The district held its invitational choral festival that the Pinole Valley High School concert choir attended on November 14, 2019. It was a good opportunity to see how the other schools in the area perform and to get some helpful feedback from Dr. Benson, which was the clinician for our performance. We made a whole day out of it and went to Contra Costa College in San Pablo. The whole point was for each school to perform, get to see the other schools to perform, and get feedback on what was good about our performance and what we should improve on. Even though it was not a competition, we treated it like one. All the schools that performed did an amazing job. 

Hercules High School started off the festival and sang two pieces that were really entertaining to watch. Then another school performed and did great. Pinole Valley went after them. We performed a piece called “Tres Cantos” and “Amazing Grace”. We got a lot of good feedback from Dr. Benson that will help improve our choir and our performance.

After a couple more schools performed, it was time for our lunch break. We ate at the restaurants that they have at the college for students to eat at. They had two actual restaurants and a spot to buy snacks. It was also time to go and explore the campus and get to know people. 

When it was time to go back, we all walked as a group back to the theater. This was when the second half of the festival was to be held. The schools that did not have the chance to perform before the break performed at this time. The schools include Napa Valley High School, Oakland School of the Arts, and De Anza high school. They all did really good and Dr. Benson had a lot of good things to say about them. 

Overall the choir had a great time at the festival. We learned a lot about each other and how to make our pieces better as a whole. It was fun to have time together as a group and learn more about each other. We also did an amazing performance! We will definitely be attending next year!