Six girls who love to sing were thrown together in September.
“We are all in a choir at school and we were selected, the six of us, to create a smaller group and go further with our musicality,” said Caitlin Troughton, who enters Grade 10 at Oak Bay High come September.
They sing under the name Nitesco, which means ‘to begin to shine’ in Latin, a sentiment they felt appropriate for the endeavour, Troughton explained.
“We didn’t even know each other,” said Amara Digout, who just finished Grade 10 at Oak Bay High. “We didn’t realize we’d be performing and going to festivals and stuff.”
The girls held up to their name, earning a provincial choral win at Performing Arts BC.
“They’re hard working, they put in extra time on the weekends,” said Tina Horwood, leader and mom to one of the girls in the group.
“I wasn’t surprised they were sent to provincials.”
They earned an ear at the provincial level with a nod from the Greater Victoria Performing Arts Festival that only recommended two choirs advance to the next level.
One of their members was sick heading into the Victoria festival, and the group was sad to leave her behind the day of the competition.
“We were on our way out to the festival … we went back and picked her up even if she couldn’t perform. It was so much for all of us to be there together,” Digout said. “Even though she couldn’t sing, it wasn’t really fair after all the work we put into it, to not have here there. We’re all in this together.”
Singers Hadley Parsons, Kyla Gilmour, Patricia Horwood and Briar Rose Redchurch round out Nitesco.
They learned two months after their submission, via text message, they’d won the provincials.
“It was incredible. It took me by surprise. It was really, really exciting,” Troughton said. “We were a new group and the six of us, now we are best friends, and it’s a lot of fun. We sing together and hang out and do crazy stuff together.”
At the provincial level, adjudicators get a biography of the group and an audio recording taken during the local festival.
“To actually win provincials when you’re up against choirs from the Mainland and Okanagan is quite something,” Tina Horwood said.
Nitesco, made up of Grade 9 and 10 students, didn’t have an appropriate class for competition, so they were pitted against choirs.
“It just makes it that much more exciting,” Horwood said. “When you hear them sing, you can’t tell how young they are.”
Much like the provincial competition, where notification came as a surprise, they don’t know when they’ll hear the results from the national competition. And they’re not worrying about it.
“We’re just relaxing for summer,” Digout said. “Then kick it back up in fall.”