The Cypress Choir program had an extremely busy competition season. At the Burbank competition, all levels placed with High Voltage placing third, Pink Thunder placing third, and Voltage Unlimited placing fourth. And on March 8th, they held their competition showcase in the Centurion Theater to display what they have been working on since October. On Saturday, March 16, they performed at their last competition for the year at Los Alamitos.
At the beginning of the show, the Centurion singers battled issues with the microphones. They handled the situation with professionalism and grace, and the show went on perfectly. Junior Dylan Mortera, bass on High Voltage, and Junior Leah Rivera, alto on High Voltage, had their microphones off during their duet. “Well, as a performer, when you’re on that stage and you know something’s wrong, you still have to get up there and perform. Halfway through the song, we noticed that her mic was off, and she still carried on with the show,” Mortera replied, “It’s kind of like a natural thing when you’re on that stage, the nerves only came on after we came off the stage.” Luckily, after intermission, the couple got to redo their duet with both voices loud and clear through the speakers.
The three groups had their very own themes for the show. High Voltage “cooked” with their food chef-themed songs such as “Be a Chef” from Disney’s Mulan and “Le Festin” from Disney’s Ratatouille, and their food-themed costumes. Pink Thunder had a pageant theme, wearing gorgeous gowns and tiaras. Last but not least, Voltage Unlimited opened the show with an upbeat list of songs, and sequin-covered sparkly uniforms.
JC Delgado, Junior tenor on High Voltage commented, “At Burbank, I felt amazing after hearing that we won third place out of nine schools. It was something that we worked really hard on, and to know that we were competing against some of the top schools in the country was unreal. It felt amazing to be considered a top group alongside them.” Another member of High Voltage, Eshani Banerjee, mentioned, “That was a really big win for us because we didn’t expect to place that high against nine schools.”
In another huge achievement for the choir, Farah Aqmal, sophomore alto on Pink Thunder earned best performer at the Los Alamitos High School, Brea High School, and Chaparral High School competitions just this year. “I felt really happy and excited. The first time I won it was kind of hard to process. Even now it’s still hard for me to process that I’ve won three.” Aqmal’s goal is to do choir all four years of high school, and she believes that choir will expand further and hopes that people will see “how fun and cool it is.”
High Voltage sophomore Soprano Yunalesca Chem said, “It’s fun to perform and showcase to other schools’ choirs and also see what kind of sets they have been rehearsing for. Mrs. Jones and Karina Alfajora have pushed us a lot with both vocal and dance practice and I’m really thankful for all the hard work everyone has put in for us, including the students and chaperones too.”
This competition season has been undoubtedly eventful for the Cypress show choir.
