Chamber Choir earned a rating of “Superior” in the California Music Educators Association festival at the Poway Performing Arts Center, March 13. 

They performed two songs, and competed in rhythmic sight reading and melodic sight reading events. 

“For the sight reading piece, we get a paper and each section has different notes to sight read to create a harmony,” Aleya Colon (10) said. “During the rhythmic piece, we clap to the rhythm that each note provides and that the page shows. The singing piece is where our teacher p

icks two songs that he feels our voices blend the best with.”

They entered in Class 3, which is for ensembles that require auditions to join. Class 1 consists of novice ensembles, while Class 2 has intermediate ensembles. Scoring differs based on the classes, with Class 3 being the most difficult. 

After performing in front of the judges and students from other high schools, the group went to a separate room backstage for the rhythmic section. 

The singers were given a sheet of music that they’d never seen before, with only one minute to study it. After their time was up, they had to clap and count out the rhythm for the 

judges.

Following that was the melodic sight-reading, which ran similarly. They received two minutes to look over the piece, and were allowed to perform it once for practice in front of Choir Director Daniel Moyer. Upon receiving pointers from him, they sang it for adjudication.

With a score of 35, they were one point away from “Superior” in the sight-reading category, receiving a ranking of “Excellent.”

“For the sight-reading piece, we are judged on how well we sing throughout the reading and if we sing each note correctly with our section,” Colon said. 

Unlike the songs they choose to perform, they see these songs for the very first time at the competition and don’t really know what to expect.

“It can be nerve-wracking for the students even though [sight-reading] is something that we practice every day,” Moyer said. “Just seeing music and being able to hear it in your head is a really useful skill for musicians so that’s something that I love to emphasize in our choir. [We] work on that literacy and being able to be a leader in the group.” 

The choir received a “Superior” for the singing category. Singing has more nuance in the judging than the other two categories, and therefore more areas to gain or lose points.

“The things that they evaluate us on are the quality of the sound, tone quality, intonation, blend, balance, technique, rhythmic precision, articulation, which is whether or not they understand what we’re saying, musicality, interpretation of the song and phrasing, and our expression and sensitivity to dynamics,” Moyer said. 

Currently, choir spends a lot of time practicing and focusing on blend since their group is smaller this year than it has been. They only have one bass and two tenors, meaning the rest of the group consists of sopranos and altos. 

In order to be able to hear all of the harmonies, the sopranos and altos have to gauge and adjust their volume level to allow the bass to shine through. 

“I was really pleased with the blend that we got at the competition,” Moyer said. “I heard good things about it from the judges and the audience members.”

There were seven other ensembles competing, representing five different high schools. Westview performed after the mid-competition break, meaning they were able to listen to most of the other schools. 

“Tonight was very nerve-racking since we performed in the middle so we saw people go before us,” Moyer said. “But, it was super fun and an amazing experience hearing other choirs sing and learning from them while also getting feedback from judges who have been in professional settings.”

Along with the students, Moyer said he enjoyed getting to see what other schools did.

“For me as a teacher, I like to hear what it is that the other choir directors get really picky about. It’s interesting for me because I try to think of what their rehearsal process must look like,” Moyer said. “It was a great experience for the students because they got to hear what the

 other schools are up to as well. Some schools were performing songs that we know, or songs that we’ve done before, so it was nice to hear what the different groups sounded like.”