The choir program competed in UIL on April 4 and placed with a two in concert and a one in sight reading.

The choir program gets three pieces of music to learn at least a month in advance and perform on stage. They also must do sight reading, where they get a brand new piece of music and read it from sight in three parts. In class, they would practice these skills and perfect their music.

“We practiced sight reading and singing with an equal tone throughout the choir,” freshman Emily Loderup said. “It was important that one section wasn’t louder than another. I think there were some people who didn’t take it as seriously as they should have. We could have done better.”

They also had multiple outside of school practices where they practiced with the entire choir.

“I think the rehearsals did help, hearing the choir together as a whole,” Loderup said. “It is difficult, just because you’re not used to singing with the other class periods. The day of UIL was the first time Ms. Nixon heard the whole choir sing together.”

Due to scheduling issues, the girls choir is split between two class periods. The varsity mixed choir girls also performed in UIL, making the entire choir split between three class periods. This made it hard to practice like many other school’s choirs did.

“I feel like we should have gotten higher in concert,” junior Katelynn Golden said. “We’re a second year school, and considering that all our classes were split up and how good we did on our pieces. I think they should have taken that all into consideration.”

In order to compete at the varsity level, a choir program has to have placed with both ones in a UIL. Since the choir did not, many were left disappointed.

“I thought the scores were okay,” Loderup said. “I was surprised that we got ones in sight reading and twos on stage. I think we should have gotten different, but I do know they judge the stage performance stricter.”

Even with the scores received, the choir students did fairly well under the circumstances.

“It was a new experience,” Loderup said. “I hadn’t done it before and [Ms.Nixon] had talked about it so much. The judges were really friendly and it was a lot more casual than I thought it would be. I’m excited to get to know other girls, especially in mixed choir where they’re there because they want to be.”