SATB Top Auditioned Ensemble

Quarter 1:
Ave Verum Corpus, Mozart
Sure on This Shining Night, Barber
Zigeunerleben, Schumann
Quarter 2:
Carol of the Bells, Wilhousky
My Lord Has Come, Todd
Hope for Resolution, Caldwall
Quarter 3:
Famine Song, Arr. Culloton
Sicut Cervus, Palestrina
Pseudo Yoik, Jaakko Mntyjrvi
Quarter 4:
Sanctus, Mozart from Requiem Mass in D minor.
I Am Not Yours, Stroope
Hallelujah Chorus, Handel
Quarter 1:
Ave Verum Corpus would be an excellent piece to start the ensemble with. It teaches
excellent breath management, which is where a good choral sound starts. It is very homophonic
in general which would allow the choir to sing in four bar phrases together, practicing good
breath management. This piece also has a good contrast between major and minor and would be
excellent in training students ears with its classical use of leading tones.
I would include Sure on This Shining Night by Barber because it stays within four
singable parts. This piece teaches melodic lines well, as the melody gets passed between voices.
It has a bit of call and response, allowing for the students to listen and build their aural training.
This piece also has a wide variety of emotion and dynamic contrast, and would be a good starter
piece to begin dynamics and text phrasing with.
Lastly, I would use Zigeunerleben to close the final concert. It has driving tempos and
energetic text. The quick text through the fast tempo will demand that the students are using
strong breath support and intense breath energy. It is four part throughout with solo lines in each
voice part, providing an opportunity for students to try soloing with the ensemble. It is
homophone like Ave Verum Corpus but also has independent lines for each part like Sure on This
Shining Night. The piece has a great contrast in dynamics, which the students will also be
learning from Sure on This Shining Night.
After the first quarter, I want students to have a strong grasp on breath support and the
energy it takes to breathe and phonate properly. I also want the students to know to use their
breath to create musical phrases and show dynamic contrast.

Quarter 2:
The quarter 2 concert will be a holiday concert shared with the other ensembles. The
auditioned mixed ensemble will begin with Wilhouskys Carol of the Bells. This piece builds off
the knowledge the students have of breath support and strong breath energy. Much like the
Schumann, the students will need consist and moving breath to provide a clear textual phrase. In
this piece, the lines are a little more independent, providing the students the opportunity to listen
and take ownership of their own part. The students are remaining in four parts.
The second piece of the holiday concert is My Lord Has Come. Although this piece is still
in four parts, it has many technical challenges. Intonation is a challenge of this piece, but with
the students using proper breath support and energy, intonation can be spot on. This piece is to
show the students the beauty of a simple melody, but how much energy is needed to stay in tune.
Because of the open 5ths and lack of piano accompaniment, this piece is a perfect opportunity
for students to show what they have learned about breath, listening, phrasing, and dynamics.
Hope for Resolution will close the holiday concert on a strong note. This piece splits out
of the four part harmony, which will be a new opportunity for the singers. Both the male and
female voices have a solo section in a round. This section will challenge the choir to listen across
the choir for parts other than their own. Students will learn which phrases deserve more attention
than others and which parts need to be heard over others. The end of this piece has some tricky
syncopated rhythms in it. This will be the first piece that students will have the opportunity to
learn syncopation. As always, when they connect the diction to the breath, the syncopation will
be spot on.
By the end of the second quarter, students will be able to apply proper breathing
techniques to any piece, whether it be fast in tempo or slow and with minimal text or a lot text.
Students will also be able to identify syncopation and perform tricky rhythms without problem.
By the end of the second quarter, students will understand the value of listening to other parts
and identify which part has the most important line at certain times. Their listening skills will
improve their knowledge of the scores and the choirs intonation as a whole.
Quarter 3:
The third quarter pieces are the pieces that the students will be performing for their large
group festival. Famine Song is an excellent piece to focus on vowel formation and tone. Many
times, students are holding notes on the vowel ah. In order to sing this beautifully, the choir
has to have the same ideas in mind with breath and vowel formation. This piece also teaches the
different tones choirs can have. Within the piece, certain timbres are requested. This piece gives
students the opportunity to experiment with their voices to accomplish the sound desired. It is a
great teaching opportunity to teach tone and timbre.
The second piece is Sicut Cervus by Palestrina, a classic Renaissance piece. This work
demands each vocal line to be completely independent. Students would be required to listen
intently to the movement of voices around them. Sicut Cervus teaches singers classic
Renaissance techniques such as imitation and dovetailing. Students would be aware of when
their part should be brought out and when their part is secondary to another vocal line. In
contrast to the first piece, Sicut Cervus demands a completely different tone and timbre. Students
will perform this piece with the same breath energy and dynamic contrast as Famine Song, but
will understand the different vowel formations.

