by Noah Housman and Abby Smith
Grimm has earned a top spot in the state honor choir.
Brevard High junior, Douglas Grimm, recently competed and earned a top spot in the North Carolina Music Educators Association’s Honor (NCMEA) Choir, which will take place this weekend.
“I’m considered the first chair for bass because I received the highest score,” said Grimm.
NCMEA judges picked Grimm to be a part of the Honor Choir. He was the only BHS student selected for this program.
Grimm auditioned with this year’s audition piece, “Song to the Moon” composed by Z. Randall Stroope.
“’Song to the Moon’ is very difficult, written in a strange key, and has a lot of strange accidentals such as double flats. The piece is very beautiful but it’s very haunting because it’s in a minor key,” said Grimm, referencing his particular audition piece.
As part of the audition process, students are given a piece of music and are required to learn it in a short amount of time before the audition. After much review and memorization, they audition at the school level. Bart Gilleland, the chorus teacher at BHS, then determines which students go on to audition at the state level.
For the state audition, the students travel to Hickory, North Carolina, to perform in front of NCMEA judges. Here, the judges test the students’ range and then move on to the preappointed cut of their song. Then students complete the sight-reading portion of the audition.
Grimm looks forward to doing the best he can this weekend and helping the NCMEA group bind together.