The Lafayette Choirs are preparing for amazing events this semester. The Lafayette Advanced Treble Choir is preparing for two major events occurring in March. The first one is the Kentucky Music Educators Association (KMEA) group assessment on March 5th. Assessment groups will be tested on their ability to sight read, sing, and memorize songs. The second event is the Gospel Choir Festival, which will occur on March 27. The Lafayette choirs have never participated in a gospel choir festival before and this year they have brought in a guest director, Dr. Roosevelt Escalante, Jr., to lead the festival.
During the KMEA assessment, each choir will demonstrate two songs that show memorization and vocal tone. They will then demonstrate sight reading. They will get a slip of paper with a song and will be expected to sing solfege based on the note placement. They have practiced this for weeks and are getting prepared for assessment.
The choir has also been preparing for the Gospel Choir Festival, which will take place on March 27th. There are many steps to preparing for a concert.
The Times talked to Laura Howard, a choir director at Lafayette High School, who stated, “Using solfege symbols is the most effective way to prepare in a choral setting. We also spend a lot of time working on memorization but a lot of that rests on the shoulders of the students to prepare outside of school.”
First, the Lafayette choir students receive their new music and begin to look over it and learn their solfege, a set of pitches that singers use to learn their songs. They will then practice their solfege before learning the words to the songs.
If the song is in English, this part is relatively simple, but it could be challenging if it is in another language like Latin or German. English is more straightforward to sing in, but other languages are more demanding. Latin and German are only a few foreign languages that they have sung in. Then, they will first need to learn the pronunciation of the words before adding them to the song. Previously, the choir has sung German songs such as “Herbstlied.”
We are excited to see what our choir will bring to us at these upcoming events and look forward to what will come for the rest of this school year.
