This Friday, Lionheart varsity choir will perform three songs for the Madrigal Festival in San Antonio’s Trinity Baptist Church. After such, a three-judge panel will review and rank each choir’s performance to determine the podium.
“Madrigal Festival is our big competition,” senior and choir vice president Carleigh Copeland said. “This is my first time going. While yes, there’s always the performance anxiety of doing the big thing that you’ve never done before, I’m definitely going in with more excitement than fear. This is my first time going on a trip out of Austin with my choir. This is only an opportunity for Lionheart singers, so it feels kind of exclusive.”
The madrigal style owes its fame to its reinvention during the Renaissance. A madrigal is a non-secular chamber performance in which a poem is set to music, though its polyphonic nature makes the genre challenging. Lionheart will perform “Fair Phyllis,” “Daemon Irrepit Callidus” and “Even when he is Silent.”
“The choirs will compete against each other to see who can sing the best silly song from back in the day,” Assistant Choir Director Francis Nieves said. “But they’re really challenging too, even though they are silly. It’s easy teaching madrigals, but whether or not students get it is the harder part. What makes them hard is that in madrigals, the voice parts do completely different things at many different times. When there are so many things happening and you’re trying to concentrate on your one part, it can get confusing.”
After taking the 2024-2025 festival off, Nieves said Lionheart returns stronger than ever.
“This year is my first group that’s been this capable in reading music,” Choir Director Christian Clow said. “They’re also very passionate. They really want to do well, and they’ve had to go to extra after school rehearsals to practice. We have such a demanding calendar, but they have perseverance and they always push through and they always show up. Lionheart brings a resilience to the table.”
Given the strenuousness of the madrigal style, Lionheart began practicing early in the fall semester.
“I’m not too nervous at all because Lionheart has been working really hard,” Nieves said. “I’m excited for the choir to hear other madrigals because they’re just fun, special little pieces of historic music that you don’t get to hear very often. It’s fun when your ears are exposed to a fun little genre.”
A clinic follows the judges’ decision to better workshop each choir’s performance.
“I’m most excited for the feedback,” Clow said. “This is our first time doing it in a while, so the goal isn’t to win the whole thing. More so I want to keep this growing, because we’ve gotten so much better since last year. The best part of this process and the biggest benefit to the program has been the growth that we have as a result of it.”
For Copeland, the festival provides one final performance with the choir that, she said, “feels like a home.”
“I’m most looking forward to performing in front of all of the other schools from all over the state and meeting new people,” Copeland said. “My big campaign as vice president this year was that I wanted to be more intertwined with other choir programs. Connecting with other people is for sure what I’m most looking forward to. I want to show everyone that Leander is growing and that we’re a strong group.”
