Students in choir recently participated in All-State Choir Pre-Area auditions on Saturday, Sept. 13. The event took place at Summer Creek High School. Choir members were required to learn four pieces of music for their audition.

Fifteen students advanced with five earning chairs. “First chair,” for example, is the most advanced performer, and it goes down by skill or position. Junior Madelyn Haynes earned first chair and senior Amara Amadi earned second chair.

“This will be my fourth year participating in region choir,” Amadi said, “and it’s always my favorite part of the year. I look forward to it the most because I love learning about new music, composers, languages and cultures. The worst part is the pressure and anxiety that comes with it, but when the audition is over and the results come out, it is an extremely rewarding experience.”

The process goes as follows: Each person is required to learn four different pieces of music. On audition day, the members show up to the audition spot. When they arrive, they wait for their voice part (soprano, alto, tenor, bass) to be called, and they get pulled into their voice room that corresponds to their part. The staff informs everyone of the cuts in the music and are told to sing it twice.

When they’re done, they wait for their number to be called. During this waiting process, they are told not to sing at all until they are called in. When a member is called in to audition, they sing the specific cuts of each song. When the singer is done, they are allowed to leave and wait for results.

“Region for me was very scary, considering it was my first time,” senior Ethan Durand said. “I really didn’t know what to expect, and the waiting made the anxiety drag on even more. At first it was hard, because choir is a new concept to me, but then it got easy, and eventually it was really fun.”

The students who advanced were:

Skylee Hartman

Bella Barrett

Linden Brom

Reagan Miller

Cannon Streb

Johnathan Kanak

Jesse Ramirez

Ethan Durand

Liam Shynett

Adrian Gutierrez

5th chair: Juliette Norman

4th chair: Riley Fitch

3rd chair: Evangeline Garrett

2nd chair: Amara Amadi

1st chair: Madelyn Haynes