If you are a music teacher in the US, this time of the year is Solo and Ensemble Contest time. What is Solo and Ensemble? A chance for our kids to show out their amazing voices.
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In Indiana, the Indiana State School Music Association (ISSMA) every year holds a solo and ensemble festival. Kids from middle school through high school enter this festival to see if their skills rate a Gold, Silver, or Bronze medal. The festival has several categories. Group V is for the youngest and least experienced singers. Group I is for the most advanced.
My co choir director and I decided to have our advanced students enter the festival as Group I participants. Should they win Gold, they are qualified to sing at the State Solo and Ensemble festival to win medals and glory.
Group I singers must choose from a list of pieces and ONLY that list. Being that I have both the pedagogical knowledge, and the knowledge of the advanced kids, I chose the Group I pieces for our upperclassmen. Including a sophomore who wanted to go Group I and a senior who was taking her first choir class, but has been a fixture on stage and backstage at our theater performances. My co choir teacher gave me a great compliment. He said that my choices were perfect for our kids. All I could say besides giving my profound thanks for the compliments is that I know our kids, and their voices.
Downside? As a teacher, I wish they would have practiced more.
This was written on Friday January 26. What follows is what happened on contest day on January 27.
So, we had 12 kids show up. Six did not, for various reasons. Out of those 12 kids, 8 earned gold medals, with one of them getting a perfect score. The other 4 earned silver medals.
FIVE of our students qualified for the State Solo and Ensemble contest.
It was a very good day. It’s always a good day when your students shine like the stars they are.
Time to relax with some wine and a gummy before bed.
And now, on to Tops!
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