Liberty student places third, two others semifinalists at national singing competition

Three rising juniors from Liberty University traveled to Knoxville, Tenn., last month as semifinalists in the annual National Student Auditions, a competition organized by the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS), featuring singers in the same age group from around the country and parts of Canada.

Rising junior Melody Wimberley, currently earning her Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in Musical Theatre at Liberty, finished in third place in the musical theater category and earned a $450 award.

The National Student Auditions, held June 27-29 this year, are an exciting experience in which student singers perform and receive written feedback, along with national prize totals of more than $84,000 with additional awards presented at NSA region and chapter auditions.

The NSA includes solo vocal performance categories in Classical Music, Musical Theatre, and Commercial Music. Most NSA categories are open to children through adults ages 30 and younger, who study voice at a NATS member school. All three of the Liberty students competed in the Lower Post High School age category, against other singers in that age range, regardless of whether they are enrolled in college or not.

The other two Liberty students, Nick Brueggemann and Ashley Miller, are studying commercial music performance and competed in the commercial music category.

All three students were coached by School of Music chair of applied music studies and professor of voice Dr. Mark Greenawalt, who is also the president of the NATS Virginia district chapter.

“It took them three rounds to get to the semifinals, starting at their chapter (state) level, then to their region (Mid-Atlantic, against Maryland, Washington, D.C., North Carolina, and South Carolina),” he said. “Then the top five send in a video of their performances that gets adjudicated by judges from around the NATS organization. If they pass that round, they get to come to the NATS conference as semifinalists.”

Liberty has had many students compete at NATS over multiple decades, often with success at the district and regional level and beyond. Even though the judges of the competition are not informed of the students’ university affiliation, Greenawalt said he has seen how Liberty students represent themselves, Liberty, and Christ well. He noted that for the students who made it to the semifinals and beyond, he enjoys watching them use their gifts and time-earned skills in a large platform like NATS.

“One of the things that I find to be really great is we have obviously been preparing here at Liberty for so long with the songs, they’ve been singing these songs for quite some time,” he said of his students. “Part of it is allowing them to develop a sense of feeling capable. They know their songs, so I’m not there really to coach them. I’m there to support them.”

“(The students) have to take ownership, and Melody did,” he added. “She was very confident and she delivered a really wonderful performance.”

This was Wimberley’s second year in the NATS competition, following her second-place finish last year. For her performance in the finals, she chose to sing “Astonishing,” from the Broadway musical adaption of the novel “Little Women.”

“I really have loved going to the conference the past two years,” Wimberley said. “I’m sort of a perfectionist with singing and I’m very passionate about excellence because God calls us to excellence, so to meet so many other people who also have a passion for excellence was special. Also, the adjudicators give such helpful feedback to improve.”

“Any chance you get to sing in front of people and to get feedback in an audition scenario is a (beneficial) experience, especially going into musical theater, where so much of my life is auditioning and singing,” she added.