Choir teacher Mrs. Klapheke led Worthington Christian High School’s choir to compete in the OMEA district-level contest at Thomas Worthington High School on March 8th, 2009.Worthington Christian High School’s choir’s talent seems to be top notch. Their performance in OMEA’s district level competition was excellent due to the fact that the choir members are filled with passion and talent.
WCHS’ choir is divided into three groups: there is the men’s choir; the women’s choir; and the mixed choir. WCHS’ choir teacher, Mrs. Klapheke, started preparing for OMEA’s competition two and a half months ago. At every event, each choir sang three songs in front of the judges.
In choir competitions, the grading scale ranges from a One to a Three.
Sophomore Rachel Meeker, a member of the mixed choir, says, “A choir that gets a One is supposed to be excellent. This means everyone must not just know every detail of the song, but also how to sing the song in collaboration with the choir as a whole.”
Rachel continued to say that “A Two is given to an average choir. This choir might know their songs, but they don't blend well, or they blend well but don't know their songs.”
Lastly, there is a Three on the grading rubric. “A choir that is given a Three is below average,” Rachel said. “This choir does not blend well, nor do they know their music. Not much is expected of a choir who is given a Three.”
Men’s, women’s, and mixed choir all have enormous amounts of skill. As a result, all of our choirs received a One in their performances. Mrs. Klapheke is proud of the men’s choir because, unlike any other contest they’ve competed in, they received straight Ones.
“I thought we did a good job,” sophomore Brittany Wicker said, “but I don’t feel like we were very prepared. When we listened back to our singing, it was disappointing.” On the other hand, Rachel Meeker felt that they did very well.
The WCHS choirs will always have room for improvement, just like any other group of high school students. “I think that for the most part,” Rachel said, “there are really strong voices and some quieter voices. If the quieter people stepped it up and sang louder, and the people with bigger voices stepped back a little, the men’s choir would improve. This would make the men’s choir blend nicely and their sound would be even throughout every section.”
Junior Sara Katula, a member of women’s and mixed choir, believes that blending the choir together and working on vowel sounds would help them out in later competitions.
Sophomore Andrew Siders, a member of the mixed choir, believes they did better than how they were expecting to do in the competition. He agrees with Rachel that the men’s choir needs to work on producing more sound because, as he would say, “we’re being overruled by the women’s voices.”
WCHS’ choir received superior ratings at OMEA’s contest because of their hard work and dedication, and they plan to enter the same contest next year.
