By Special Contributor, Mr. Chatterton, Chamber Singers Director

On Tuesday, May 1^st 2012 the Galway Chamber singers attended the New York State School Music Association’s Choral Evaluation festival at Bethlehem High School.  This type of evaluation is available to school choirs of any level and is designed to give students an opportunity to perform as well as receive positive and constructive feedback on their presentation and performance of their repertoire.

This year, the Chamber Singers performed two works in Latin including “Ubi caritas” by the French composer Maurice Duruflé and “Sicut Locutus est” by Johann Sebastian Bach.  The final piece was an arrangement of an American folk song by Chinese composer, Chen Yi.  All selections were rated a level V difficulty out of a possible VI.

After a very quiet and focused bus ride, we were given time to warm-up and get ready to perform.  We were then ushered into the nearly empty auditorium, where the two adjudicators waited.  They introduced themselves and assured the choir not to be nervous.

After performing our pieces, they both came back down to give us verbal feedback and suggestions to improve our sound.   In addition, to the verbal comments, each choir receives a written evaluation and rating based on bronze, silver, gold, and gold with distinction.  The Galway Chamber Singers were fairly awarded a Silver medal, and we all learned a great deal about the way we make music together through the experience.

After the adjudication we boarded the bus for Crossgates Mall for lunch where the students decided to stage an impromptu “flash mob” of the pieces we had just learned.  The few people shopping on a Tuesday afternoon seemed to enjoy it too!

Chamber Singer Amy Engel shared her thoughts on the day…

Being in Chamber Singers this year has been awesome! Especially going to NYSSMA for the first time. The judges liked us, and were giving us compliments instead of saying we did something wrong, and we got SILVER! We have the potential to win gold now in the future because of the judges’ helpful tips.

We went to Crossgates to have lunch (I had never been there before!) Then we started a flash mob in the mall! Best day ever! I hope we can do more flash mobs that are planned and maybe even have some dancing too!

Junior Nick Valente provided this re-cap…

After each piece, the two judges took their time to make written and verbal comments. When it was all over, the judges had some great constructive criticism to give the choir and Mr. Chatterton. While one judge was explaining how to perfect volume, Mr. Chatterton and the other judge were bonding over their wild experiences at Ithaca college. When the judges released the choir, each member sighed with relief and made comments to their peers, regarding the judges’ advice. Now back at Galway, the Chamber Singers, and Mr. Chatterton, have new goals to work towards.

Here’s a link to the video taken of the flash mob at Crossgates, by Mr. Chatterton: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC5j8-S8A3E