The OSSAA Regional Choir Competition is the last chance for choir soloists to make it to state. Soloists have one chance to perform in order to receive a 1, which is a superior rating.

The choir will head to Southern Nazarene University to compete. For senior Taylor Davidson this may be her last competition. 

She is sad that she has not gotten to participate in the process more because she really enjoys it.

“You go in and you introduce yourself, and you say what your song is, and say what school you’re from.” Davidson says.

This makes choir competitions a fairly smooth but quick process. Each soloist gets one chance and once it is done they await their results.

“Then about like 30 minutes after is when they’ll submit it.” Davidson said. “And then your coach, for us Ms. Sokolosky, will go get the paperwork and then come back and tell you if you made it to state or not.”

Just because the experience is quick does not mean that the preparation was. 

For the competition soloists prepare their own songs. Sophomore Sarah Elder prepares with rehearsal tracks in order to get her song down.

Choosing a song can be difficult because soloists must choose an art piece, which is a song written before 1900. Despite this, Elder enjoys this because she enjoys this style of music as she finds them beautiful. 

The students have choir as a class, which also helps them prepare.

However when it comes to solos, choir director Jennifer Sokolosky says the preparation “is very individual so they have to work on it outside of school a lot.”

Preparation can be difficult and takes a lot of time.

“For solos, you have to memorize the actual words, so you can’t have your music with you,” Elder said.

This memorization is important for soloists because they have one moment to impress and receive their superior rating. 

The choir competition on Saturday is the last chance for the soloists to qualify for the last competition of the year. After that the choir has one more event, their spring concert which is April 15.