Hello friends! If you are reading this, it's probably a safe bet you already know the good news of the day (May 25, 2019). The Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College Madrigals are the 2019 winners of the Mayo International Choral Festival! Still, I want to explain a little bit about what that means and provide an insider's view of our day.
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| Presented with the Four Part Choirs First Place Award |
The Mayo International Choral Festival is held once a year, typically in May. There are several places in Ireland that hold such events, spread throughout the year. The Festival in Mayo has two parts: Community performances and the Competition. The aim is to bring many choirs together in celebration of choral music, spread them throughout the region performing, and provide opportunities for growth and learning from each other. Some choirs may participate in the community performances, but not the competition; and, some participate in the competition, but not the community concerts. We did all of it! In fact, in our 5 days, we will have performed 11 times. The festival included participation by 35 choirs, 23 of which competed.
Here is how the
competition is structured:
1.) A choir can compete in two categories. They have 10 or 11 and they include categories such as 'Sacred Music,' 'Choirs from Ireland,' 'Four Part Choirs,' etc. We selected 'Sacred Music' and 'Women's Choir.' However, we learned a few weeks ago that no other choirs chose 'Women's Choir' so we needed to change to another category. The most logical category given our repertoire and the requirements was 'Four Part Choirs.'
2.) Today was competition day, so all competing choirs sang for judges. A winner and runner-up was determined for each of the eight categories. The winner from each category was then allowed to move on to the 'Premier Competition' where judges would select an overall winner and runner-up for the entire competition. In short, it all works exactly like a dog show...
So, today our first competition was in 'Sacred Music.' We sang really well, and felt going in to the day that it would be our best shot at advancing to the premiere competition. So naturally we were disappointed when we learned we were neither the winner nor the runner-up. We did discover that we were only 1 point behind the runner-up and only 2 points behind the winner, according to the reported scores.
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| Four Part Choirs Award |
We went to lunch and then returned to prepare for our second competition, which was "Four Part Choirs". I think we knew we had the potential to do well on the repertoire, but we had also performed it less and knew where potential pitfalls existed. We sang our first selection - 'Ecce Maria' by Michael Praetorius (This category requires an early music piece). It went very well, though we were aware of a slight intonation issue toward the end. Then we sang our second piece, 'Nocturne' by Eric Tuan. It's a complex piece with lots of Spanish, lots of divisi (it splits into 8 parts at one point, and we only have 9 singers!), mixed meter, and a great deal of emotional depth. And our students nailed it. It was truly incredible. At the end, you could hear a pin drop. Then we sat and waited for the results. Given our morning results, having heard other good choirs in our category, and knowing we had a slight issue on the first piece, we really didn't know what to expect. But, we won! This accomplished two things: One, we had a title to take home as a category winner, which was nice as we really felt we grew through the course of the festival. Second, it meant we could move on to compete in the premier competition.
We grabbed a quick dinner, and returned to participate in the premier competition with the other seven winners. It was wonderful to hear the high quality of the variety of ensembles. The rules specified that choirs had to sing one piece from a category you won, and one piece not sung in any other aspect of the competition. So, we selected 'Nocturne' again and 'Will the Circle Be Unbroken,' a raucous favorite of ours. Both went very well, but as choir after choir came up, we wondered how things would go, and what the judges were looking for in the performances.
After the competition, the judges left to discuss the results. We had been previously asked by the festival committee to sing a few selections to cover their deliberation time. So we did and even received a standing ovation after one of our pieces, "Be Like the Bird".
The judges returned and the runner-up was announced. Not us. But then they read the name of the premiere competition champions and the long name of "The Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College Madrigals" never sounded so good!
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| Premier Competition First Place Award |
Even if the result had not been in our favor what a lovely experience our participation in this festival has been! The trophies are nice, but the learning and camaraderie that has occurred cannot be replaced. Thank you to everyone for your support!
