The Illinois High School Association (IHSA) contest, which happened March 7, is an annual event of choir clubs and classes from all over Illinois. The schools perform, get awarded points based on the quality of their performance and then receive feedback from the judges.
“I think we did really well,” junior choir student Amelia Taylor said. “We brought less entries than we normally do, and we still placed top three.”
The more entries they bring the more opportunities they have to score points. “Normally, we have about 70 to 80 [entries]; we brought, like, 50 this year,” Taylor said.
However IHSA is less of a competition and more of a way for choirs to get critiqued and improve.
“The big point of IHSA is getting judge feedback,” said choir teacher Ashley McKinstry. “So when you go in, you sing for the judge, they’re writing down comments, critiques, all of that fun stuff, compliments,” said McKinstry. “And they give us a score at the end and they tell us some things that we can keep working on as we’re getting ready for our concert.”
A lot of preparation goes into the performances. Senior choir student Henry Wachob said, “I think I got my solo piece, maybe like two or three months ago, and I’ve been working on that since. And we’ve been working on the songs in class since like after the winter concert, which was also quite a few months ago.”
All this work seems to have paid off. “I thought Lane Tech did amazing. We had some really, really strong people going in for this competition,” McKinstry said.
Choir is built around preparing for these performances, like the spring and winter concerts or IHSA. For IHSA in particular, the process is very student-driven.
“A huge part of our curriculum is learning how to learn music on your own,” McKinstry said. “And so it’s a more independent study situation. And so IHSA is a great channel for that because the students, we help them, like I help them pick their music and so does our music of the Baroque teacher, Ms. Nelson. But they’re basically responsible for learning their own music and students can, we have a little bit of class time that we use, but it’s mostly them coming up during their lunch periods or after school to learn their music.”
Although schools were ranked for their performances, IHSA had a fairly friendly atmosphere. “I’ll go in and I’ll hear them doing musical theater and I’ll just be singing along,” Taylor said. ”It’s really fun, but you can also hear other people like doing those classical pieces and they’re like tough pieces. And for me, I like, I love classic music. So I listen to them a lot.”
“I’m friends with several of the other teachers,” McKinstry said. ”For example, I saw the teachers from Whitney Young and from Walter Payton. Saw a couple other teachers from Hubbard were there.”
For most members of choir, IHSA is a great place to continue their passion for the class. “I switched out of my art class to join choir,” said Wachob. “And ever since, it’s just been very fun for me to sing songs that I like, and my teachers have shown me a lot of songs that I wouldn’t have discovered without choir, like classical stuff that I just find very beautiful. And over the years, I’ve just been a part of so many beautiful things. I love music and choir is just a great way for me to kind of practice and experience that love of music.”
After the feedback they received from IHSA, the choir will continue preparing for the spring concert on May 13.
