Last week, the Advanced Women’s choir and the Chorale here at Greenwood traveled to seek their rating at the official Festival event in Owensboro, Kentucky. The choirs had the honor of performing at Owensboro’s Riverpark Center, where there were judges awaiting to hear them.

At this event, the choirs are required to perform songs selected by Ms. Osborne and perform a sight reading excerpt they are given that day. They would then be rated on both sections of the event, giving either a distinguished (highest score), proficient, apprentice, or novice (lowest score) rating.

For the Advanced Women’s group, they performed “Simple Gifts” by Copland, “Do Li” by Doreen Rao, and “Hand Me Down My Silver Trumpet” by Bartle. The Chorale performed “O Magnum Mysterium” by Vittoria and “God’s Gonna Set This World On Fire” by Hogan. “I feel like my choirs performed very well and I was incredibly proud of their hard work and their overall accomplishment,” said Greenwood choir director Ms. Osborne.

The Sight Reading portion was implemented after their performance, which included another judge. The Chorale performed a difficult excerpt for their assessment, while the Women’s choir performed an easy one. “I felt apprehensive during the solfege, but once we started singing I felt a lot better and relieved because we sounded good,” stated junior Mary Catherine Thomas, who is a part of the Chorale here at the Swamp.

Overall, both groups received a high distinguished rating, which made Ms. Osborne and her students very thrilled!

Although the choirs aren’t required to perform at Festival, this opportunity allows Ms. Osborne to see how successful her choirs are from other perspectives and what they can work on for the future. She expressed that her favorite part of Festival was the Sight reading. “I love the Sight Reading because it always makes me really proud.”