This month the Choir department at Wiregrass Ranch went to their Musical Performance Assessment, or MPA, at King High School, where they received straight Superiors in both the Women’s Ensemble and Mixed Choir. Superior is the highest ranking available at MPA.

Music MPA is an assessment for band, orchestra, and choir; each ensemble prepares two pieces from the Florida Vocal Associations Repertoire and are adjudicated by the judges.

“[The pieces] you select are adjudicated on things such as tone quality, technical preparation, and just the overall musicianship that you demonstrate,” choir director, Brooke Adkins stated. 

The second component of the ratings include a sight-reading room with a single judge. Each choir performs a piece they have never seen before to test their overall ability to read and interpret music. After all the ratings are collected, the judges then combine everything to get the overall score for the group.

MPA is not only just for receiving scores on music, but it is a way for the choirs to show off what they have been working on for several months. The process of preparation for the students is a lot more than expected.

“We sing our music over and over again,” senior Jayden Green explained. “It was just overall a really long process to really perfect the songs we were singing down to the smallest details.”

The preparation also included having sight-reading examples displayed on the projector screen in the classroom, where the choir would act as if the small piece was their MPA piece. The students would do things like solfège and count the beats in order to perform it perfectly.

In addition to this, MPA was also an excellent bonding experience for the musicians.

“It gets us to work better together on our music more now that we’re getting scored and makes sure we can reach our fullest potential,” senior Lauren Richard said.

Now that MPA’s are over, the Choir is preparing for their next event coming up on May 20, The Spring Concert.