Over the past few years, choir teacher Beth Nitzan has seen a handful of her students audition for the Coastal Regional Honor Choir — a prestigious regional choir organized by the California Choral Directors Association (CCDA). This year, however, saw a record number of 12 students from the school audition, and nine were selected for the prestigious group.
The nine students are sophomore Ria Abraham, senior Alan Cai, sophomore Norah Heller, junior Sahana Kumar, junior Joyce Lee, sophomore Sophie Poon, junior Navya Rao, sophomore Saachi Saraf and senior Aria Zhang.
On Nov. 9, these nine SHS students performed with other top students from the Coastal area at Santa Clara University. According to Nitzan, another reason for the singers’ success in the auditions for the honor choir was a skill-building workshop that was held over the summer.
The students auditioned for the choir in late September, where they first sang a solo of their choice before singing a major scale, minor scale, major triad and a chromatic scale. The best performing students were selected for the honor choir assigned to one of the three ensembles based on their vocal range.
“I was pretty happy when I got selected, because it’s always rewarding when the hard work that I put in reaped some benefits,” Rao said.
After two days of rehearsal, all the students’ hard work culminated at the final concert, where everyone performed in their assigned ensembles depending on their voice part. Directed by prominent conductors, the singers performed pieces featuring titles sung in multiple languages, including Latin, French, Hebrew, Spanish and English.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR-7NaeXI-o&list=PLXL3ehhKrlfTlicD2ZkOX0XMs2lmbdx57&index=4
The songs were of various genres as well, with pieces ranging from contemporary pop-like music,pop-like music to traditional African spirituals or older-style pieces. For instance, one of the pieces performed in the SSAA ensemble was “J’entends le Moulin,” a traditional folk style song sung in French.
Working with new directors in these high level ensembles provided valuable mentorship for the students, and for many, it was also very impactful to see such different visions and perspectives towards certain songs.
“For me, our director would always tell us, ‘Why are we doing this? Why is it important? What does the song mean?’ and I felt those moments were just really emotionally impactful,” Zhang said.
Since returning from their performance, the nine students have brought back not only their newly gained experiences, but also an enhancement to the school’s choir.
“Based on the work that those people did this weekend, they brought all kinds of new skills to our choir that they had learned participating in such a high level ensemble with such high level directors,” Nitzan said.
Now, the students who were selected for the regional honor choir are being considered for an All-State choir, and the highest scoring of those students may be able to perform in Sacramento in January.
The school’s choir has already had a successful start to the year, and with this honor is proof of the promising direction the program is heading in.
“I think our music program has a big emphasis on band and orchestra, but it would be awesome if we could have even more people interested in taking choir seriously at this higher level,” Zhang said. “If people are interested in honor choir, they should definitely check it out.”