The student would close their festival performance with Pseudo Yoik by Mntyjrvi. This
is an excellent piece to present to adjudicators, as there is a good chance they may not be familiar
with piece and because it is completely different than any other piece. It is in a gibberish Finnish
language that is completely meaningless. However, the nonsense text gives such meaning to the
music. This piece has many splits and the ranges are large, but the auditioned SATB ensemble
could handle it. It is an excellent choice with the first two because, yet again, this piece asks for a
specific timbre and tone for performance.
After the third quarter, the students will understand that each piece has its own needs
based on the culture, area, language it comes from. Because they have a strong understanding of
breath and phrasing, the students are able to dig deeper into historical context and composer
intentions for each piece. Because their aural skills are stronger and they understand the basics of
vocal production at this point, we can move past notes and rhythms and understand deeper
meaning as to the compositional techniques of the piece.
Quarter 4:
The spring concert will open with Sanctus from Mozarts Requiem Mass in D minor. This
piece has a great contrast in form, starting homophonic and moving to a polyphonic texture. The
students would use this piece to learn texture. This piece also has significant classical
compositional techniques, such as drastic dynamic contrasts, and I would use these to teach the
students classical compositional techniques and how to use proper vocal technique to transfer
between dynamics. This takes them past the notes and rhythms and deeper into the composers
intent.
I Am Not Yours by Stroope with text by Sara Teasdale is a beautiful piece that has text
painting and compositional emotion throughout. It has many splits so it would require the
students to be solid on their parts but also feel comfortable listening across the choir. This piece
has incredibly deep and profound text that the students and listeners can relate to. This would be
an excellent piece to teach on the effective outcomes and what it means to be close to a person,
whether that be a friend, family member, or partner. The piece also has great text painting and
phrase structure, which encourages the students to use breath support to shape phrases and
crescendo and decrescendo accurately. Stroopes piece also has many cluster chords, meaning
that the students are singing notes that are close to each other. The students must feel solid on
their lines in order for these cluster chords to tune and have their effect.
The spring concert will close with Hallelujah Chorus from Handels Messiah. This piece
is a classic piece of literature for singers and also a favorite for audience members. It alternates
between homophonic and polyphonic which gives the students another opportunity to understand
texture and form. This piece stays in four part harmony, but the polyphonic parts provide enough
of a challenge that this auditioned ensemble would have to spend enough time understand each
line. Because it is polyphonic, it is important for the students to not only understand the texture,
but understand what voices have the most important melodic lines at which times. It is also an
opportunity to teach the students what compositional techniques are used in the Baroque period
and what it is like to sing something out of a larger work.
After the fourth quarter, the students will have mastered notes, rhythms, dynamics, but
also be able to identify texture and form of a piece and maybe even the timbre and tone the
composer is looking for. They should know the difference in compositional techniques between
classical, baroque, renaissance, romantic, and twentieth century periods. By the fourth quarter,

the students should be able to use proper breathing techniques and master notes and rhythms
quick enough to dig deeper into what the composer is asking of the ensemble.