Sophomore Nicolas Birk has advanced to state in the Texas Music Educators Association all-state choir competition. He is the first Vandegrift student to ever make it this far, and he will be representing the top 20 boys in Texas choirs.

Birk advanced through multiple audition rounds to make it to the state level, learning new songs for each round. The songs are accumulative and increase in difficulty as you advance.

“You just keep adding on three songs as the competition goes, so right now I have about ten songs, and the ones that I just sang were the most difficult. I also had to do sight reading which is when you get a piece of music that you’ve never seen in your life and you have to sing it,” Birk said.

Nicolas has been training all year for the All-State choir competition. Only a sophomore, he has been competing against juniors and seniors to reach the state level.

“It takes a lot of work to advance as far as he has,” choir director Mr. Feris said. “As only a sophomore, to advance through any rounds is great, and he has jumped through them.”

If Nicolas is selected in the state round, he will perform at the Texas Music Educators Association convention in San Antonio this February. Nicolas was very excited to learn he had made it to the state level, being one of 20 picked out of 400 candidates.

“It feels very good to make it this far. It was not something that I was expecting so it was definitely a good surprise. I was definitely running around and screaming when I found out, so it was good,” Birk said.