The advanced Girl’s Treble Choir achieved sweepstakes, a score of straight ones, on March 31, at the 2023 UIL competition. Next year, the choir team hopes to recruit more students and do more performances throughout the year with advanced groups to achieve sweepstakes again.

“The Marshall Choir department hasn’t received a sweepstake in four years. It was an honor to make history with all those girls,” Choir President Michaela Alvarado said. 

A choir that wins sweepstakes has achieved straight 1 ratings from the judges in both of their competitions. A rating of one is the highest score. Two are also highly looked upon. 

“We definitely had high hopes for ourselves, especially with all the time and effort we put into it. We felt pretty confident, but you never know,” Alvarado said. 

The Treble Girl’s Choir has rehearsals during class and after-school. They prepared by sight-reading different sheets of music daily and running through each song every day. In addition, the girls prepared three pieces to perform. Two of those pieces must be from a list provided by UIL and be a certain level of “difficulty.” The third piece can be from any source of the choral repertory. 

“We felt as prepared as we could be but nerves are always at play,” Mr. Valadez, the choir teacher, said. “In live performances, anything can happen.”

The judges evaluate them on their technique, musicianship, and tone. The factors that contributed to the Varsity Girls Treble Choir achieving their sweepstakes trophy were their ability to blend their voices together, ability to sight-read at a high level, and singing pitches and rhythms accurately.

“Winning this award was one of the greatest feelings because our hard work finally paid off,” Choir Vice President Hannah Menchaca said.