Damascus students in the Music Department (orchestra, band, and chorus) will be “formally judged” through a process called “Adjudication.” Adjudication is when each music group goes to an event where they perform songs to be assessed for the best score. This event usually takes place from February to March.
The Damascus Choral program is preparing for Adjudication right now. Ms. Goldsmith shared her thoughts and experiences with Adjudication by saying “I have taken the choirs to Adjudication every year I’ve been here, so for eight years.” and is excited to do this again. Goldsmith explained that “Each choir sings a set of three songs, one warm-up and two Adjudicated. Then sight-singing eight measures we’ve never seen before.” and the Chamber singers will sing “Tipitin, Tread Softly, and Sing Out My Soul!” Bel Canto is going to sing “Hamisha Asar, The April Rainbow, and Cantate Domino”. Moving on to Jack Farmer who is a chorus student at Damascus High School and gave his thoughts on Adjudication. This will be his second year doing it for DHS. He feels a lot of pressure at this event but “it’s also really cool because you get to see the best of what other schools have to offer with their programs.” A Senior named Nick Ramierez has been a part of Adjudication all his four years of high school. Rameriez explains that “There’s schools from all over the county with incredible singers.” Ramierez added that “So sometimes singing as a class scares me. When I’m on stage as a character, it’s not me who sings, it’s “Gomez” or its “Sebastian” but in choir, it’s just Nick singing four. One is the best score you can get!” Goldsmith described (choral) Adjudication as a “music ensemble performed for other MCPS ensembles and a set of four judges. Right after we perform, one of the judges gives us a clinic on stage. The other judges rate us on our performance. Then we sight-sing and listen to at least two other ensembles.” The scoring ranking is one, which is almost perfect, a two is okay, a three is in the middle, and a four or a five wasn’t the best.” ( they have gotten all ones to twos in the past.)
The band program at Damascus is also rehearsing for Adjudication. A Damascus band student named Emily McNicholas contributed her thoughts and experiences of Adjudication. This is her first year being a part of Adjudication at DHS. McNicholas goes on to explain that “You go to a school and a group of judges judge you on a scale of one to five, [where] five is the lowest. [And it]helps you see how your band is doing as a whole.” It is an all day event. The songs that McNicholas knows they are performing are “Sinfonia six and this cruel moon.” This is her second year doing Adjudication but her first for Damascus. McNicholas feels “a lot of stress and anxiety” but not at first. It’s when she does sight reading where she “doesn’t play.” McNicholas explains that Dr. Doherty “makes it sound very chillax but there is pressure to get a good score.”
Orchestra at Damascus is also practicing and is excited for Adjudication. Dr. Doherty is also a part of the orchestra portion of Adjudication along with the students who are hard at work preparing. A Damascus orchestra player named Jessica shared some of her thoughts on orchestra Adjudication and the overall process. This will be her third year doing Adjudication at Damascus. She believes that every year is “different” and it can be unpredictable. She usually doesn’t “get too nervous because Mr.D is a really good teacher on [not] putting too much pressure [on us]” Orchestra plays “three songs, one of them is our warm up piece which gets judged but it’s not a part of the overall judgment.” Dr. Doherty and Jessica both describe the process as “when you go to a different school and come prepared with three different pieces then you go and get warmed up with their pieces then you go on stage with four judges then repeat for other songs. The next part is when you go to a break room where you sight read songs to perform for the first time. There’s another judge to judge sight reading specifically. Afterwards, they go back to the auditorium and watch the other MCPS schools perform their pieces.
While oftentimes music is grouped together as one, Adjudication shows how each element and each different music department has its own spark or unique quality that makes their event distinctive.