As Sophomore Katherine Piraquive walked home with her family after the last choir concert of the year, she could feel her phone constantly buzzing in her pocket with notifications. After attempting to ignore the texts, she gave in and pulled out her phone. Her screen was flooded with texts from her friends in all caps, screaming at her.
Why are they spamming me?
What happened?
Did something go wrong with the biology test?
Her worries melted away as she read through the messages to find that nothing bad had happened. The list was out. After weeks of waiting, the 2023-24 chamber choir roster was finally out.
Twenty-four names — and Piraquive’s was one of them.
“I broke down,” Piraquive said. “I was sobbing, I was so happy. My mom was trying to get me to stop, but I was honestly just so overwhelmed with shock and excitement.”
Piraquive was the only sophomore listed. After their first year in the program, sophomores usually move up to the men’s choir or women’s choir, and when they continue as juniors they can be on the choraliers choir and possibly chamber choir.
Piraquive knew before auditioning that making chamber choir as a sophomore was rare, the majority of the choir is made up of seniors, and it’s often referred to as the “varsity” choir. The last time a female sophomore made the cut was before choir director Ken Foley began teaching at East 16 years ago.
Even with the odds stacked against her, Piraquive decided to audition. She wanted to push herself and sing more songs, and she found the songs the chamber choir performed more interesting.
Foley divides the chamber choir auditions into three parts: an evaluation of vocal tone and range, then pitch memory of simple notes on the spot and finally sight reading of four pieces of music the students have never seen before.
“She aced it,” Foley said. “There are very few people that come in and basically just do [the audition] almost perfectly, and she was one of those.”
Piraquive has noticed the differences between chamber and freshman choir but she feels she’s adapting well. She has been improving her singing technique — practicing enunciation, volume control and pronouncing consonants fluently — things that weren’t emphasized in freshmen choir.
As a soprano two, Piraquive sings the second highest parts in the choir, which can be difficult to learn because they are often inner parts of a song that aren’t included in the main melody. According to senior and choir president Audrey Apprill, Piraquive’s voice blends well as a second soprano because it has a strong classical tone.
“I think at the beginning she was a little bit sort of tentative,” Foley said. “But I mean I could tell from her audition that she’s really a strong musician and great singer and of course, the upperclass girls just immediately fell in love with her.”
Piraquive has her first chance to showcase her skills and improvement on Oct. 4 during the first choir concert of the year. The choir will be singing songs such as “When the Earth Stands Still” by Don Macdonald and “Sing Me to Heaven” by Daniel Gawthrop.
“I remember sitting in the auditorium listening to the chamber choir last year singing and just thinking like, I want to be up there someday singing all those pretty songs,” Piraquive said. “ Now I’m going to.”
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