Birds weren’t the only ones singing at the University of Louisville last Thursday.

Fourteen of Bullitt East’s choir students recently took a school field trip to the University of Louisville.

Students partook in an annual choir event with teaching, singing and eating all included in the day. Choir teacher Carrie Gary took advantage of the trip to help students practice for their All State audition. Both students and Gary were pleased with the outcome of the day.

This event gave the students the opportunity sing almost all day long. A German lieder stole the spotlight, as that’s all they sung for the entirety of the visit. This lieder is the students’ audition piece for all state, so the practice was essential.

Some students even went above and beyond at the event and volunteered to sing before the crowd of attendants. Chaeli Dossey, Kaleigh Foster, Joey Byrd, and Brendan Dugas were among the few. “I felt very good about [the performance] because I received so many positive comments,” said senior Kaleigh Foster, one of the volunteers.

In the little downtime when they weren’t singing, students got the opportunity to listen to the director of the event speak. He informed them on some tricks for sight reading, which is a part of the All State audition where the judges give the auditioner a piece they have one minute to look over, and then they sing it back to the judges immediately after.

Students who attended also got to listen to the university’s choir perform and went out to eat at Qdoba when the trip was over.

The Director of Choral Activities at University of Louisville, Dr. Kent Hatteburg, hosted the students. Anyone in a district five Kentucky Music Educators Association high school could attend; therefore, choir programs from high schools in Bullitt, Oldham, Shelby, Spencer, Henry and Carol counties took advantage of the opportunity.

The choir director here at Bullitt East was very pleased with the course of the day. “I hope more students take advantage of this opportunity next year,” said Gary. Gary believed it was a great opportunity to prepare and be around many talented singers from across the area.

Students also felt similarly. Sophomore Beth Woods said it was both inspiring and beneficial. “It inspired me to want to continue with music, even after high school,” said Woods.

Fellow sophomore Devon Price loved seeing the diversity of other counties choir programs. “It was really interesting to see how other choirs had done the same piece… [and] a great way to learn new methods of looking at music,” said Price.

Among some of the things the students learned were more unique warmups, transitions, and getting extra sight reading practice. All of these are essential things to be proficient at for the All State audition.

The choirs also got to practice their solfege skills. Solfege is a common system for singing notes, fit with the simple terms you probably learned in elementary school music class: do, re, mi, fa, so, and so on. The true purpose of solfege is to help singers match their pitch.

KMEA All State choir auditions are next Tuesday, the 26. Results will be in within the next month.