On March 20 and 22, Godwin’s mixed ensemble Madrigals, women’s ensemble Acapella, and show choir Debut competed against other high school groups invited to an annual competition held at Hanover High school.

Godwin was one of six schools to compete in three different categories: women’s ensemble, mixed ensemble, and show choir.

They were graded by a score out of 600 on musicality of the songs, stage presence, pronunciation, and emotion put into the music.

All of the groups from Godwin won first place in their respective categories, and Madrigals were named the Grand Champion of the whole competition.

The groups spent several months learning and mastering the songs they chose to sing, which were all rated at five and six as level of difficulty for Acapella and Madrigals respectively, the hardest types music to learn.

“Learning the music for our songs was initially frustrating. The songs were beautiful and emotional but really confusing from the musician’s perspective. The greatest challenge for me personally was not letting the emotions of the song  make me too emotional to sing. Luckily, our hard work reaped an incredible reward: we stunned our listeners into deafening silence via vocal magic. Winning Grand Champion didn’t hurt either,” said member of Madrigals and Godwin senior Catherine Smith.

In addition, senior Hunter Williamson and junior Marin Walters received good showmanship awards from the show choir portion of the competition, and Debut as a whole received the honors of best choreography and best vocals.

This was the third year in a row that Acapella won the first place title in the competition, and they have never lost under their director, chorus teacher David Clatterbuck.

“It was really exciting to be able to continue our winning streak, especially considering our struggle with the difficult music. It was a really nice sendoff for the other seniors in the class as well.” said senior student director of Acapella Kate Tyre.

Madrigals and Debut were both very pleased with their victories after placing as runners-up last year.

“[Winning] really brought the group together and made me feel like I was part of a really talented family, it made me proud to be part of this program,” said senior student director of Madrigals Georgi Hicks.