Academics, Campus Wide, College of Humanities & Social Sciences

Voice students advance to national competition

By CSU Media | April 16, 2020

Eight students from CSU’s Horton School of Music advanced to compete at the Mid-Atlantic Region NATS Student Auditions, originally scheduled for mid-March at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference. The auditions were moved online due to the pandemic. Photo: l-r (back) Aleah Walker, Samuel Polk, Meghan Roum, Jared Rogers and Kalb Linen-Yates. l-r (front) Adelaide Lovelady, Madeline Krigbaum and Bethany Lytton.

Eight voice students from the Horton School of Music at Charleston Southern University have earned awards in two separate National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) Student Auditions, competing in nine different categories. Eight students advanced to compete at the Mid-Atlantic Region NATS Student Auditions, originally scheduled for mid-March at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference at the University of South Carolina. The auditions were moved online due to the pandemic and were held March 27-29, 2020.

Auditions
To earn awards and to advance to the Region Student Auditions, students competed with others in their same age, level of study, and gender groups in competitions in Music Theater (MT)/Contemporary Commercial Music (CCM) or Classical categories held by the South Carolina Chapter NATS. State competitions were held in October 2019 at Converse College in Spartanburg for Musical Theater auditions and in February 2020 at Furman University in Greenville for Classical auditions.

Megan Room advanced to the National Student Auditions. Photo provided.

The MT/CCM auditions held in Spartanburg included approximately 246 students auditioning. Kalb Linen-Yates advanced to the regional round in Second Year College/Independent Studio TBB MT and Adelaide Lovelady advanced in Second Year College/Independent Studio Treble MT. Both students study with Dr. Jennifer Luiken. In the CCM category, sophomore Jared Rogers—a student of Dr. Jill Terhaar Lewis—earned a Certificate of Distinction award and was Honors Recitalist in his category. This category does not advance to regional competition.

The spring Classical Student Auditions included nearly 316 students. Samuel Polk advanced in First Year College/Independent Studio Tenor/Baritone/Bass voice, and Kalb Linen-Yates advanced in Second Year College/Independent Studio Tenor/Baritone/Bass voice. Bethany Lytton advanced in First Year College/Independent Studio Treble and Aleah Walker, Meghan Roum and Madeline Krigbaum advanced in Second Year College/Independent Studio Treble voice. Krigbaum and Walker tied for first place in their category and were selected to perform on the Honors Recital. Polk studies with Dr. Lewis. Linen-Yates, Roum and Krigbaum study with Dr. Luiken and Walker studies with Professor Ricard Bordas.

Mid-Atlantic Regional
Eligible students competed in the Mid-Atlantic Regional which includes NATS chapters from South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia. More than 500 students competed in the two-day video auditions. Students who finish in the top five of their respective categories at the regional level advance to a video evaluation round where they compete to advance to the finals of the National Student Auditions scheduled to be held in Knoxville, Tenn., in late June.

Samuel Polk advanced to the National Student Auditions. Photo provided.

Samuel Polk tied for fourth place in his category and advanced to the video audition round of the National Student Auditions. Meghan Roum finished in the top three of her audition and advanced to the sing-off round. There, she finished third in her category and advanced to the video audition round of the National Student Auditions. The video round judging begins at the end of this month.

Dr. Lewis is the Mid-Atlantic Regional Governor and was integral in coordinating the online submissions as well as a Facebook live presentation of the Mid-Atlantic Honors Recital. More details of the event can be found here: http://midatlanticnats.org/.

Music at Charleston Southern
CSU offers four degrees in music: music and worship leadership, music education, music therapy, and music performance. Roum and Walker are vocal performance majors. Linen-Yates, Lytton, Polk and Krigbaum are majoring in music education. Rogers majors in music and worship leadership and Lovelady is a business-marketing major. To learn more about these degree programs at CSU, go to charlestonsouthern.edu/music.