Choir is beginning its preparations for its UIL performances in late Feb./early March, but practices and performances will look different this year due to them being held virtually.

“In a normal year UIL would be held on a host campus and all the schools would travel to sing their program live in front of six judges, “choir director Toni Ugolini said. “This year everything will be recorded on our home campus and submitted for judging. Our program will look very similar to years past, the only things that are really going to be different are the fact that we have to record it instead of performing live, and that our ensemble is much smaller since many students are virtual learners.”

For sophomore Isabelle Raade, the virtual and live performances each provide benefits.

“I like both the live and recorded version,” Raade said. “The recorded version you get to do it a few times, but on the live version it has a better energy because we’re all together. We’re doing past UIL sight reading, and we’re learning our songs. We’ve been working so hard on everything, and it would be terrible if any of us messed up because it takes so much energy to remember everything.”

Choir will perform three songs for its performance, as well as sight read one song.

“We are learning music similar to years past, the only main difference is we will be combining the treble singers from two choirs for one group,” Ugolini said. “We will have to hold a few outside class rehearsals to make this work which is unusual for us but we are trying to keep it as similar as possible to try to add some normalcy to the year.”

For their sight reading performance, the choir will be given a piece of music they have never practiced and be given a few minutes to practice before they perform it.

“I am training for UIL by doing sight reading regularly in and out of the classroom,” senior Gaberial Armstrong said. “I prefer to do it live because it feels better to be able to sing with my friends in person. Plus it allows for the choir to sound more natural and better in general. All in all, i’m just glad that we can still do this as it really brings the choir together.”