Recently, I was asked to be a vocal judge for the quartets of highschoolers auditioning for the Vermont All State Music Festival, and I said yes without thinking about it. Of course I would do this! I auditioned for, and sang in, the same festival all four of my years in high school, and to me this was a way to give something back to an institution that I had received so much from. I had a lot of great musical experiences in high school that really shaped my career path and the rest of my life, so I do feel that I owe a debt. Well, either I owe them a debt or I should start a vendetta against them, but that’s for my historian to decide.
One of the first things that I noticed when I arrived was that I was one of the only (if not the only) non-music educators there. All of the other judges in the vocal rooms were music teachers, high school choral directors, and otherwise somehow involved in the school systems. This did not make me feel out of place at all, because I was welcomed heartily, but it meant that I got to listen to a lot of conversations rather than participate in them. Because any time you get a bunch of people together who are in the same profession, they are going to talk about it. What choral pieces do you recommend? How is your superintendent? Did they cut your budget too? I had no frame of reference for this, but it was very interesting.
Eventually, we had to start actually judging quartets. Well, I didn’t. Tenors are apparently in short supply these days, so for the entire morning I sang the tenor part with partial quartets from schools that had a dude shortage. Seriously. Not a single quartet that I heard before lunch included an actual tenor. It’s a good thing that the piece they were auditioning with was the same one that I had auditioned with *mumble mumble* years ago, so it had been ingrained into my brain for all eternity and I was able to sing it fairly accurately.
I did get to judge a few tenors after lunch, although my short list of singers got even shorter as the day went on, because apparently everyone on Earth has the flu, so we had a lot of cancellations. To all of the tenors who auditioned, I just want to say, that even if I gave you a terrible score, and wrote comments along the lines of “You failed to sing even one correct note,” and “Your voice sounds like a chicken vomiting out broken glass,” you will probably still get in to the festival. The bar for tenors is set pretty low, due to the dwindling supply. To those who did not audition, I want to say that you should have. It takes a lot of courage to sing for these things, but it’s worth it. The chance to sing with a group of singers of a higher caliber than maybe you are used to is not an opportunity to take lightly, or to miss out on if you can help it.
I would like to point out that they did not pay me anything to judge these auditions (although they did provide lunch), and the administrators seemed proud that Vermont has (most unusually) an all volunteer judging crew. To this, I would just like to say that it is one thing to be proud of the strength and generosity of your local people, but it is another thing to stand by this belief when you in fact do not have a large pool of strong and generous people. The sight singing portion of the audition was judged by UVM students, because they couldn’t find enough teachers willing to volunteer. In fact, I believe that’s why I was there too. I know that budgets are tight, and I’m not saying that the goulash was not delicious, but if this is something that you really value (as you should), perhaps “free” is not what you should brag that it is worth. We are spending two full and long Saturdays doing something difficult, tedious, and important. Even a token $50 might go a long way to getting some more judges into those judging chairs.
On the other hand, almost every judge at the event was close to retirement. Not all, but most. And they talked about asking their younger colleagues to volunteer, hearing things like “I’m too busy,” “I have young kids,” and “I really need my Saturdays.” Perhaps this is a generational thing? Maybe us younger folks don’t feel the call to service that the older folks do. Maybe we need an incentive. I was happy and excited to volunteer this weekend and next, and I’d do it again next year if they need someone, but I don’t want to be alone in this. Fellow musicians, I call on you to give something back to the system that gave you your start. Two Saturdays of your time can change the lives of some of these students. And to the festival, I wouldn’t say no to an amazon gift card. I’m just saying.