Walk into the choir room and a wall plastered with shiny gold plaques glittering under the light can be seen standing proud. These plaques represent the abundance of awards won by the choir program, one of the most successful programs in the school.
The choir program is split into multiple levels. Typically, Effies start in the beginning choir and move up to junior choir as E-flats. Upon entering high school, all freshmen join the Freshmen Choir. From there, students are split into the Women’s and Men’s Ensemble sophomore year. Students then audition to join Vocal Ensemble, the highest level of the choir. This audition process can often be extremely competitive as students battle for positions.
“Last year, only about half of the students that auditioned for Vocal Ensemble made it, and that can be very disappointing,” Anthony Nims, the choir director, said. “I always encourage the students to keep trying and we also try to make Men’s Ensemble and Women’s Ensemble very rewarding choir experiences. In fact, those two groups are generally stronger than the varsity choirs in many schools, so even if you don’t get into the top group, you’re still having a rewarding music experience.”
One key factor in the choir’s success is their emphasis on team bonding, which is especially crucial since choir members need to be able to connect as a group during concerts.
“We’ve had a choir picnic and some other things,” MacKenzie O’Loughlin, ‘27, a member of the Women’s Ensemble, said. “I feel like it’s nice to hang out with your school friends outside of school. We had a potluck today [Oct. 31] for Halloween.”
This year marks one of the most successful years for the choir program, with two students, Adelaide Linser, ‘26, and Finn Riordan, ‘26, chosen for All-State Choir. All-State Choir consists of around 100 of the best choir students in the state of Ohio. The singers are sent around ten songs to practice on their own and they then meet at the Ohio Music Educators Association (OMEA) conference, where they put on a performance.
“I was very excited; I was in my car and my mom called me and I was like, ‘What?!’,” Linser said. “From what Mr. Nims told us, we haven’t had a Walnut person at All-State in many years, I think, just because people weren’t auditioning, so I was very excited.”
Nims explains that the judges focus on a few key qualities in the voices of All-State Choir hopefuls. Specifically, vocal development, maturity of tone and intonation, which means being able to sing the exact pitch.
“Those are the things they really listen for and then hopefully the singer is good at reading music, but that’s not as important as just [having] a developed voice,” Nims said. “I was really thrilled when [they] both made All-State Choir. Our hope is that they have a great experience and they come back and tell others about it and encourage more students to audition for it.”
Although this year the choir program chose not to attend the OMEA state competition, in the past they have won more than 20 awards there, including many Superiors, the highest possible award. Despite this success, these awards are not their primary focus.
“We don’t do music for the competitions,” Nims said. “We do music for humanity because we want our students to have the skills and to connect more deeply to who they are and how they fit into the world. The thing about music is nobody loses; we do competitions as a motivation to push ourselves and in our competitions we aren’t competing against other schools. We’re competing against ourselves for the highest rating.”
Instead of competing, the choir program is choosing to focus on their concerts. Their most recent performance occurred on Oct. 24 in the auditorium. Some of the songs performed were 1941, My Companion and Only in Sleep.
I had two solos in that [concert],” Linser said. “I think they both went very well; I ended up performing it better than I had rehearsed. In terms of our choir pieces, they all went well. There were definitely mistakes that we noticed, but in general the audience didn’t pick up on it and they really liked it.”
For the first time ever, the singers sat in the audience, which added around 200 people. Typically, the students wait backstage for their time to sing. With these additions, the audience numbered around 700 people.
“I think generally our concerts are very well attended and people respect the group,” Linser said. “I think we are recognized well. I think they could always use more recognition. Especially Women’s and Men’s Ensemble they’re doing insanely hard music as sophomores and juniors.”
Overall, Nims hopes that when the audience leaves their concerts, they have had an impactful experience that brings beauty and purpose into their lives.
“I love it when I hear that my audience had an emotional response to our song, and not just because it was their kids, but because the music touched them in a way that made them feel emotional,” Nims said. “Because there’s a lot of encouragement in our society to not really feel, to just sort of go through the motions of life. And I think we need more opportunities that cause us to be introspective and think about ourselves and our environment and relate to others.”