New Richmond High School's music group TheTroubadours scored the school’s first Gold Medal performance in national competition with first place finishes in the Heritage Music Festival at Annapolis, Md.
The Troubadours, Women's Choir and Men's Choir all won their respective classes, with the Troubadours and Women's Choir earning gold medals, and the Men earning silver.
"The Troubadours became the first group in our school's history to win both their Concert Choir division and also receive a National Gold Medal," said New Richmond music director Doug Heflin. "This resulted in an invitation to the National Finals. The Troubadours were one of only two schools (out of 17 at Annapolis) to qualify for this honor." (Watch Doug Heflin interview)
Troubadours members Carmen Staton, Jordan Shook and Rachael Westrick put French braids in music director Doug Heflin's hair. Heflin agreed to wear the braids during class if the Troubadours came back with a gold medal from the Heritage Music Festival.
New Richmond, which was the only school in the Annapolis competition to win in three categories, had to decline the trip to the national finals which will be held at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
“The cost of going to the finals would approach $250,000 and there just isn’t enough time for that kind of fund raising,” said Heflin, whose group raised more than $70,000 for the Annapolis competition.
The Heritage Festival started 30 years ago with a goal to recognize, encourage, and celebrate musical artistry and excellence at the high school and middle school levels, has evolved into the country’s most prestigious high school music festivals.
“It will definitely rank as one of the top memories I have in my 17 years of life,” said Troubadours president Kelli Bosse. “It’s hard to top taking 119 of your closest classmates to a national competition and winning the whole thing.”
The Troubadours’ winning performance included a piece called ‘The Seal Lullaby’ by Eric Whitacre, a Hungarian dance song called ‘Tambur’ and ‘Of Thunderstorms and Starlight Pains,’ a song written by Mr. Helfin and New Richmond senior Krista Loose.
“I wrote the music to that based upon lyrics by Krista Loose,” said Heflin. “In that piece, I wrote a solo for senior Kaleigh Autzen (Watch) who will be going to Otterbein next year as a music major.”
“Mr. Heflin and I went through a process where I probably wrote about four versions of the song,” said Krista Loose. “It was inspired by my personal experiences and how I felt about the word ‘hope.’”
The Troubadours got an impromptu practice session the night before the competition when they visited the Naval Academy Chapel to hear a performance by the Naval Academy Glee Club.
“We had the opportunity to go to the Naval Academy Chapel and were asked if we would be willing to sing ‘Tambur’ in the chapel,” said Heflin. “Of course we were willing.”
Another highlight of the trip was a visit to Fort McHenry in Baltimore where the Troubadours sang the National Anthem under the flag which inspired Frances Scott Key to write what became the National Anthem.
“We went under the flag and we sang the National Anthem and one of the gentlemen who works there came up afterwards and said that he was really proud because that was the way the National Anthem was supposed to be sang,” said Heflin. “I bet we practiced it 150 times.”
The practice paid off at the Heritage Festival competition with the three first-place awards.
“We expect to win,” said senior David Stigler. “But when we were told that every choir we participated in got first place and that we won two gold and a silver, it was a shock and we were overwhelmed.”
