A Sunday night email announced a second-place national finish for Nitesco.
The six-member choral group of Grade 9 and 10 students at Oak Bay High earned a listen at the provincial level with a nod from the Greater Victoria Performing Arts Festival that only recommended two choirs to the next level.
“The girls are so excited,” said Tina Horwood, choral leader and mom to one of the singers who received the email.
The singers are all across the country enjoying summer break but she got ahold of each with the good news.
“One of them said, ‘We’re just beginning to shine, wait until we really shine,’” Horwood said.
It’s a reference to the name Caitlin Troughton, Amara Digout, Hadley Parsons, Kyla Gilmour, Patricia Horwood and Briar Rose Redchurch selected, Nitesco, which means ‘to begin to shine’.
They performed The River Sleeps Beneath The Sky, an Italian madrigal called O Ochi Manza Mia and a work in Finnish titled The Earth Adorned during the local festival that was recorded and sent to provincials where they were named top group and sent on to the national competition.
First place at the national level went to a traditionally strong group from Alberta, Horwood said.
They’ll get the details on prize, and adjudication comments later this summer.
“At this event they award one first place and one second place and that’s it,” Horwood said. “Second place is pretty cool.”