ENMU choir students attend choral convention
By: K.J. Stimpson
Issue date: 3/5/08 Section: News
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Simmons sang with the Fifth - Seventh Grade Honor Choir as a tenor soloist in Leonard Bernstein's "Gloria Tibi".
Acclaimed children's choir director, Joan Gregory, conducted the musical piece.
"It was a big honor, really," Simmons said.
Simmons submitted an audition tape for the solo after Jason Paulk, the Assistant Professor of Music, recommended him. Within a week of sending the tape, Simmons received word that he had been chosen for the solo.
"So, he said 'I need to send in an audition's tape.' I had one left over from Hayden's Creation. I did a solo for that in Alamogordo. So, that was the audition tape I sent in," said Simmons, "I guess about a week later he got back to me and said that 'you've been selected'. And recently I found out that it was graduate students who had auditioned for it also, so it was a really big honor for me to be picked for that solo."
Simmons, along with 12 other students attended the convention Feb. 20-23. It was held in Kansas City, MO, and included choral students and conductors from the Southwest region of the United States, which includes; Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri.
"The convention, as a whole, was great," said Simmons, "I was really vocally tired because we had, I think, 11 hours of rehearsal, crammed into three days, which is a lot of strain on the voice. You have to use a lot of technique and you have to pace yourself and really take care of your voice while you were there. Drink lots of water and not over sing too much. So I was kind of vocally tired going into the solo, but it turned out fine."
The convention included concerts from choirs nationally and internationally. The honor choirs that performed were a fifth - seventh grade choir, middle school choir, high school choir, collegiate choir and community choir. The choirs were comprised of vocalists from the Southwest region of the United States.
"It was a large convention," Paulk said. "We heard choirs from all over the world. We heard the 'King Singers' (which) was a headliner choir and it's a six member male ensemble … and we heard a professional choir from Seoul, Korea, 'Seoul Ladies' Singers'. It was just amazing singing. We heard some incredible collegiate choirs."
"The convention it just really opens up your eyes. It really just opens up your horizons. Especially for young musicians that are in the middle of nowhere. It was a positive experience," said Janice Pacheco, sophomore and ACDA Portales chapter president.
The students attended concert sessions, lecture sessions and debate sessions that informed them of what was going on in the musical world. They heard debates and ideas from professional composers and singers from across the Southwest region.
"It was a great experience and it was really good for me. It was good exposure," said Simmons.