Choral Pros and Cons

Pro: Every year, sixteen choir students from each middle school in our district are invited to participate in a district honor choir. Auditions are held by each choir teacher who then selects which students will be a part of the choir. Malia auditioned this year and was one of the students selected to represent her school.

Con: Learning music on her own, especially those with lyrics not in English, is a fairly new thing for Malia and she was super stressed out the night before the first of their two big rehearsals because she didn’t have it all learned.

Pro: Learning music along with other choir members is usually easier as the director will spend time helping each section to perfect their part, there are more people singing the same part, and hearing all the harmonies together can make it simpler to find your own part.

Con: The guest conductor this year doted on the sopranos and tenors, yelled at the basses, and pretty much ignored the altos. Malia was pretty peeved when she got home.

Pro: Despite the less than attentive conductor, Malia did, in fact, get things mostly figured out by the end of their second rehearsal.

Con: She was a bit nervous walking all alone into the choir room the night of the concert. Not knowing anyone there was a bit stressful for her. However, she was fine once some friends from her own school showed up.

Pro: The kids did a fantastic job! The four numbers they performed were well rehearsed and it was a very enjoyable concert. 

Con: On their final number, there was a good amount of standard choir swaying that is frequently seen as appropriate riser choreography. Malia was on the very edge of the alto section. There were so many kids that Malia was standing on a box rather than the actual risers and the movement inadvertently sent her closer and closer to the edge which made her very nervous!

Pro: Although she could feel that her toes were hanging off the edge, he didn’t actually fall off the box. 😂

Con: The adrenaline-fueled performance high after the concert meant that Malia forgot to actually eat dinner and had a meal comprised of sugar cookies and doughnuts. 

Pro: Despite all her nerves and her dislike for this particular director, she still came away with a fantastic performance high! (Even if it did make for an extraordinarily unhealthy dinner. 😜) Singing with a big choir like that is such a fun thing and I’m glad Malia had the opportunity to do so.

Singing with Honor

While all state choir was a thing back when I was in high school, honor choir was not. Apparently, it is also a state-wide choir made up of high school age kids. Nathan was excited to be able to participate. He spent two Saturdays rehearsing and this evening the concert was held in the Tabernacle on Temple Square. Nathan was pretty jazzed about singing there. Rather than being a big mixed choir, honor choir was divided into a women’s choir and a men’s choir, although they did do one big combined number. I’m guessing that all state is for the mixed choirs and honor choir is for the separate men’s and women’s choirs. Anyway, Nathan enjoyed himself and got to sing a number he learned (and loved) for the district middle school honor choir several years back. He also got his first taste of working with the choir teacher for the new high school. The teacher was the accompanist and not the director, but Nathan was still able to develop a favorable impression and that is a good thing.

The kids did a great job. The audience (and the women’s choir in particular) were huge fans of the men’s choir numbers. My family and I took Kevin’s mom out to dinner for her birthday prior to the concert and ended up having a very enjoyable time. Nathan was able to spend some time singing with an entire choir full of people who really wanted to be there and that was super nice for him. So all in all, a great evening.