Honors choir members from Huntington Beach win spot in regional contest

Four students in the honors choir at Spring View Middle School already have a lot on their plate, balancing schoolwork with practicing songs they need to learn for the various performances throughout the year at the Huntington Beach campus.

But then Marbella Bolognese, Hinna Tran, Kyle Hope and Alexander Martinez won a spot on the Southern California Vocal Assn.’s honors choir for this school year. After several auditions and learning more songs, the group was selected in January to be among about 100 middle school students in Southern California to perform at a concert in May at Lincoln Middle School in Santa Monica.

Now they will have to put in even more rehearsal time.

An honors choir is basically an advanced choir for better student singers. To make it into the regional honors choir also requires the ability to sight-read music — being able to sing a song from the musical notation without having seen it before.

“You have to hear the music with your eyes,” said Marcelo Martinez, Spring View’s music teacher. “All they get is the first note, and from there everything is in relationship to that first note.”

Martinez added that being able to sight-read music gives students an advantage in creating their own music.

Martinez, who has been teaching music at Spring View for three years, encouraged all of his honors students to audition for the Vocal Assn.’s honors choir and worked closely with those who put in the effort and followed through.

“They were super motivated and excited to be a part of something and go above and beyond what is required in class,” he said. “They have one rehearsal and then they’re responsible for learning the music.”

Performing a song they had never heard before proved to be a challenge for the group. Though Martinez practiced reading the music with the students, auditioning remained a tough task.

“My voice must have cracked up hundreds of times,” said Hinna, 13. “After four notes, I stopped, but I told myself to keep going.”

Marbella, 14, was familiar with the auditioning process, having tried out for a spot in the choir but failing to get in last year. She said she took the time to prepare and practice reading notes.

“Last year, I totally messed up and I totally got all the notes wrong,” she said. “But the most important thing to do when you’re sight-reading is to keep going. In this audition, I feel like I did good with sight-reading.”