The treble and mixed chamber choirs traveled south to Orlando, Florida on the weekend of April 9 to compete in the World Strides Heritage Festival. Along with both choirs receiving a gold rating, the Falcons flew home with the Orlando Sweepstakes award, a prize awarded to the group with more than one choir who got the closest to a perfect score. 

Regardless of performance, the choirs were guaranteed to receive a rating from the festival judges. Choir director Gabrielle Pierle explained how these awards were distributed. 

“Every choir there gets rated gold, silver, or bronze, and more than one choir can get gold or silver. It’s just based on how you performed yourself,” Pierle said. “So competition aside, our goal was to get a gold. That just meant that we performed really well. So, both groups got a gold, then after that there were two trophies up for grabs: choral sweepstakes and outstanding choir.” 

Senior Jackson Schertzer, a member of the mixed chamber choir, said that receiving these awards was a testament to the effort the group has put into this music. 

“[Receiving the award] felt pretty cool, especially because we work really hard. We’ve been working on these songs basically all year. We did a really good job so I feel like we deserved it,” Schertzer said. 

Planning the trip, Pierle said, took maneuvering around schedules and events. 

“First, I had to choose our travel agency. There’s tons of music festivals all across the United States. So, we wanted to choose a weekend that worked best on our schedule, trying to avoid ACT or AP tests, prom, whatever. Trying to find a good weekend where a festival was offered, and somewhere where a festival is a fun place to go,” Pierle said. 

In order to prepare for the festival, both choirs put a lot of effort into perfecting their music, Pierle said. 

“We just worked really hard in class, stayed consistent, whether we were high energy some days, low energy some days, good weather, bad weather. I mean, no matter the day, it was like ‘we’ve got work to get done.’ So trying to stay consistent, even for myself,” Pierle said. 

The students also had the opportunity to spend time at Universal Studios, a theme park containing roller coasters and sight-seeing from various famous movies. Senior Ella Gettemeier said that she really enjoyed traveling with her fellow classmates, especially due to the close relationship a lot of them share. 

“[Traveling with choir] was really fun because we’re all really close. So it made the trip even better because we’re just really good friends,” Gettemeier said. 

Despite the planning and hiccups that come with traveling, Pierle believes that bringing her class anywhere is always worth it. 

“Even when things go wrong, I never regret [traveling]. It’s great recruitment, [and] everyone gets super excited. People get, like, even closer together, and it’s just a really, really fun experience,” Pierle said.