Every year Sierra Vista High School (SVHS) and other high schools around Las Vegas gather for an advanced festival to perform pieces of music. This year’s festival will be performed at Las Vegas Academy (LVA) on April 9th, 2024. Every day Jonathan Baltera and Susan Easter push students to grow as performers and produce their best shows. SVHS advanced choirs received superiors, the highest rating possible, at every festival since 2018.
In preparation for the advanced festival, SVHS advanced choir students received a chance to perform for their friends and family on March 21, 2024, at the pre-festival in the auditorium. During this performance, students reflected on their strengths and weaknesses. Student Kailani Robles, (11), said, “I think all choirs who attended performed well. But of course, we are all prone to mistakes big and small.” Robles adds, “Both Sierra Vista Choirs made small mistakes, but I think we worked well to fix them before and after the concert!” Middle school choir students attended the pre-festival in order to work on their own music and listen to more mature choirs, Genevah Thomas, (11), states that the pre-festival “Gave us a chance to show what our choirs are capable of to the middle schoolers attending and the next year’s freshmen.” Listening to a choir with a mature sound helps students understand how they should sing and what they can do differently to become great singers. Baltera and Easter push for a mature sound from all choirs, and the incoming freshmen need to prepare for the challenges choir brings as they transition into high school.
Sierra Vista’s pre-festival helps students get the repertoire they need to be phenomenal at the festival. Amaii Tate, (11), a fellow choir student shares “Pre-festival helps us better understand our strengths and weaknesses in our performance.” Each choir worked with a clinician after each performance to gain feedback in “understanding what we did well such as our volume dynamics and what we still need to work on such as shaping our vowels.” All of the preparation and help shows choir students what they need to improve but it also gets them excited. Amaii Tate states, “I am excited about the festival just because I know the choir always does well at every festival. It’s also nice to show off to other schools and judges to show them our level of skill!” Baltera and Easter strongly push out the individual skills of every student in the choir. Genevah Thomas believes, “we have come a long way since the beginning of the year, especially on the Fall music that we got a chance to bring out for a second time this year.” Thanks to Baltera, Easter, and all choir students the choir feels prepared to wow judges and other students from different schools.
The Festival was performed on April 9th, 2024 at LVA with many Las Vegas choir students listening and performing beautiful pieces of music. SVHS earned superiors all around from judges in both Cantus and Mazarine. All of the hard work Sierra Vista’s choir accomplished brings a bright future to how great they will become in the upcoming years.
