Announcing the first annual Society for Classical Learning Honor Choir Competition!
This new competition presents a unique opportunity for your school to highlight the excellent work of your choral director and advance your music students’ experience and ability even further by preparing to perform at the 2026 SCL Summer Conference at the Gaylord Texan Resort in Grapevine, TX.
Enter to compete for this special opportunity for your upper-school-level choir to perform at an international conference. SCL will begin taking entries February 1st, 2025, and winners will be announced at the 2025 SCL Conference! The selected Honor Choir will perform in one 2026 SCL Conference Mainstage session and will have one rehearsal showcased during a breakout session.
Through this program, we intend to provide:
- A chance to learn how a master teacher rehearses their choir
- A chance to network with that teacher and others who are “in the trenches”
- A presentation of one of the nation’s top choirs
- Inspiration through friendly competition to continually improve your programs
- Enrichment to our Mainstage programming through showcasing beautiful music from within the SCL community
Contest Rules and Procedures
Eligibility
- Upper School choir ensembles (single or mixed gender ensembles, any combination of grades 6-12)
- A choir cannot win two years in a row.
- All performers on the recording must be enrolled students at the school listed on the entry at the time of entry.
- Schools must be SCL members in good standing.
- A school that plans on changing choral directors for the performance year becomes ineligible, except for extenuating circumstances. The idea is that the choir director leading at the time of entry is the same choir director who will lead during the performance the following year.
- A choir may be disqualified from the Honor Choir competition based on verification of unacceptable practices (including unethical recording practices detailed in Recording Requirements Rule #9).
Entry Requirements
- The timeline for entering the Honor Choir process is as follows:
- February 1 – Entry portal opens on www.societyforclassicallearning.org/choir-contest.
- Directors must register their ensembles, complete the necessary forms, and make the contest payment ($500) between February 1 and March 14.
- March 14 – Entry portal closes on www.societyforclassicallearning.org/choir-contest.
- Failure to file by March 14 renders any organization ineligible to enter the Honor Choir process.
- May 1– All recordings, scores, and forms are due to the Contest Director.
- Administrative Certification (online – printed, signed, and uploaded) must accompany each entry. The school administrator verifies the details and circumstances of the recording and on behalf of the school accepts responsibility for any irregularities or unethical practices.
- A form must be completed by the Head of School stating that the choir will perform at the SCL Conference the following year if it is selected.
- Once recordings are selected for submission the Director completes the online entry by submitting titles (with movements, if applicable) and composers in the order the selections are to be uploaded and played.
- Entry documents will be printed, signed, and uploaded by the May 1 deadline.
- Five music scores of each selection WITH SCHOOL IDENTIFICATION MARKED OUT must be submitted with the recording. Submitting “Permanently Out of Print” scores or rental scores must follow publisher and copyright policies. Submitting e-print scores is sufficient provided that enough legal copies have been purchased for the choir, director, and the judges.
- The selected Honor Choir will be responsible for all travel, lodging, and ancillary expenses related to participation in the conference performance.
Recording Requirements
- Recordings submitted must contain performances from the current school year.
- Nothing should appear on the recording that identifies the school or anyone in the ensembles.
- Three selections will be submitted and must include at least one a capella piece and one in a foreign language (may not be the same piece).
- Repertoire submitted for the Honor Choir process shall be as follows:
- Each selection submitted must be a continuous performance that was recorded at a concert, festival, or contest.
- All movements submitted of a multi-movement work must be sourced from a single, continuous performance, and performed in the order of the printed score.
- The complete uploaded recorded program must not exceed 30 minutes.
- Some examples of unethical and unacceptable practices:
- Private recording sessions that are not in the context of a performance.
- Recording in a recording studio or under studio conditions (i.e. use of microphones for individuals or small groups).
- Multiple recording (recording the same selection or a part thereof more than once in a given concert).
- Splicing within a single composition.
- Any engineering, editing, or tampering (including reverb, voice filters, autotuning, or any other type of enhancement) in any way with the recording after the performance. After the initial recording compression of the recording in any fashion is not allowed. Note: The only allowable technical alteration to a recording is adjustment of master volume.
- Any other practice which could be construed as being unprofessional, unethical, or in violation of the spirit of the competition. Note: These statements of unacceptable practices serve only as some possible violations of the SPIRIT and PURPOSE of the Honor Choir competition. Verified occurrence of any unacceptable practices will serve as grounds for disqualification from contest and/or Honor Choir performance.
- The following are allowable edits of recorded submissions:
- Submitted recordings may be edited to eliminate excess time between movements of a multi-movement work.
- Submitted recordings may be edited to eliminate audience applause.
- Submitted recordings may be edited to combine multiple tracks of a multi-movement work into a single audio file for online submission.
- Movements must be combined in the same order the movements were performed.
- Combined movements must be from the same recording.
- Submitted recordings may be edited to match volume from track to track.
- Submitted recordings should be edited to remove anything that may identify the organization.
- All selections must be recorded and submitted in a digital* format and must be edited to remove any introduction of the choir performing or comments regarding the choir.
- Recording standards accepted:
- *Preferred: WAV (Uncompressed); Sample rate: 44, 100 Hz; Stereo; 16-Bit (required)
- 4a (AAC-LC); Sample rate: 44,100 Hz; Stereo; Bitrate: 256 kbps, constant
- mp3; Sample rate: 44,100 Hz; Stereo; Bitrate: 256 kbps, constant
- Recording standards accepted:
Honor Choir Adjudication
- Once a recording is entered in the competition, no substitution of a recording shall be allowed.
- Recordings will be identified by a letter code rather than by the name of the school.
- Adjudication panel will hear the recordings and rank all choirs.
- A choir director that has submitted a recording for the contest is not eligible to be on the adjudication panel.
Ranking Procedures
- The Contest Director shall compile all judges’ rankings.
- Individual judges’ rankings will be available to all directors involved in the competition, but not made available to the general public. The judges’ rankings will be provided from low to high so as to maintain the anonymity of the individual judges. The results will be posted as final after essential “ties” are broken (if needed) on the Society for Classical Learning website.
- In the use of a five judge panel, the Olympic scoring system will be used. Each choir’s high and the low score will be dropped. The choir with the lowest composite score of the remaining three scores will have the highest ranking except if a majority of the remaining three (3) judges have a choir as first. In this event, that choir shall be declared as first. All other choirs will be ranked according to the remaining three judges’ composite scores.
- Special cases:
- In the case of a tie, the majority of ALL 5 judges selecting one choir over the other will decide the winner.
- Three-way or more ties for the winning choir shall be broken by a re-hearing of all tied recordings, and the judges will be required to “break” the tie.