The 33 students who made the All-Region Choir will move on to compete in the Area auditions Dec. 6 at Amarillo College. Students who make the Pre-Area cut will move onto the Area audition in January. Students who qualify at Area make the Texas Music Educator’s Association All-State Choir.

Students choose between auditioning for large school or small school during the All-State process and prepared “I Will Keep Still” by Trotta and “Kyrie” by Porpora for the All-Region Audition. Junior Bella Haynes auditioned in the small school audition.

“I placed third out of 37 other students,” Haynes said. “We met at the school at 6:45 a.m. and then we left for Bushland High School at 7. I was number 32 out of 37 to go sing our cuts for the audition.”

Students sing a selection of their prepared piece for the blind auditions where the students and judges cannot see one another.

“While you are singing, there will be a track recording playing with the piano part,” Haynes said. “It usually is about four measures of straight piano then you start singing, then there is about a 10 second pause between each cut.”

Students must also perform a sight reading selection. 

“After you sight read, you have to go into the auditorium to wait,” Haynes said. “It’s really nerve-racking to wait for results in the auditorium, but it’s a very positive environment. We nave some traditions and those can be really comforting during the process.”

Junior Landon Finke, who auditioned for small school, said All-Region auditions can be very competitive.

“The higher and higher you go in the competition, the wider and wider the areas of competition get,” Finke said. “I placed fifth chair in the tenor section for small school. In district, I placed first, but at region I missed a few notes and placed lower.”

Finke said he really enjoys this year’s selections.

“’I Will Keep Still’ is a modern piece with a lot of chord structure,” Finke said. “The second piece is rendition of a Latin mass and so it is very polyphonic, which means there are a lot of different parts going on at the same time.”

The All-Region Choir performed four selections at their Nov. 9 concert.

“It takes a lot of commitment for all-state,” Haynes said. “We have to work hard, but it’s always worth it. I’m looking forward to the rest of the all-state process.”

Large School:

Soprano 2

Alexis Bodkin- 2nd

Bass 1

Joshua Moreno-1st

Jimmy Lemmon- 3rd

Braxton Butcher- 6th

Small School:

Soprano

Katherine Clark-2nd

Bella Haynes-3rd

Zara Salazar-10th

Bethani House-11th

Lexi Hartman-15th

Monica Hernandez-16th

Emma Wilcox-17th

Macy Lawrence-18th

Alto

Mia Bonds-2nd

Haley Williams-5th

Lisa Kelch-7th

Georgia Upshaw-9th

Alyson Hunt-10th

Marlee Ramirez-13th

Mallory Wright-14th

Farrah Phipps-15th

Tenor

Landon Finke-5th

Dayton Cornelius-9th

Pace Kear-12th

Bass

Brennen Copeland-1st

Kelton Harbison-2nd

Tobin Brooks- 3rd

Lane Miller- 6th

Mark Porter- 9th

Ethan Evers- 10th

Mark Pinkerton- 11th

Julian Sewell- 12th

Rayden Caster- 14th

Dylan Underwood-19th