On April 23, Campolindo’s concert choir went to Monte Vista High School in San Ramon for a choir competition. Other high schools also attended the competition, including Piedmont Hills, Castro Valley, Shasta, and Dougherty Valley, among others from around the Mount Diablo area. Out of the 115 students in Campo’s concert choir, about 108 attended the event.
The students arrived at campo at 8:30 p.m, and left for Monte Vista at 9 p.m. They arrived at around 10:30 AM. The competition lasted until 6:15 that evening, proving to be a very long and tiring day for the students. However, the event was incredibly rewarding and educational for many of those who went. “It was quite tiring but it was worth it. We all felt that sense of accomplishment afterwards,” said junior Sarah Chen.
For the competition, the concert choir performed a Creole piece called “Tchaka” by Sydney Guillaume, a Latin piece called “Cantate Domino”, and an English piece called “Set me as a Sea”l that all choirs had to sing. Coincidentally, a different choir at the event also sang “Cantate Domino”. Otherwise, all of the choirs “sang a variety of different pieces in many different languages,” said junior Annalise Kimball. This made the music interesting to the audience and kept everyone engaged.
For the competition, the choirs would perform their songs for judges who would write down notes about each song. The students had to wait for about 10 minutes between each song for the judges to get all of their notes down. The many choirs at the event were able to go back and forth between two different performing areas to hear different choirs sing. “I like how focused and attentive everyone was when we were watching other choirs,” said junior Sofia Rose. I
The competition experience proved to be very important for the choir to see both their strengths and their weaknesses. “We could have improved on diction and tone,” said Kimball. However, at the end of the competition when the awards were announced, Campo’s concert choir won an award for the best tenor and bass section, a very impressive feat considering how many choirs attended the event.
For the concert choir, the main purpose of being at the competition wasn’t to win, but was to learn from both the judges and from the performances of the other choirs so that they could focus on what they needed to improve on. “It was really nice to see other choirs and get feedback from our performance that will help us grow,” said Rose.
