Once a year there comes one ultimate test that brings school musical departments all over the district together to challenge their skills as a group. The judged event is called Large Group Performance Evaluation (LGPE). And for fine arts types, these gatherings are every bit as competitive as any athletic event. For North Atlanta, “teams” come from the school’s band, orchestra and choral groups.

North Atlanta participated in the 2018 LGPE on March 7 along with many others schools. Clearly the right note was struck because all of the school’s groups came out of the event with flying colors.

Junior Anna Shoup is a member of Belissima Choir, one of three choral groups under the direction of choral director Jerid Morisco. For the LGPE event, North Atlanta sent a combined chorus of Bellisima and Bel Canto. The combined choir was judged for its tone quality along with its ability to sing in a different language. North Atlanta’s choir received all superior and excellent marks. “It was super fun and rewarding to be a part of this, said Shoup. “We were nervous going in but afterwards we were all so relieved.”

The LGPE event took place in three locations with the orchestra competition taking place at North Atlanta. The band competition was held at Johns Creek High School and the chorus competition was held at the Grace United Methodist Church on Ponce de Leon Avenue in the city’s Old Fourth Ward.

Although band, orchestra and choral groups are different, the judging process for each event is more or less the same. Groups arrive at the particular location and prepare their instruments — or voices — before being called on stage. With the exception of the first group, the groups have to wait their turn and get around 30 minutes to warm up. When the judges are ready, a group plays each of its songs that were pre-selected from an approved LGPE list.

After each song, judges come up with scores. After performing for one judge, groups perform for another judge in a musical clinic setting. During this part of the competition, assembled groups take on the always tricky site reading. The tough part here is that groups are seeing a piece for the first time and only have a few minutes to give it their best musical shot.

For LGPE, groups are rated from a score of one to five. One is “superior,” two is “excellent,” three is “good,” four is “fair,” and a score of five is rated as “poor.” The North Atlanta band and orchestra came out with all “superior” scores. The combined North Atlanta chorus notched “superior” and “excellent” scores.  

Those who participated in this year’s LGPE event said the whole judging process was both exciting and nerve-wracking. “It’s basically just trying to see how good your band or orchestra is,” said junior Adam Cheese, who plays double bass in the orchestra. “You can’t imagine how gratifying it is when we got our superior scores.”

Those who participated said the competition was a great test for North Atlanta music and choral groups. And the high marks secured proved it was a positively “note-worthy” experience for all the creative types involved.