Each year in April choir students around the Metro area compete in the Nebraska District Music Contest: the only event for music sponsored by the NSAA. Westside had a total of three choirs competing on Friday in Fremont, Nebraska. This included a bass choir that consisted of the boys in Concert Choir, a treble choir that consisted of the girls in Concert Choir, and a mixed choir which consisted of all students enrolled in Warrior Choir. Vocal Music Director Doran Johnson said he was excited for the competition last Friday.
“One of the judges is my high school choir director so I’m excited for her to hear our groups and hopefully make her proud,” Johnson said.
Spring break was the week before the competition which Johnson said was a challenge for the singers leading up to the performance. Greg Woodin, vocal music director of Concert Choir, said he agreed with Johnson that spring break was their biggest challenge as directors and for the ensembles.
“Spring break really messed us up [because it is] so late,” Johnson said. “We just weren’t quite as prepared before spring break as we needed to be so I feel like we’ve been scrambling a little bit with time elements.”
Both ensembles and soloists got to compete at District Music Contest. Ensembles performed on Friday and soloists performed on Saturday. This year, 19 students from Westside competed on Saturday as vocal soloists including senior Benjamin Brodkey.
“[Friday] I’m singing with the choir and [Saturday] I’m singing a solo,” Brodkey said. “I’m very excited to sing my solo [Saturday] afternoon. I’m just excited to sing. I love districts and I think it’s a fun couple days.”
At the contest, ratings were given to every ensemble or soloist that performs. The scale is from I to V, along with I+ superior ratings.
“I expect to sing and have fun,” Brodkey said. “I don’t expect to get a superior rating but that would be pretty cool. You can expect a lot of music and a lot of great high school musicians all around the Omaha Metro which includes bands, choirs, and orchestras.”
After the choirs performed on Friday, they each received their own score. The bass choir received a rating of II, the treble choir received a rating of I, and the mixed choir received a superior I+ rating.
“I was excited with how much work we put in this last week, especially coming back from spring break it felt like we had a lot to work on.” Woodin said. “I’m glad that both the bass clef and treble clef choirs worked as hard as they did to become prepared for district music contest so I was really happy for what we were able to put on stage because it felt like we were performing the music and not just singing notes.”
