The Sweet Home High School Symphonic Choir has been chosen to compete in the OSAA 4A state championships May 7 at George Fox College in Newberg.
Director Matthew Clark said he learned Monday that his choir had made the cut, the day after they returned from a performance tour to Portland and Olympia, Wash.
This will be the first time Sweet Home has competed in the state championships since 2005, when the then-named Concert Choir went with Paul Myers.
Qualifying for the state championships is a heavily subjective and difficult process, as choir members discovered last year, Clark said. Choirs must earn a score of 81 from judges at choir festivals to qualify for consideration to compete in the 12-team state championships, but the only way to automatically earn a spot in the competition is to win the league championship.
Last year one judge at the league championship gave Sweet Home a qualifying score, while another gave them what Clark said was “the lowest score any of my choirs has ever gotten in a competition” €“ a 35-point disparity
“There’s just a lot of subjectivity in judging,” Clark said. “That’s why it’s so difficult. If one judge doesn’t like your music, you have a lot to overcome.”
This year the choir finished a close second to Central at the Val-co championships and was put in a “tape pool” with other qualifiers, from which judges selected state competitors after watching video tape.
Clark said he was unsure what to expect from this year’s choir after losing some talented singers to graduation last spring.
“This is my best-sounding choir yet,” said Clark, who is in his third year at Sweet Home. “What’s cool is that we don’t have any big guns. Everyone just does their part. They’ve decided to step up.”
Sweet Home will sing at 9:20 a.m. on Friday, May 7, in Bauman Auditorium on the George Fox campus. Tickets are $8 for adults and $5 for students.