Sea of Voices

I’m sitting in a little not-quite-rectangular room in Craige North listening to forty or so bold auditionees who are hoping to make it into UNC’s Psalm 100… or at least have a callback. I love auditions. Many other a cappella group members find it tedious – I just love hearing all the different people come in – some with a voice, some without, but all of them bold enough to show off what they have, and that deserves respect. It takes about fifteen to twenty hours the whole week. It’s a long time, but so much fun.

Here’s what happens. An auditionee sits nervously out in the hall, watching, waiting. A member of Psalm of the same voice part comes out and prays with them, gets them ready – they come in, we all cheer, because they are beautiful and amazing. We warm them up, they sing some scales, some tonal memory exercises, then we listen to the voice and chorus of their solo song, whatever they’ve picked out. And they sing Amazing Grace or Whitney Houston or Fall Out Boy and we listen enraptured and then the professor doing his six ‘o clock class next door comes over and asks us if we could keep it down because they’re taking a test and sure, we sound good and everything, but we’re making the students twitch while filling in their bubbles (actually happened). Then we ask them a few questions about their life, and send them on their way with applause.

I’m so happy to have you all here. I just wish we could let all the people who didn’t get in know that we’re so proud of you, that we enjoyed you. Thank you for respecting and saluting us with your time and voices.

~ by rapierwit713 on August 26, 2008.