On Friday, March 1, Aliso Niguel’s top choir, the Madrigals, attended Champman University’s Invitational Choral Music Festival to perform select spring concert pieces, receive feedback and observe college and high school choirs.
Chapman University has one of the best college music programs on the West Coast; every year they invite, what they consider to be, the top choral music programs to perform ten minutes of music.
The Madrigals have been attending this festival for years, accompanied by Tesoro High School, Mater Dei High School, multiple Nevada schools and college choirs from California.
The festival’s goal is to help further build school music programs and provide students with an opportunity to perform in front of fellow musicians. Another benefit to this festival is that it demonstrates to high school students a future in choral music beyond high school choir.
“Choir is not very competitive, and maybe it shouldn’t be, but festivals like this give us an opportunity to be the best that we can be and give us motivation to work harder. I’ll definitely say for this set of music we’ve worked harder than we ever have before. It helps us reach a feeling of accomplishment,” says Channel Simpson (12).
While the pieces were far from easy, the choir students were able to impress the Chapman judges, receiving compliments on their ability to perform various styles of music in differing languages.
Choir director, Mr.Harney, picks out music for the program’s spring concert specifically with the Chapman festival in mind. This year the Madrigals performed folk songs from all over the world, in many different languages such as French, Hungarian and Latin.
Harney states, “In choir festivals, you usually hear a lot of the same thing and I wanted to show off a variety of ranges and styles. I chose our spring music beforehand and picked specific pieces out to demonstrate our student’s abilities.”
Harney has his own, personal, ties to the Chapman festival since he has been attending since his time as a choral music student in high school. Later, Harney was able to judge and run the event while studying at the university, to now bringing his own high school program to perform.
This festival brings out not just a learning opportunity for Aliso students, but a bonding one as well. Students are able to meet like-minded, dedicated individuals who share a common appreciation for choral music.
“When we have the time to hang out and talk by the end of the festival, it gives people the opportunity to talk to other choirs and realize they aren’t the only ones that sing and are kinda nerdy. It’s a wonderful way to connect with one another,” says Channel Simpson.
With the Spring concert concluding the choir’s work on these specific pieces, their goal for upcoming performances is to work on expressiveness and connection to the music.
The choir program will continue to work hard throughout the second semester with their upcoming Cabaret performance on March 22, along with minor performances before their concluding Major Works concert at the end of the school year.
