High school show choir can be intimidating for freshmen who are used to middle school show choir. However, the members of Xuberance, Xavier’s prep show choir, prepared for months and finally faced any fears they may have had leading up to their first show.

Xuberance participated in their first competition of the 2018 season at Linn-Mar High School’s “Supernova” competition on January 13. Their theme is “The 80’s.”  Their songs include “Somebody’s Out There,” “What I Like About You,” “With or Without You,” “Straight Up,” “My Prerogative,” and “Don’t Stop Me Now.” Many freshmen say that this year has been more difficult than their prior years.

“It is definitely more challenging than middle school show choir at Regis, but with the added difficulty and work it also is much more rewarding,” freshman Jack Goldsmith said. “There is a lot more practice time and commitment that is put into it so, combining that with sports and school can be tough.”

According to Goldsmith, show choir requires good time management skills in order to remain on top of school work as well as the commitments involved with show choir.

“Show choir has been a huge time consumer, but I’ve been able to successfully prepare for this first show while keeping other parts of my life successful,” Goldsmith said.

There are also positive aspects of this step-up in the freshmen’s show choir careers.

“Everything is a lot more productive and there is a lot more bonding,” Goldsmith said.

Obviously, no show choir can be perfect, and the freshmen realized this. A mind set of improvement seems to be key to transitioning from middle school to high school show choir.

“I think we’re pretty prepared, but we’re definitely not perfect and we have things we could work on,” freshman Arwen Gilbert said while preparing for “Supernova.”

Xuberance director Ms. Brianna DeJong understands how large of a transition high school show choir can be  for freshmen.

“Freshmen need to be ready for hard work three times a week; they need to be able to handle increased difficulty in the choreography, which is definitely harder than some of them realize. They also need to adjust to the increased stamina requirements,” Ms. DeJong said.

Their preparation and mind set translated to the January 13 show at “Supernova.”

“We performed very well and we hope to make a few tweaks for Davenport North in a couple of weeks,” Ms. DeJong said.

Their performance at “Supernova” excites the members with optimism for the rest of this season.

“I am thinking it’s going to be a very good show choir season,” Gilbert said.

Xuberance will perform next at Davenport North’s “The Big Dance” on January 27.

Derrick Voss

A&E Writer