“So any song, not even just choral, all songs in general usually portray some kind of emotion,” senior Georgia Upshaw said. “Whether that be anger or love or sadness. If we’re singing a song in choir that portrays anger, I can let out any angry emotions I have through the song. I go through a lot of stress and anxiety through my life. I don’t know, [singing] just feels like I’m yelling it all out of my mouth into music. I feel like I’ve just gotten out of therapy. And when I come out of choir, I’m like, ‘Okay, I feel much better about my day.’ That I can keep going. Like there’s always something that I look forward to, like in the morning I’ll get really frustrated about something and then I come to choir, and then I’ll forget all about it. And then go on with the rest of my day. Singing is very therapeutic for me. So I mean, it’s kind of my self care. My life is very busy. I do a lot of extracurriculars and going into the choir room it’s almost like taking a pause on all of that. Just relaxing. As far as technical things, something that she [Shannon Burr] really helped me with is getting into my higher range. And that has really helped me on a lot of the songs. Because there’s probably a lot of people that haven’t been able to have that experience of having a voice teacher and it’s good one-on-one time, because most of the All-state process is very independent work. Most of the time you’re doing it on your own, but it is helpful to have that voice lesson once a week so you can have a professional check in on you and make sure you’re staying on track. So each audition is a little different. The first audition you’ll have as much as that whole summer before to prepare. Then, of course, Region is the same music but once you get to Area you only have a month to learn that new music. So each timeframe gets shorter and shorter. Performing in the All-State was a lot of fun. I remember thinking ‘I’m actually here, I made it, this is what I’ve been working towards’.”