choir concert, where the top two choirs in the school performed sets of music, and all of the seniors were recognized. I am in both of the choirs that performed this past week, and while I just barely made it to the concert on time (I had an away tennis meet the same day which ended fifteen minutes before the scheduled start of the concert), both performances went pretty well.
Chamber choir is the top choir at my high school, there are just under thirty students in this choir, and the music we do in that class is often much harder than the music we do in the next highest choir (that choir has more than one hundred students).
Because of the increasingly large numbers of students allowed into the top two choirs this year, and because so many people tried out to be in a choir or in a show choir for next year, our directors have decided to make several changes to the choir program for next year.
The biggest changes being made for next year is the amount of people let into Chamber choir and into Concert choir (choir second to Chamber choir in terms of skill, and in terms of difficulty to make the group). There was a big problem faced by Concert Choir this year due to the imbalance of the group. There were probably at least twice as many sopranos than any other voice part in the choir, and there were about half as many guys than girls (altos and sopranos). In an effort to fix the blend and balance of the choir, our director is seriously thinking of cutting the number of each voice part down to twenty per section. This would mean a considerate cut in the number of students in the group this year, and a significant increase in the number of students in the intermediate choir. I feel confident that I would make Concert Choir again for next year, but I feel less certain about whether I’d make Chamber Choir again.
Our director recognizes Chamber Choir as the most select choir at our school. He feels though, that over the past few years, the choir has become less and less select. There are just under thirty students in Chamber Choir, and our director wants to redo the structure of Chamber Choir for next year so that there will only be sixteen people in the group. This means that several of the students who are members of Chamber Choir this year, will not be members next year. The soprano section will be especially competitive to be a part of ( I am a soprano).
In Chamber choir, there are currently eleven sopranos, but only four of them are seniors, which means there are seven current Chamber Choir sopranos auditioning for four openings. This concept becomes even more nerve-racking when you take into account that there are three current freshman sopranos that are apparently amazing. I feel confident about making concert choir, but after going over the numbers, I feel less confident in whether or not I will make Chamber Choir next year.

This video is of a small group singing one of the songs Chamber Choir performed at our last concert.

*From: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JnkHYTWxCw&feature=PlayList&p=138464B5CF4A74E4&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=4

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