The Department of Music is hosting an All Region Choir Workshop for high school students preparing for their auditions for the All Regions Choir Saturday.
This workshop is run by Jeff Goolsby, Director of Choral Activities, and sponsored by the Texas Music Education Association. Goolsby says that the purpose of this workshop is to continue to help students prepare and finalize their songs that they will be preforming at the audition in October.
This workshop is offered to all students in Region six. Region six stretches as far west as Midland and as far south as San Angelo. There are even smaller cities, such as Sweetwater, Clyde, Ballinger and Abilene.
The All Regions Choir audition is a state wide audition from which only 15 students are selected.
According to Goolsby, the students are judged based on accurate and beautiful singing and delivery.
At this level of compotation, it is getting to become really hard to make it to the next level. So Goolsby has offered this workshop as a time to refresh and prepare the music with extra help.
Not only Goolsby and others help the students, but some of the ACU choir students are made teachers and leaders of the workshop.
Goolsby says that the college student leaders are going to sit in with the high school students and give them pointers and critiques as they see fit.
One such student leader, Kayla Torp a vocal music education major from Waco, is excited to be a part of the leadership team. She says that being a part of the choir will bring about the experience she needs towards her major.
“It is so much fun and a very helpful experience for me,” Torp said.
She thinks that she is looking at a future glimpse of what she wants and will be doing.
The event took place on Sept. 17 from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. throughout the Williams Preforming Arts Center. Goolsby anticipated that there would be over 60 students there. Some of the students were excited to be there and get help from collegiate students.
Bailey Hafner, a junior at Clyde High School, said, “It is super fun. It is real helpful and brings out the confidence in us.”
Davis Haney, a junior at Abilene Wylie High School, said that they “were working on specifics in their individual sections.”
Mitchum Burleson, a junior at Clyde High School, said they “bring stuff up to help us get ready for the All Regions.”
With pieces such as Leo Delibes’ “Dome Epais le Jasmin” and Felix Mendelssohn’s “Beati Mortui, Op. 115 No. 1,” this workshop was offered to help students gain further experience in order to make it to the All Regions Choir.
