This year, our Lincoln choir team performed very well at the CMEA festival. Every choir group received superior scores. Lion Tales spoke to some choir students about their performance at the festival and also their performance at the Lincoln Glen Church on March 29.

Many of the students interviewed felt anxious about performing at the festival. Emilio Tagimaroa-Keep, from the Chamber Chorale group, said, “I was nervous and I was worried about singing the right part and a bit anxious to get it over with, I felt tingly and excited during it, but I was also a bit scared of the [judges].” This is a common way people feel about large events, and it even happens to the more experienced singers, like Emilio.

Most of the singers shared the same feelings as Emilio. For example, Alexis Halpern, also from Chamber Chorale, felt confident and slightly nervous at first, but more nervous during the performance, since she had a solo coming up. During her performance, she said, “I felt great about my performances, and I was more prepared for what was to come in my musical endeavors.”

Similarly, new Choir students shared the same emotions, but despite the nerves, they tried to find positives. Emma LeFever, from Women’s Ensemble, said, “it was really exciting and nerve-racking before the performance, because I have never done CMEA before. But it was really fun and challenging having to sight read and getting critiqued.”

On top of this, the Choir team faced many challenges. Much of their challenges had to do with the actual singing part, and expectations from others, but some were still influenced by the initial nervousness. Alexis Halpern said that her greatest challenge was “getting over my initial nervousness.” Others, like Emilio, had more challenges in the singing part itself. “Singing the right part,” Emilio said, “was difficult and it was easy to switch to the melody and hard to stay on the harmony.” On the other hand, many of the newbies found following instructions and staying organized the biggest of their problems.

Alexis Halpern, in Chamber Chorale, said, “both of the groups that I am in (Woman’s Ensemble and Chamber Chorale) knew their music well, but we could have done better on phrasing and diction.” Alexis Samano said, “our biggest challenge was our beginning piece. It was our first time this school year [doing] four-part music and two of our parts were spotty in tuning during certain parts of the piece. We spent almost our whole fifteen minutes of rehearsing just on this piece.”

The teams tried their best and had fun. They also learned much from their performance and gained a lot of new experiences. Alexis Halpern mentioned that this year’s CMEA was different from the previous years. “Rather than focusing on the quality of our voices” Alexis said, “they concentrated on our ability to learn the music, hence the sight-reading. I thought the overall experience was excellent and a step in the right direction.”

During the festival, singers attended a workshop. Alexis Samano, who attended the workshop, stated “I learned a lot from our workshop that followed after our performance from one of our judges, Mr. Longocor. He taught us about where to ‘put the sound’ in our voices, how to reach low notes [that] we typically can’t, and singing technique that can help us. We even implemented one of his chorale exercises during warm ups in choir.”

Lincoln Choir reflected on getting a superior score from the judges. It was unexpected for some to get that kind of score, especially for Kira Wheeler from Women’s Ensemble who stated that “earning a superior score is really nice, it feels like all your hard work really paid off. I really try not to expect things. I think if it happens that that’s what happens, you never know what to expect.”  Another student, Karla Velasquez, from Women’s Ensemble said that “I was definitely not expecting a superior score.”

Overall, the students we interviewed were very happy about making it to the CMEA due to the hard work of the students and the guidance of Ms. Katemopoulos, better known as Ms. K. Ms. K went above and beyond to prepare the students for the festival. Ms. K was also awarded the CMEA Pearson/Silver Burdett Choral Educator Award for orchestrating the Lincoln Choir at the festival.

Congratulations to Lincoln Choir for earning superior scores at the CMEA festival and Ms. K for being awarded theCMEA Pearson/Silver Burdett Choral Educator Award .