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Rozleyn Brown

For this 2021-22 school year, Melissa Choirs had their first all-region choir competition for UIL on Monday, Oct. 18.

All-region is a voluntary competition. Students that are competing for all-region learn songs and compete against other students from different schools. Some students can make it to the all-region choir, but only a few can advance to pre-area if they are ranked high enough. Students that made the all-region treble choir are Paris Church, Hannah Luke, and Victoria Vargas. As for those who will be advancing to pre-area, those who qualified were Kaycee Fender, John Goers, Logan Lowery, and Gabi Jones.

“For me, the hardest part about preparing for the audition for the all-region choir was the fact that one of our songs was in Korean, so we had to work a lot on pronunciation,” sophomore Hannah Luke said. “In the audition, we also have to sight-read a short piece of music. The middle school sight-reading is much easier than the high school’s since I didn’t do all-region last year; I wasn’t expecting the sight-reading to be so difficult. Next year, if I decide to audition again, I will work on my sight-reading so that I have more of an idea of what difficulty to expect in the audition.”

UIL competitions can be a challenge for some students. Even though some students may be skilled in certain areas, there will be times in which they will struggle.

“One of the strengths of performing is confidence in your ability,” Luke said. “If you don’t believe in yourself, it will be hard to become successful and feel good about your audition. Confidence in your abilities also translates to how you feel in your audition. Even if you sing all the notes wrong, people will still respect you if you’re confident. Performing in an audition also shows you and the judges what you can do under pressure and how well you know your music.”

When students are competing, each one will get an idea of what their strengths are and how they can improve.

“In my future performances, I would like to be able to show moral range, such as harder songs and dynamic changes,” Luke said. “The harder the piece, the more impressive it is when you perform it well.”

Each year, choir students that choose to compete in UIL experience and grow more in their talent since they work on their weakest areas.

“I did not compete in the all-region choir competition last year, so I don’t know how this year differs from last year,” Luke said. “We have the clinic concert performance with those that made it to the all-region choir and those advancing to pre-area on November 6, which is when I will see what the choir is like.”