The first round of the Texas Music Educators Association (TMEA) all-state choir auditions finished on Mon, Oct 19, with 27 TCHS students advancing, the most of any school that competed in the region. This year, the top 12 students in each voice part per region advanced after the initial round of auditions. The typically 4-round audition process is a little different this year as it’s entirely virtual and only 3 rounds long, cutting the number of competitors significantly.
The process of an all-state audition for each round is essentially the same, students learn the entirety of each song required for that rounded only learn the cuts of that piece that they will be judged on shortly before the audition. Rather than having a roughly 10 hour day of auditioning, students recorded their audition for submission on the TMEA-approved app MusicFirst. The cuts for round 1 were released on Oct 10, and submissions were due by Oct 14 at midnight.
“The biggest challenge by far was getting a good recording in…it was a huge advantage to be able to redo your audition as many times as you wanted, but here’s the thing: so can everyone else, so it can be hard to decide whether or not you should leave it be or try again in chance you’ll do better than your competitors.” said Junior Claire Remo.
The following students advanced to the next round.
Sorpano 1:
1st Chair: Emma Johnson
4th Chair: Ainsley Perry
5th Chair: Reighly Bucher
7th Chair: Kenna Morris
8th Chair: Mina Haring
10th Chair: Triana Gonzalez
Soprano 2:
2nd Chair: Amber Johnson
6th Chair: Sam Bustos
7th Chair: Kyra Rhoades
11th Chair: Taylor Harr
Alto 1:
1st Chair: Rachel Mareth
5th Chair: MacKenzie Braegger
11th Chair: Claire Remo
Alto 2:
1st Chair: Hutton Stiller
3rd Chair: Kirryn Parson
Tenor 1:
1st Chair: Kaedyn McClain
10th Chair: Arthur Frayzond
Tenor 2:
4th Chair: Andrew Corona
7th Chair: Noah Horton
8th Chair: Isaiah Blalock
9th Chair: Tyler Holton
10th Chair: Tim McCracken
Bass 1:
1st Chair: Parker Davis
2nd Chair: Alessandro Hernandez
Bass 2:
2nd Chair: Zachariah Collazo
3rd Chair: Houston Goff
4th Chair: Luke McCartney