The popular TV show “Glee” portrayed the exciting and dramatic life of students in a show choir. However, entertaining the characters’ spontaneous outbursts of songs are anything but realistic. While the students in “Glee” seemed to learn a new song everyday and came up with their competition set, well, the day of the competition, Sound Express spends months preparing and perfecting their set, which is full of 20 minutes of music, intricate dances, and quick costumes changes.

Sound Express has been preparing for their competition set since early August, and will continue working, even through their competition season which begins in February. While choir is one of the most fun and exciting organizations on campus, it requires countless hours of hard work. In addition to their practice during first period, Sound Express also rehearses for two hours every Thursday night and studies different choirs. Sound Express leaders are also doing their part to create the best environment that they can.

“I’m still watching lots of old show choir videos and trying to instill into the new people’s heads that we are really good, but we’re not the best,” senior and co-president of Sound Express Cali Thomas said. “It’s really important to stay humble,”

When Sound Express isn’t working on their set, most of the members are still hanging out with each other. The long practices create friendships that go beyond the choir classroom. With 50 people in the class this year, the dynamic is unlike any before.

“I think this group works really well together and even though we haven’t had that many events this year yet,” senior and dance captain Sophia Marks said. “I can tell that this is a really good group and everyone works hard.”

While many choir students are returning, there are also many new students to Sound Express this year. The new school year brought many new members to Sound Express. The new students are made up of not only freshmen, but also upperclassmen who decided to join choir for the first time.

“Everybody seems like family,” junior and new member Franky Acosta said. “When I first joined this choir everyone said that it’s one big family and it really does seem to be one big family.”

As far as the upcoming choir season, the students are excited to begin competing and feel confident about the year. Their success last year has prepared them to do even better this year.

“I think it’s going to go pretty well,” Marks said. “Last year we had the best choir season we’ve ever had as Sound Express and I’m hoping to do even better this year.”

For more information about choir and their upcoming season click here.