CAYCE, S.C. — Four students at Brookland-Cayce High School were selected to be a part of the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) Honor Choir.
Wendy Humphries, the Choral Director at Brookland-Cayce High School, says this is a big honor.
"We are a part of the South Carolina American Choral Directors Association. This is choral directors from across the state, that work with their high school students and prepare their students for this event," said Humphries.
Last year, the Honor Choir was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.
This year, four students from Brookland-Cayce High School prepared to audition for the 2021-2022 Honor Choir.
The audition includes the students preparing a piece of music and submitting an audio recording.
"They are judged on certain criteria such as intonation, musicality, pitch, rhythm and then all of the auditions are listened to by judges professional judges," said Humphries. "They are selected from all of the entries. We're very happy to be able to have students from Brookland Cayce for about the past eight to 10 years in the American Choral Directors Association Honor Choir."
It was announced Callie Grace Burgess, Sydney Davis, Alejandra Rubio and Dylan Whitman were selected to be a part of the ACDA Honor Choir.
On October 8 and 9, students will travel to perform with the Honor Choir. A place has not been determined at this time.
"These students will learn music repertoire, prior to going on this field trip," said Humphries. "They will rehearse for two entire days with all the students across the state. And then each choir each level, elementary, middle and high. They will then perform a concert that's open to their parents in the public."
Alejandra Rubio is happy she'll be able to perform in the Honor Choir after COVID-19 has cancelled so many things.
"This is my second year auditioning. Last year it was my first and I unfortunately didn't make it, but that just encouraged me to prepare harder for the songs, and I stayed a couple of days after school to practice with my choir director Miss Humphries," said Rubio.
Dylan Whitman made the choir last year, but wasn't able to perform due to COVID.
"At the honors choir, there is an all female choir and all male choir and then a mixed choir and so for me, only being able to sing with a couple of other guys here, it's gonna be a great experience to be able to sing with a full male choir with different voice types and like singing different parts of the song like the melody versus like always singing like the harmony or whatever," said Whitman. "It's going be exciting to be able to experience different types of a choir."
Callie Grace Burgess also is looking forward to performing in October.
"It is also my second year auditioning. Last year I got in as an eighth grader, but due to COVID it was canceled," said Burgess. "So this year, Miss Humphries encouraged all of us to audition, and just try it out to see because it doesn't hurt if you get in or it doesn't hurt if you don't, and I was definitely nervous to see if I got in or not, but I got in and that was very exciting for me."
Humphries says it's difficult to be selected to be a part of the ACDA Honor Choir. It can be nerve wracking auditioning since students are used to performing with other people rather than being solo.
"The other thing is, never knowing what the judges are looking at specifically for their voice type, and then you never know how many auditions, sometimes it's just hundreds across the state," said Humphries. "I know years that it has been over thousands of students auditioning to be in just this choir."
According to Humphries, the girls and boys will have their own separate choirs.
"I'm very proud of them because it's been very, very hard this year, singing through masks and trying to keep the chorus students motivated," explained Humphries. "With a lot of performances and events being cancelled or postponed streamed, there's not a lot of live performances. I did have four students audition and all four made it. I was very excited."