All four choirs received sweepstakes trophies at the UIL Concert and Sight Reading competition April 9-10 for their onstage performances of pre-selected songs by director Brad Hester and sight reading music they had never seen before.

“The judges this year were very tough,” senior Filip Kasprowicz said. “We really had to bring our A game.”

Students prepared for the challenge of earning all 1s from a hard-to-impress group of judges. Their director and the students’ own dedication helped to ensure a win.

“We practiced every class for months,” Kasprowicz said. “We held morning rehearsals several times.”

Despite all of their work, students were still anxious about their scores while they waited to find out how they had been judged.

“Before we got our scores, the mood was pretty somber because we figured we didn’t do as well as we could have,” Kasprowicz said.

This atmosphere vanished once the choirs learned of the their success in the competition.

“When we saw our name on the trophy we started screaming ‘we did it!’,” junior Caleb Long said.

The students who participated in the UIL contest took a lot more away from it than four trophies. For many choir members, the reward was seeing months of hard work come together.

“The best part of UIL was hearing our performances and how things finally came together,” senior Alycia Barker said.

For others, performing at UIL and the whole experience of UIL were the best parts of the competition.

“I felt like we did really well, regardless of what the judges said,” Kasprowicz said. “It was a really rewarding experience and a fully satisfying last UIL performance for me.”