High school show choirs take the stage in Arlington Heights

Hundreds of high school show choir members took the stage Saturday with eager, determined faces at the annual Chicagoland Showcase. Some began tentatively, others with conviction. Their voices soaring, many stirred emotions, a few jarred with the occasional discordant note.

No matter what, audiences rose from their seats and cheered loudly after each performance.

Walking offstage, the performers were buoyant. "I was nervous going in. This is not like middle school, I was never nervous," said Jane Sottrel, a freshman at Wheaton Warrenville South. "Walking out, I felt confident."

"It was great," said Kimberly Barr, a member of Mundelein High School's coed choir, which went through last-minute rearranging after several members canceled with the flu. "I love music and performing, and I really like doing it as a group. You feel like a family and it's really nice to see the hard work that you put in together pay off."

Some students performed solo, like Jaqueline Gadow, a junior at Prospect High School who scored big laughs with her rendition of "My Party Dress" from the off-Broadway musical "Henry and Mudge."

"We love to see her on stage," said her mother Karen Gadow, of Mount Prospect, who with her husband Dan helps design and build sets for performances.

Music director Kyle Grace of Wheaton Warrenville South High School explained that show choir performances typically follow a standard format, with an attention-grabbing opener, a novelty song, a ballad, then a quick costume change for the up-tempo finale. The competition "is pretty intense, but I don't get an intense rivalry kind of vibe," he said.

Seven judges evaluated performances, six holding voice recorders to jot down their impressions of choreography, vocals and instrumentals, one peering through binoculars. Nick Falco explained that's how he gets a close look at facial expressions, a major component in how he selects outstanding performers.

"I look for confidence. I want to see that they are standing looking like they are having a good time and want to see the audience enjoy it with them," he said.

Falco said he was a senior in high school when a group of show choir enthusiasts, many of them parents, created the first Chicagloand Showcase 25 years ago. The two-day competition this year included about 30 middle schools and highs schools from Illinois and Wisconsin.

"I think it lasted so long because the people who started it really wanted to uphold that standard of excellence," Falco said.