Choir members left to right, Nathaniel Garrison Diaz, Jonathan Griffin, Marissa Abernathy, Bridney Cardenas, Karrigan Brown, Elisabeth Barton, Chris McGee, and Matthew Larrabee.
Pirates place at Texas State Solo and Ensemble Contest
The Pittsburg ISD competed at the Texas State Solo and Ensemble Contest May 27 in Pflugerville for 1A through 4A high schools.
The Madrigal won a second-place award for their performance of Fair Phyllis by John Farmer. Jonathan Griffin won a second-place medal for his solo performance of Ave Maria by Bach/Gounod. Karrigan Brown rated a third place for her solo Wie Melodien Zieht Es Mir by Brahms.
Our ensemble is made up of two students on each voice part — soprano, alto, tenor, and bass — and the style of the music is called a Madrigal. Defined, a madrigal is a part-song for several voices, especially one of the Renaissance period, typically arranged in elaborate counterpoint and without instrumental accompaniment. Originally used of a genre of 14th-century Italian songs, the term now usually refers to English or Italian songs of the late 16th and early 17th c., in a free style strongly influenced by the text.
Our ensemble, the PHS Choir Madrigal sang Fair Phyllis written by John Farmer, an English polyphonic song published in 1599. Farmer used clever word painting. For example, in the opening line “Fair Phyllis I saw sitting all alone,” Farmer had only the soprano sing since she was all alone.
In the next line, “Feeding her flock near to the mountain side,” all the voices sang since it was her flock. Additionally, the second phrase, which begins with “Up and down he wandered” and ends with “then they fell a-kissing” repeats, causing the elision “kissing up and down.” The word painting in this song is quite clever and our modern students found it amusing.
In the PHS Choir we study at least one Madrigal each year because they are truly fun to sing and give insight into another era and culture. Since many of them refer to romance in one way or another the PHS singers now “wink” when the text includes a passage of “fa-la-la-la” because it is typically a euphemism for what we now call “making out.”
In addition to the Madrigal, two of our singers qualified at the regional contest to perform their solos before a judge. Rated from 1 to 5, with a 1 being the best, Jonathan Griffin was awarded a Division-2, and Karrigan Brown was awarded a Division-3.
Both our soloists were accompanied on piano by Mrs. Carolyn Franks and both singers received helpful comments from their adjudicators following their performances.