Choir Competition: What It Is, Where It’s Run and How It’s Judged

A choir is a team of singers performing one prepared piece together in harmony, marked out of 100 on blend, tuning, diction and musical direction, with classes grouped by school age or by year level.

A choir is a group of singers who perform as one instrument. Where a solo singer is judged on a single voice, a choir is judged on what the voices achieve together: whether they sing the same pitch, shape words at the same moment, balance one part against another and follow the same musical direction. The item is always a team entry, open to boys and girls together, and no language is fixed, so the organiser or the set list decides what is sung.

The templates on eTalenter run it in three quite different ways. A national school music and dance competition in Sri Lanka has three team classes, Junior Group for ages 11 to 14, Senior Group for ages 15 to 18 and an Open Group that mixes the whole 11 to 18 range, each with a ten-minute allowance. Two Australian eisteddfods run it by school stage: one gives primary and secondary teams ten minutes each plus an open-age class, while the other has a six-minute choir for teams up to year 10 and another for those 19 and under, next to separate small-country-schools, unison and two-part classes for younger children.

A round is simple to run. Choirs are called in order, take their places on risers or in rows, sing their piece or pieces under the conductor, and leave while the panel marks. The panel usually marks on a sheet out of 100, and on the templates every choir class carries a maximum of 100. Organisers should state in the programme whether the piece must be sung unaccompanied, whether piano is allowed, and how many singers a team may field.

Organisers run choir classes because one item can take in dozens of children at once, builds a school’s music programme around group effort and gives a stage to pupils who would not enter a solo. It also pairs naturally with the unison and two-part variants, which let beginner choirs compete against others at their own level.

Where Choir is run

On the eTalenter templates Choir appears in five events: a national school music and dance competition in Sri Lanka, two Australian regional eisteddfods, and two community talent events, one a fine arts programme with a five-minute limit and one a youth showcase with no time limit set. Eisteddfod and school-festival programmes are the most common home for the item, usually split by school stage or age band. Only the templates above are recorded here.

• Australia
• Sri Lanka

Key facts

• Team item, open to boys and girls together; no language is fixed
• Marked out of 100 on all five templates that carry it
• Time limits on the templates are five, six or ten minutes, and some programmes set none
• Sri Lanka uses Junior Group (ages 11 to 14), Senior Group (ages 15 to 18) and an Open Group for the combined range
• Australian programmes split by school year (K-6, K-10, primary, secondary) or by 19 and under and open age
• Related items: Choir – Unison and Choir – Two Part for younger Australian teams, and Recorder Group and other group items in the same Sri Lankan programme

On eTalenter, Choir is filed under Music and typically scored with Marks. It appears in 5 ready-made event templates — each one can adjust its time limit, age-group assignment and scoring setup independently.

Across the templates that use it, Choir is most often entered as an Team competition, typically scored out of 100, commonly time-limited to 5–10 minutes where a limit is set.

What judges look at in Choir

What a Choir panel is actually weighing up, and where the marks are usually won or lost:

• Blend and balance: the voices should sound like one choir, with no single singer standing out and the parts in sensible proportion; a loud voice or an overpowering section loses marks
• Intonation: the whole choir must hold pitch together, and a choir that drifts flat across the piece, especially without accompaniment, is marked down even if the words are right
• Diction and clarity: words should be clear and shaped together, with consonants landing at the same instant; mushy vowels and ragged endings are heard immediately
• Rhythm and ensemble: entries and cut-offs on the beat, a steady tempo and no singers rushing or lagging
• Musical interpretation: dynamics, phrasing and mood that suit the piece, with the conductor drawing the same shape from every singer
• Presentation: tidy formation, calm entry and exit, eye contact with the conductor and staying inside the time limit; overrunning can cost marks in some programmes

Treat these as the judging focus, not a fixed rubric: publish your own weighted criteria for Choir under Scoring Setup, or start from the full singing competition judging criteria guide.

How to prepare for Choir

How entrants and their teachers usually get Choir right on the day:

• Choose a piece the whole team can sing in tune at performance tempo; a simple piece sung cleanly beats an ambitious one with weak spots
• Rehearse each part on its own first, then bring the parts together slowly before raising the tempo
• Start every rehearsal with a short vocal warm-up and a pitch check so the choir begins in tune
• Teach the whole choir the words by heart and rehearse consonants together, since ragged word endings are the first thing a panel hears
• Fix the formation in advance and practise walking on, settling and walking off, as this can take a minute or more of a short allowance
• Run a full timed performance in the hall, including the entry and the conductor’s cue, and keep it inside the class limit
• Record a rehearsal and listen back for balance; a sound that feels even to singers in the middle can be lopsided to the audience
• If the programme allows an accompanist, agree the starting note and tempo with them before the day

Frequently asked questions

Is Choir judged individually or as a team?

Across eTalenter’s templates it’s most often run as an Team entry, though an organiser can set either participation type when assigning the item to an age group.

Is a choir judged as a team or as individual singers?

As a team. The panel marks one score for the whole choir, based on how the voices blend, tune and follow the conductor. On the templates every choir class is a team entry.

How long is a choir item?

It depends on the programme. The templates show five minutes in one fine arts programme, six minutes in one Australian eisteddfod, ten minutes in the Sri Lankan school competition and one Australian primary and secondary pair, and some set no limit. Always check the organiser’s programme.

What is the difference between a choir, a unison choir and a two-part choir?

A unison choir sings one melody line all together. A two-part choir splits into two lines that sing different notes at the same time. A general choir class does not fix the number of parts, so it can be harder to blend. The Australian templates run unison and two-part as separate classes for younger teams.

Can a choir sing without a piano or backing track?

Often yes, and many panels value an unaccompanied piece, but it depends on the organiser’s rules. The templates do not set an accompaniment rule, so organisers should say in the programme whether piano is allowed.

Want the full judging picture? Read the full singing competition judging criteria guide, or browse every music competition item.