Twenty-nine ACU music students competed in the National Association of Teachers of Singing in Denton. Fourteen ACU students made it to the semi-finals and three won in their respective categories.

Dr. Rick Piersall, assistant professor of voice, opera and music history, said NATS is the major professional organization for teachers of singing in the United States. Piersall said this year’s conference, at UNT in Denton, had 627 student competitors.

“The students go to gain experience in the audition setting and to sing for judges they don’t know to get helpful feedback on the performances,” Piersall said. “We want the students to know where they stand in reference to their peers and how much work is involved in reaching their goals.”

All students sing classical music but specific requirements depend on the student’s classification in school.

“The basic requirement is an operatic aria, an art song in a foreign language and one in English,” Piersall said.

Piersall said NATS had eight categories in which the students competed. There were five winners in each category with 40 winners overall.

“For me, this wasn’t my first one, so I’ve become very philosophical about it,” said Dr. Michael Scarbrough, professor of music, voice, vocal pedagogy and opera. “NATS is a great place to go sing, get comments from other teachers and see sort of where you fit with what other studios and other singers are doing.”

Scarbrough hopes that anyone participating in NATS will not let the competition define their abilities, but let it be a learning experience.

Clinton Perdue, junior music education and vocal performance major from Mesquite, is one of Scarbrough’s students who competed in NATS.

Although Perdue was initially hesitant Scarbrough convinced him to participate this year.

“My voice teacher, Dr. Scarbrough, had a very good talk with me and said that one of the hardest things to do is to live by faith and to have faith that God will take care of you,” Perdue said,  “and that this NATS is one of the most important things to go to because if you miss NATS, you don’t know what could have happened.”

Perdue said in his past two years in NATS, he was focused more on the competition and not doing his personal best, but he changed his focus this year.

“This one, I was more thinking, ‘I’m here to show my talent of what God has given me and I’m going to have faith that I’ll be recognized no matter what I do,'” Perdue said. “I performed to the best of my abilities and that’s all I can do. If I do it right, and I do it for God, then that’s all that matters.”

Perdue, Russell Garrett and Phillip Jackson were the three winners from ACU.