Participation in the District and All-State Festivals is a prestigious and highly sought after achievement by high school musicians, and is open to any high school music student within the state of Illinois. Preparation involves rehearsals outside of the school day to prepare music for the audition. The auditions are scheduled for Tuesday, October 7th, 2008 at Libertyville High School . Please see below for the contents of the audition.

But wait, there’s more...

For the Sophomores, Juniors and Seniors that are accepted into the District VII Honor Chorus, they will have the opportunity to perform with the top 200 high school students from the Northwest Chicago Suburbs at Crystal Lake Central High School on Saturday, November 17th. While at the festival, they will work with a professional choral director and have a chance to celebrate their hard work at an afternoon performance.

The Juniors and Seniors who have a successful audition at the District level my be eligible for the All-State choral ensembles. The All -State Festival is a three day event in January held in Peoria, IL . The All State festival conductors are of the highest caliber and usually teach at prestigious colleges around the country. While the auditions for this year’s chorus are fast approaching, Conant High School Concert Choir and Ladies Vocal Ensemble students will have the opportunity to audition for this event.

The audition process…

• Prepared pieces- Every student will prepare the 6 selected choir pieces that will be performed at the festival. The judges at the auditions (choir directors from this district) will choose 2 selections from these 6 pieces for every student to sing. Each student will be judged upon note and rhythm accuracy, intonation, diction and musicianship.
• Sight reading- Each student will then go into a different room to be tested on their sight reading capabilities. Each student will read two (2) four measure (4) pieces that they can sight sing on any syllable (solfege, la, etc.).
• Scales- Each student will also be tested on their ability to sing 3 different scales. They will be required to sing the major scale and then the judges will choose two (2) of the three (3) minor scales (natural, harmonic, and melodic) for the student to audition with. All students will sing the same 3 scales.
• Tone quality- Each students’ overall audition will also be judged on the tone quality of their voice (i.e. singing with support, clear tone, etc).

As you can see, this is a very thorough process, so that all students receive a fair opportunity to take part in this event.

I do understand that this is a lot for the students to take on with all of their other classes and activities in school; however, I am more than willing to help the students with these auditions. For those students that are interested in auditioning for this choir festival, we will be having weekly morning rehearsals for students to work on sight reading, and tonal skills. And all students will receive recordings of their parts for all 5 pieces of music.

Students who are interested in auditioning for this festival should sign up on the sheet outside of Ms. Kamberos’ office.