Advanced Choir Goes to Festival

This last February, the Choir of Jackson Preparatory and Early College was invited to compete in an event called the Choir Festival. The concert itself was highly successful in terms of experience. But some JPEC competitors hoped for a better score. Stephanie Hicks said about the Choir’s performance,

“No, it did not go as expected. It went a little worse than I thought because of the scoring.” Their final scores were a high three for singing and a high two for sight reading. The scores range from a high one to a low five. The high one is the best score and a low five is the worst. The scores they received were about average.

At 10:30 am they went on stage and sung some fantastic songs, Come Follow Me and River Sing Your Song. After that, they went into a clinic where they addressed what they did well and to change a few techniques. Next, they went into sight reading for two hours. Choir student, Madison Rudd liked the Clinic stating,

“Our sight reading was not too good; the clinic helped a lot.”

From the perspective of someone in the audience, I saw great posture and no fidgeting like you might expect from anxious teenagers. I was proud of the way they performed, and I, too, thought they deserved better scores than they received.

Mrs. Ortell, the choir teacher, shared what she thought about the performance at Choir Festival,

“I was extremely proud of our singers. They were poised and professional and did a beautiful job. The judges comments were varied and differing in opinion which led to us getting a lower rating than we expected. One of the judges gave us a very good rating, while one gave us a lower one. That being said, the rating is just a number and, in my heart, they will always be amazing!”