Voice Lessons for All-Region Auditions

As I have for the past ten years (am I getting that old?!), I am preparing my voice students for All-Region Choir auditions.  For those of you not in high school choir, All-Region is basically the Olympics for choir.   You prepare 3-4 songs and then audition a cut from each song.  Each audition lasts around three minutes, and then, you're done!  Months of hard-work all for a few minutes of singing!  if you do well, you go on to another audition, followed by another, until a lucky few make the All-State Choir, which is LITERALLY the best choral singers in Texas and an immense honor (and very attractive to college recruiters!)

As a voice teacher, All-Region is wonderful because long-time students get objective proof that their hard work is paying off as they succeed in the competition.  All-Region is also as close to a non-biased competition as possible because the judges cannot see who is auditioning - a screen blocks the judges from the singer's view and visa versa. 

When I prepare my students for All-Region, doing what is written on the page is the bare minimum.  I always give extra musical notes, history, style remarks etc...anything that will help give my voice student a little leg-up on their competition.   Because when you enter that room to audition, it is imperative for the voice student to show that they are not a robot spitting out notes; they need to show how musical and interesting they can make a song that sixty other singers will be performing.  By giving my student a unique interpretation to a song, it wakes up the judges and says - pay attention! - and gives my student a higher score because they were original and different from their competition.

The other great thing about All-Region; the music is HARD!  While that can be frustrating initially, as a voice teacher I see tremendous growth from my students because they are working on such advanced material.  Even if they do not make it their freshmen year, they set themselves up for future success simply by learning how to learn and navigate such advanced music.  This year, for instance, Region singers are working on a Mozart chorale for the second round of auditions, and a Brahms and French piece for the third and fourth round of auditions.  This is college-level material, and the high school students just eat it up and learn so much in a short period of time. 

Best luck to all my students!  I know I have some future All-State singers in the bunch this year!

DWS