On October 21, 2025, West Valley High School hosted the fourth annual District Choir Festival, welcoming more than 300 participants from nine secondary schools. Choir students and directors presented performances across ten ensembles representing a full range of ages and experiences. The festival featured two distinguished university clinicians, Dr. Nicholle Andrews (University of Redlands) and Dr. Ariel Quintana (La Sierra University), who provided written evaluations and on-stage workshops with each ensemble.
Cottonwood K-8 participated in the Festival for the first time and director Sally McCampbell brought a combined choir of elementary and middle school students who performed with confidence, enthusiasm, and poise throughout the day. The following example captures Dr. Andrews working collaboratively with both the teacher and students during their post-performance clinic.
Ms. McCampbell reflected, “It was eye-opening for me to connect movements to phrases and hear the difference it made to the students’ voices. I am excited to work more movement into our warm-ups and performances. I found the clinicians to be really supportive and constructive with their criticisms and advice and I picked up some really useful skills to implement.”
Meaningful feedback is essential for both teachers and students. Hattie (2009) emphasizes that timely, specific feedback has a significant impact on student learning, with an effect size of 0.73. Clinicians play a vital role by providing interactive, immediate assessments of performances, along with actionable strategies to improve outcomes. This process benefits both students and teachers and often occurs in tandem, similar to an ensemble, which is a group that learns and performs together.
Live performances offer particularly valuable opportunities for feedback. Performing in front of an audience allows students to receive immediate responses, which can be instrumental in their development. This real-time feedback enables students to evaluate their performance, make adjustments, and deepen their understanding of musical expression.
Click this link to see the video performances from that night.