![Reaching out. Christopher Lesh, student at Central Catholic High School, serves ice cream during the event on March 2, 2025, at the Portland waterfront. Central Catholic was just one of the schools that sent student volunteers out to cook, prepare, dish, and serve food. Interact club’s co-president Rachel Gerber, junior, plated the food during the event. “I like how direct the contact is,” Gerber said. “You’re there [and] you’re just doing something good. It’s simple, it’s easy, you can feel good about it.”](https://wlhsnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/interact-1-edited-1200x744.jpg)
For the first time, the choir program’s a capella group Fresh Pitch performed at the Rose City Sing-Off. The event is an annual choir competition composed of high school a cappella groups from the Pacific Northwest created for the education and entertainment purposes of participants and families.
The event took place on April 12 at 5:30 p.m. at Sherwood High School, where nine schools competed. The top three schools took home cash prizes, where first place received $1,000, second place received $500, and third place received $250. Alongside cash prizes, there were four other available awards: Exceptional Soloist, Exceptional Arrangement, Exceptional Vocal Percussion, and Exceptional Choreography.
Emerson Parker, senior, is the choir president and member of Fresh Pitch. During their performance, Parker was one of two soloists for one of their songs, “Drag Me Down” by One Direction.
“It was the most fun ever,” Parker said. “That was the first time I’ve actually felt nervous during a performance in a really long time, and I only felt nervous when I was singing the background vocals, not when I was soloing, because there’s more room to mess up, and there’s a higher expectation of perfection. We learned so much, and I’m so excited for future years of choir who get that opportunity.”
During their other performance, Fresh Pitch sang “Hate To Be Lame” by Lizzy McAlpine. After all nine schools performed individually, at the end of the competition, they joined together to perform the song, “Can’t Help Falling in Love” by Elvis Presley. Brody Olson, junior, a member of Fresh Pitch, felt excited following the performance.
“I [was] super excited. I personally love a cappella choir. I think it’s so creative, and it takes a lot more connection to each other as a group to really perform and to nail, and it’s an insane listening exercise as well,” Olson said. “It’s a great challenge that has a lot of payoffs, because it’s just so much fun and such a good team bonding experience.”
Following the group performance, the individual awards and group rankings were announced, where Grace Boyer and Hanna Layton, both seniors, won the Exceptional Choreography award for their work in choreographing Fresh Pitch’s moves on stage, and the group placed fourth overall.
“I have recordings of the songs, and then I just listen to them over and over, and then feel my body where I thought the move was the best,” Boyer said. “Then Hanna, obviously, was also a big help to me. I think the way that we work together is really good, because we balance each other out.”
Both songs that Fresh Pitch sang included two soloists. Shannon Wiancko, junior, was one of the soloists for “Hate To Be Lame.”
“I think there’s this animation aspect [to it]. We had to kind of come alive during these songs,” Wiancko said. “For state, our arrangements are choral arrangements, they’re not pop, and it’s easy to kind of go turn on autopilot and kind of just stand there all bored. [I’m] hoping to definitely bring the energy into the state competition.”
Now with the Rose City Sing-Off experience under their belts, Fresh Pitch heads to the ensemble state competition at Mt. Hood Community College on May 2, while Symphonic Choir heads to their state competition at Oregon State University on May 10.
