• February 20, 2006

  Music major finishes college competition with perfect record

  
  
• Move over Cael Sanderson. Iowa State has another perfect undergraduate.
  
  While Sanderson never lost a wrestling match at ISU, Sarah Thompson equaled that with four perfect years in the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) Student Auditions.
  
  And to think at first the competition didn't even interest the music major.
  
  "On my college visit while in high school I listened to a music student talk about the competition," Thompson said. "I remember thinking that this didn't sound like much fun."
  
  At the encouragement of music professor Donald Simonson, she decided to give it a shot.
  
  As a freshman, Thompson didn't give herself much of a shot at advancing at the auditions, let alone winning. She prepared three pieces, an art song which she sang in a foreign language, a 20th century American piece and an aria.
  
  In the competition's first round, singers perform all three songs in front of a group of three judges. The semi-finals are held late at night where the competitors sing two pieces. Three finalists are then selected and perform one song in a concert.
  
  The auditions are held every fall and bring over 400 college voice students from across the region together to perform. Students are divided according to gender and year in school.
  
  "My freshman year I didn't think I would do well," Thompson recalled. "But I kept advancing and advancing and I thought that was a little weird. When I won it was really a big surprise."
  
  The music student who didn't want to compete was hooked.
  
  "As a sophomore I thought ‘now I have to live up to something,'" she said. "I didn't go with a goal of winning but with a goal of performing like I knew I could."
  
  While her freshman year victory was a surprise, her win the following year came as a shock.
  
  "I didn't think my repertoire was all that impressive," she said. "I was singing two English pieces, including a Gilbert and Sullivan, and I thought I would be blown out of the water. I thought there was no way I would win again."
  
  With three consecutive wins under her belt, Thompson was a little nervous heading into last fall's competition.
  
  "I thought to myself ‘I hope I don't lose now. That would really stink,'" she said.
  
  But Thompson was far more confident about winning the NATS. The selections she chose to perform were far more difficult than any other pieces she has undertaken while at Iowa State.
  
  "The music I've selected to perform has changed quite a bit since my freshman year," Thompson said. "This year was such a huge undertaking, the piece I did in the finals was a seven-minute aria which is a long ways from the short German art song I performed as a freshman.
  
  "I've been working on this song for the last year and a half. I was really proud of my final performance, which showed how much I have grown as a singer and a performer."
  
  Thompson says she enjoys every time she takes the stage with the Iowa State Singers, in the Department of Music's Opera Studios or in a SOV production including portraying Eliza Doolittle this April in "My Fair Lady."
  
  The senior, who will graduate this May, sometimes reflects on why all this has happened.
  
  "I work hard," she says, "but there are a ton of people I know that work hard. But since I've been at Iowa State I have found a passion for my art that I didn't know even existed in me before I came here. I have really developed a deep love for music and performing. Discipline, passion and hard work - that has made the difference for me."
  

Sarah Thompson