After much preparation, Granite Bay High School’s choir took a trip down to Anaheim, Calif. to participate in the Forum Music Festival, where they won gold, placing them in the top 10% of all choirs in the country.

   Every spring semester, the choir visits a different festival that scores them in different qualities of their performance such as intonation, tone, balance, and interpretation. 

   “A lot of it was figuring out what the text meant and trying to show that emotion through singing,” Susanna Peeples,  the choir teacher at Granite Bay, said. “ It was making sure we had the right kind of tone and a really mature sound that didn’t sound like a beginning high school choir”

   The choir met every Wednesday for an hour before school for about five months to work on the pieces. The group focused on the smaller details to make sure they sounded the best they could. 

   “Diction was definitely a huge thing,” Cami Catanella, a sophomore and member of the  choir, said. “Textual emphasis was too … and we had to work on (making) our vowel sounds more blended”.

   After five months of preparation, the choir was ready to sing at the festival. They hit the ball rolling right away, as the competition took place on the first day that they got there. 

   “(Before the performance) I didn’t feel any nerves, I just felt like we prepared the best we could,” Catanella said. 

   After the performance at the awards ceremony, the Granite Bay choir received gold, with scores in the 90s from both of the judges.

   “Two years ago at a different festival, we got a silver rating with scores in the ’80s.” Peeples said, “Last year we (got) gold with some (scores) in the 80s and 90s, and then this year was all in the 90s, so in the last three years we’ve improved and been able to raise our score.”

    “It (felt) great to get (recognized for) how much work you put in and how good you actually sound,” Noah Redmond, a junior and member of the choir said.  

   With this being the first time for the choir to ever get such high scores at a non-local festival, they were ecstatic about receiving such a huge award. 

   “They sounded really full, blended and just really in it,” Peeples said, “I honestly think (this) was one of the best performances they’ve ever had.”