The choir program is renowned for its award-winning performances and success in competition. After just six years of existence, the choirs have made a name for themselves all around the region. Year after year of receiving trophies and top notch competition scores would lead one to think there is nothing more the choirs can achieve. But one choir, Varsity Women, was selected to one of the most coveted positions in the Texas choir world: the 2013 Texas Music Educators Association Invited Choir.
The TMEA invited choir is a competitive process with hundreds of middle schools, high schools, and colleges sending in a recording in hopes of being picked.
“The TMEA process is very selective. All the schools send in one live recording of their choir, then the recordings are given to judges with numbers instead of the choir name to make sure it’s objective,” choir director Bethany Green said. “The judges pick their favorite choirs, ones they think have a good sound and are technically advanced. Every year about four or five choirs are selected. They perform at the TMEA convention in San Antonio in front of hundreds, even thousands of other choir directors from around the state.”
The Varsity Women’s choir has been preparing for its performance since the beginning of school.
“At TMEA we will perform a 25 minute concert, which is 7 to 8 songs. In a normal year the Varsity Women would only learn two or three songs, so they have more than twice the workload this year,” Green said. “To make sure we have time to learn all those songs, we have before school rehearsals every Thursday and four clinics with other directors throughout the year.”
The added work for the Varsity Women is an extra level of stress for some students, but most agree it’s worth the work to reap the benefits.
“I think it’s really cool that we get to do this my senior year,” senior Brooke Ray said. “It’s a lot of extra work and it stresses me out a lot sometimes but it’ll all pay off in February. It’s brought us closer as a choir and Ms. Green and Mr. Mason picked great songs for us.”
Every choir concert, the Varsity Women perform a few of their songs that will ultimately be one concert. The songs range in style, difficulty, and length, and because of the wide range of music, some students took a while to warm up to a few of the pieces.
“At first I totally hated Ave Maria, one of the songs we sang at the winter concert, but when it came together and we got to sing it at the concert, it was amazing,” sophomore Madi Franquiz said. “It had that wow factor that’s hard to find.”
Overall, the experience of those involved has been positive and both the directors and the members of the choir appreciate the rare chance to perform at the convention.
“I guess TMEA has definitely added more stress to my life, but it’s actually really worth it, and it’s made bonds with girls I never thought I would bond with,” Franquiz said. “The work that I put into this is really worth it. When you hear the music that we sing, and you see what we can do, you realize that we are capable of so much more. And you don’t really realize that until you are put up to a higher task.”
