The Best in the Northwest Choir Festival is an annual competition held in May at the University of Portland in Portland, OR.  This year about 30 middle schools and high school participated.  Here are some songs by the choirs that won top awards. These are high-resolution MP3 files, so they may take a few seconds to load.

High School Choirs

McNary High School Concert Choir  (First Place HS Choir)

Keizer, OR

Jim Taylor, director

Ain't-a That Good News  spiritual arr. William L. Dawson

Si Ch'io Vorrei Morire  Claudio Montiverdi (1567-1643)

Eagle High School Sonous (Second Place HS Choir)

Eagle, ID

Seth McMullen, director

Exsultate Deo  Giovanni Pierluigi de Palestrina (1524-1594)

Sprague High School Concert Choir (Third Place HS Choir)

Salem, OR

Dr. R. David Brown, director

O Jesu Christe  Jachet de Bercham (1505-1565)

Weepin' Mary  from "The Social Harp" arr. Brad Holmes

Graham-Kapowsin High School Concert Chorale

Fourth Place HS Choir

Graham, WA

Andrea Klouse, director

Twa Tanbou   Creole folk song arr. Sydney Guillaume

                           and Louis Celestin

Middle School and Junior High School Choirs

Whiteaker Middle School Concert Choir  (First Place MS Choir)

Keizer, OR

Heilig and Deo Dicamus Gratias

Heilig, Heilig (Holy, Holy) Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

Deo dicamus gratias (Let us say thanks to God)

G.A. Homilius (1714-1785

Crossler Middle School Concert Choir  (Second Place MS Choir)

Salem, OR

Jennifer Kercher, director

Kua Rongo Mai Koe  Maori, Ngapo Wehi arr. Eddie Quaid

Claggett Creek Concert Choir  (Third Place MS Choir)

Keizer, OR

Rolland Hayden, director

If Ye Love Me  Thomas Tallis (1505-1585)

Shine on Me  American spiritual, arr. Rollo Dilworth

Leslie Middle School Concert Choir (Fourth Place MS Choir)

Salem, OR

Lee Kirkegaard, director

Tristis est anima mea  Giovanni Pierluigi de Palestrina (1524-1594)

Chindia  Romanian, Alexander Pascanu

Notes on the recordings

These songs were recorded in Buckley Center Auditorium at the University of Portland.  The microphones were a pair of AKG414s mounted 7 inches apart and at an angle of 110 degrees from each other.  There were mounted on a telescoping pole at about 12 feet in height and 25 feet back from the front of the choirs. The digital recordings were made on a TASCAM DA-40 recorder.  A small amount of artificial reverberation was added in edited, because of the dryness of the room.

Notes on the music

"Ain'ta That Good News" is an Afro-American spiritual arranged by William L. Dawson, who was a great black composer, arranger and choir director in the mid-20th Century.  Dawson's Tuskegee Institute Choir toured the world and made African American spirituals famous in the 1930s.

"Si Ch'io vorrei morire" is a love song by the 16th-Century Italian composer Claudio Montiverdi.  The singer has just kissed his beloved, and the title translates, "Yes, I wish to die!"   Those Italians.

"Exsultate Deo" (Rejoice in the Lord) is a setting of the first three verses of Psalm 80 by the Italian Rennaissance composer Giovanni Pierliuigi de Palestrina, who was known for giving sacred texts the same kind of lively treatment he gave his seculary love motets.

"O Jesu Christe" is by the Flemish organist and composer Jachet de Bercham, who lived in the mid-16th Century.

"Weepin' Mary" is a fine example of an American "shape-note" song of the type taught to backwoods congregations by itinerant Methodist ministers in the early 1800s.  The song have only five notes, (fa, sol, la, me, fa) each one written in a different shape for easy reference.  This arrangement by Brad Holmes has rather calmed down the wild, exhuberant sound of the original.  Shape note singing is often also called "Sacred Harp" music, after the popular printed collection of that name.

Twa Tanbou is a modern arrangment of  a Haitian Creole folk song.  It's about two drums and a tamborin who are arguing, and you can pick out which is which without knowing Creole.  Sydney Guillaume is a young Haitian-American composer who works and teaches in Los Angeles.

"Heilig, Heilig" (Holy, Holy) is a sacred motet based on the words of the Sanctus, a central prayer in the Mass.  Felix Mendelsohn wrote many small sacred pieces like this for the main Lutheran church in Leipzig, his home town.

Deo dicamus gratias (Let us say thanks to God) is part of "Two Latin Fragments" by the 18th Century Dresden composer Gottfried August Homilius, who was a celebrated organist and a pupil of J.S. Bach.

Kua Rongo Mai Koe is a modern song written in Maori, the language of the indigenous people of New Zealand .  The words translate: "You have head the welcome call, calling to the wide world. Welcoming. Welcoming.... it is the renowned voice of youth."

If Ye Love Me is by Thomas Tallis, an English court composer who managed to keep both his head and his Roman Catholic religion during the turbulent Tudor period, nimbly tuning his output for both Protestant and Catholic monarchs.  He is considered the best of the early English composers.

Shine on Me is an old and much-beloved African-American spiritual, updated in this arrangement by Rollo Dilworth, a young composer who teaches at North Park University in Chicago.

Tristis est anima mea (Sad is my soul) is another gem by Palestrina, this one invoking the last words of Christ in the Garden of Gesthemene.

Chindia is a vocal arrangment of an old Romanian folk tune by the modern Romanian composer Alexander Pascanu, who intended the nonsense syllables to invoke a festival celebration with crowds, bands, dancing and lots of noise.

-- notes by Kerry Webster