Four Students Selected for All-State Chorus

Jay Attys ’12, Shelby Gamble ’14, Lauren Darnis ’12 and Morgan Rubin ’13 auditioned for the All-State Festival over Westminster’s Winter Long Weekend in early February and were selected for Connecticut’s prestigious All-State Chorus. Sam Boures and Heather Frew also auditioned but just missed the cut-off scores for acceptance.
 

The students along with Director of Music David Chrzanowski gave up most of the day on Feb. 5 to drive to New Britain High School for the auditions, which consisted of three sections: preparation of a choral piece in which they had to sing only their part with a recording of the other vocal parts, singing of two scales, and a sight-singing challenge in which they were given a piece of music and had to sing the part on the spot with only a minute of practice time.
 

The four who were accepted will be heading to the Hartford Convention Center from April 12-14. Over the three days, they will practice several very challenging choral pieces with nearly 200 of the best high school choral singers from Connecticut. The festival will end with a final performance on Saturday afternoon April 14. Their choral director for the festival will be Richard Bjella, a nationally known choral conductor from Texas Tech University.