With a stacked theatre department and a highly talented music program, our school excels in the performing arts. It’s no surprise that our choir has also been immensely successful as of late, dominating local and regional competitions alike. Their success speaks to the skills of both our singers themselves and their teacher, Jocelyn Mullins.
Our school’s advanced choirs recently traveled to the annual Festival of Disney in Florida, where they were a smash hit among the judges. They faced tough competition from schools across the nation;In total, eleven schools were in attendance. They were divided up into categories based on the number of students who attended each school. Our school competed in the 4A category against five other groups, most notably two from Texas.
“Texas is the leading state of music education, so their music programs are very well developed, funded and resourced,” Mullins said.
Although Texas choir programs have an impressive reputation, our singers took this challenge in stride and used it to motivate them to perform to the best of their ability.
Our singers were judged by a panel of three judges. These adjudicators earned their position on this panel by excelling in the field of the musical arts, making them credible sources for judging. One judge was previously a professor at the University of Florida, one taught at West Virginia University and one was from Disney’s choral program. Our choirs received perfect scores from two of the three judges, and a 99.3 from the 3rd judge.
With these impressive scores, our choirs won both their category and the competition overall. While our school has attended this competition in previous years, this level of success is unprecedented.
“What was different about this one, and made it a little bit more magical, was that not only did we win the Best In Class Mickey, but then we also won the Golden Mickey. We had the highest score amongst all the choirs,” Mullins said.
After their stellar performance, our singers took a victory lap around Disney World. Students enjoyed the park’s various attractions including the food, rides and games. All too soon, it was time to head home. The choirs rode a bus both there and back, a trip that was about 16 hours each way including stops.
As you can imagine, the cost of this trip was significant for our choir department. With the competition fees, the cost of the buses, passes for the amusement park, rooming for the students and countless other expenses, the cost can really add up. Our choir department worked tirelessly to fund this trip and provide a great experience for the students.
“We did candy sales, we had a dessert cabaret in the spring and we sold roses during the musical. This trip is really funded and paid for through us and our raising efforts,” Mullins said.
Our choir also came in first place in the WASH-FM Christmas Choir Competition this winter. After submitting a recording of a holiday piece that was played on the WASH-FM radio station, our choir received the most votes from listeners online. They won $5,000 and received the opportunity to perform at the Washington Ballet’s performance of the Nutcracker. This was a huge win for our choir department as the money won helped cover some of the trip’s expenses.
For the remainder of the year, our choirs will focus their attention on the upcoming spring concert, which is set to take place on May 13 at 7 pm. This will be the best opportunity to see this talented group of singers before some of them graduate. As they finish out a successful year, our choir department continues to strive for excellence both locally and nationally.
