Well, the 2024 UIL Contest season came and went and BL Gray Varsity girls performed admirably. We received a division 1 rating (Superior) on stage - the concert portion, and a division 2 rating (Excellent) in the sight reading room. 5 girls performing! What a feat! No one in the audience expected 5 girls to sound like that and we showed that we can do admirably with just a few. Comments from the judges:
"5! I thought I wouldn't be able to hear them, but I was wrong. 5 sounded like a choir of 15."
"I looked at the size of the group and thought 'why?' I know why now. Kudos on excellent sound and selections."
Three judges adjudicate the concert portion of the contest and each gives a numerical score from 1 to 5, with 1 being the best. The judges scored our stage portion with a 1, 1, 1 (each judge's score counts and then the scores are averaged to reach the final score), which resulted in a
division 1 rating (Superior).
Likewise, there are three different judges in the sight reading room. We walk into the room and each of us receives a brand new piece of music that was written for this year's contest. None of us have seen the music before, so we go in "blind." We are allowed 6 minutes to study the music (not allowed to sing during the 6 minutes) and then we perform the piece. We use practices from our classroom to figure out what the song sounds like. We chant the rhythms out loud and use solfege handsigns to reinforce the pitches we see in the music. Then our practice is to "sing it in our heads." That process is called audiation. The pitches for Do-Mi-So are played on the piano once to give us our starting pitches in our heads. After the 6 minutes, we perform the piece for the judges. After we perform it, we have 2 minutes for further study to figure out our errors, then we sing it again. After this whole process, the judges scored it 1,2,2 - which averages up to a
2 or excellent rating. This year's song was a bit tricky, but we managed it well enough.
Songs from the past from the concert portion of the contest.
2018 songs:
For the Beauty of the Earth
Dona Nobis Pacem
Will You Walk a Little Faster
Here are our 2019 songs from the concert portion of the contest:
And This Shall Be for Music
Non Nobis, Domine
The Moon