Taking a break from competition and focusing on technique was School of Music professor Lori Wiest’s inspiration for developing the Choral Festival 21 years ago.

“There were so many competitions in the state, but this was to be something unique—noncompetitive and early in the fall,” Wiest said. “It was to create camaraderie within each choir, to get them to start with basic things.”

Choral Festival is also designed to allow high school choirs the opportunity to work with WSU vocal professors.

“We try to take them to the next level,” she said. “It might be something fundamental, like breathing. And it could be something about the music, their singing.”

Dean Luethi, Julie Wieck, Sheila Converse, Brian Carter, and Wiest, all School of Music vocal professors, will serve as clinicians working with individual choirs in workshops at the festival.

“We hear them perform and then we take each choir into rehearsal rooms and we work with them,” Carter said. “Anything we can think of that we feel they could improve on.”

Carter, who specializes in vocal technique, works with both the students and their directors to develop techniques ranging from delivery to foreign language pronunciation.

“We’ll talk about ways to make the choirs sound stronger and more unified through vocal technique,” he said. “Every choir is going to get a different approach and learn something maybe they didn’t know before.”

Wiest said the choirs will have 20 minutes of practice time and 20 minutes of performance time before seeing the clinician for 40 minutes. She said she likes the schedule because the time allows choirs to become familiar with WSU professors.

Choir directors will also be able to speak with the clinician after the workshop.

“The director of that choir gets a private clinic with that clinician,” Wiest said. “It’s a time they can ask what that clinician did with the choir. It’s a really great time to talk about music.”

Though Wiest said she views the festival as a time for high school students to work on their technique, she said it also acts as a showcase for WSU and the musical opportunities the university offers.

“It fulfills the mission of WSU, certainly with the educational goals, the outreach we’re doing,” Wiest said. “This is recruitment for WSU. It’s a great day to show off the campus.”

Many of the School of Music’s vocal students will help out with the event by ushering choirs around, recording audio, typing notes for choir directors, answering questions, and doing check-ins.

These students also help with recruitment, as Wiest said she believes there is no better way  to show high school students the best parts of WSU.

“I always tell our students here, ‘what an opportunity to show them what we’re all about,’” she said.

High school choirs receive an inside look into the vocal ensembles within the music, as Opera Workshop, VoJazz and University Singers will perform interspersed within the workshop times.

“This is a good chance to let high school students know that we’re here and we want them to join,” Carter said. “We have a group for everybody. You don’t have to be a music major to be in a choir here.”

Later in the day, the event will move to Bryan Hall for performances by Concert Choir and Madrigals, as well as four high school choirs selected by the clinicians.

“These choirs are selected to perform for various reasons,” Wiest said. “They may not be the best choir, but they might be doing something that is great for other choirs to hear.”

Carter said the beauty of structuring the program this way is that it allows students to hear what other choirs are doing and learn from them.

“It’s really great for them to get out there and hear other good choirs, and they can hear a little taste of college music,” he said. “The college part comes in because some don’t realize there are voice opportunities outside of high schools.”

Wiest said it is a great opportunity for high school students to interact with college students, choir directors to interact with clinicians, and musicians to support and inspire each other.

“These high school students could be anywhere else on that particular Saturday, and here they are, making music at WSU and hearing what we have to offer,” Wiest said.

The Choral Festival is this Saturday, Oct.26 in Kimbrough Hall. High school choirs and the School of Music vocal ensembles will perform at various times between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. The event will move to Bryan Hall at 5 p.m. All performances are free and open to the public.