The race is on to fill BYU’s choir seats – all 540 of them. Tryouts began Thursday and last until Monday.

If a student wants to be in a choir, said Rosalind Hall, conductor of the Concert Choir and Men’s Chorus, it is important to audition now.

“Most choirs don’t re-audition in winter,” Hall said. “So if you don’t audition in August, you can’t sing in a BYU choir at all [until the following year].”

Auditions start at 8 a.m. and end at 5 p.m. and take place in the E-wing of the Harris Fine Arts Center on the third floor. Auditions will continue today and Monday.

Students do not have to be the most experienced singers to be in a choir, said Ronald Staheli, conductor of the BYU Singers.

Only about 20 percent of choir members are music majors, Hall said, but most have had some high school choir experience and all are dedicated to the task.

“We encourage the students to participate fully, wholly, whole heartedly,” Hall said.

However, it takes more than one audition to nab a spot. Students must tryout out three separate times before getting into a choir. Graduate students do the first evaluation and faculty do the second and third. Students can be cut at any of the auditions.

There are four choirs including the Women’s Chorus with 200 members, Men’s Chorus with 200 members, BYU Singers with 40 members and Concert Choir with 100 members.

“A person needn’t be fearful [of auditioning],” Staheli said. “All they need to do is sing their favorite hymn.”

The vast majority of music performed in the choirs is sacred, Staheli said.

The sacred music helps students get through their day, Hall said.

“Many students tell me that they came to choir feeling exhausted, weighed down, burdened, not quite knowing how they were going to make it through the day,” she said. “Somehow, during that hour they spent singing with their peers, making beautiful music — especially singing sacred music — they left feeling uplifted.”

Laura Workman, a vocal performance major from Saint George has been in the BYU Singers for three years. She agreed that rehearsals are uplifting.

“Rehearsals are the greatest things since sliced bread,” she said.

Working with a committed group of singers is part of what makes choir rewarding, Workman said.

“I remember when I was in high school choir, and some people were in there just to get an easy ‘A,’” she said. “I was so excited to finally get to college where everyone was there because they wanted to be there. They tried hard to be there, and that is how it is in BYU choir.”

But there are challenges, too, she said.

“Sometimes in choir you can get discouraged because the directors go pretty fast and pretty rigorous,” Workman said. “But, honestly, the rewards are always going to outweigh the sacrifices.”

Benjamin Boster, a vocal performance major from Adrian, Ore., has been in the BYU Singers for three years, and he says choir is the “highlight of my day.”

Some of the hardest times are when the choir is going over music again and again to prepare for a tour, he said, but he even likes that.

“I wouldn’t trade [choir] for anything. I really wouldn’t,” Boster said. “Even, what seems to be, the mundane rehearsal.”



Copyright Brigham Young University 26 Aug 2005