Students in Bel Canto, Chamber Singers and Wolverine Chorus competed in the Festival Clinic Concert March 24 in Rugby Auditorium. Due to lack of signups from other choirs, Harvard-Westlake was the only school to participate in the competition this year.

“It was more like a choir clinic for us to receive criticism for the songs that we have been preparing for the spring concert and have a chance to perform since other choirs from other schools couldn’t come to the festival,” Ryan Finely ’16 said.

Choirs sang individually for adjudicator Jo-Michael Scheibe, chair of the Thornton School of Music’s Department of Choral and Sacred Music at the University of Southern California. Based on each performance, the choirs then received personalized grades and critiques, and were provided an opportunity to participate in a clinic with Scheibe.

Wolverine Chorus performed a total of three pieces, while Bel Canto sang four and Chamber Singers five. A combination of new material and songs from each choir’s repertoire, including “Ave Maria,” “Nunc Dimittis,” “Chantez” and “Come to Me My Love”, were chosen for the competition.

Although only four Harvard-Westlake choirs were entered in the competition, the event ran an hour and fifteen minutes late and ended at 10 p.m. instead of 8:45 p.m. As a result, Jazz Singers, who was previously scheduled to conclude the show, was not able to perform or receive any critiques during this year’s competition.

“I think we learned well and learned a lot from Dr. Schreibe, but because he worked with us for much longer than planned, it ended up running way too late,” Hannah Dains ’16 said.