Getting involved at school means something different to every student. Any club, music organization or sport, can prove to be demanding and time consuming in their own ways.Junior, Maddie Joy is involved at PHS in more ways than just one.

Joy takes two choir classes at school, as well as outside training with a private vocal teacher. In April, she will compete in something most high school musicians hear about multiple times in their musical journey’s-solo and ensemble contest.

“I have been working on a solo song since the end of last summer with my private vocal teacher. I also started a quartet…Once [you make] it to state, you have to get other songs, so I am starting to learn a new song as well,” Joy said.

The task of learning three different songs and singing for three different people on a daily basis is made increasingly more difficult due to the way these songs are presented in different languages. Joy explained how at the upper level in choir, almost all the song required are in a different language.

“I had an Italian song and now I am learning a French song for April to sing both of them [in solo and ensemble]. Our quartet is also learning another song because you are required to sing two. My solos are in Italian and French and our quartet is in English,” Joy said.

With the upcoming contest next month, Joy prepares studiously and shares a few of her concerns regarding the subject.

“It makes me nervous that people I know will be there. [I am always afraid of] forgetting the words. For the solo ensemble regionals contest I was sick and I am still sick. It makes me nervous because I have allergies. For our quartet, it is the matter of learning the actual song [that I worry about],” Joy said.

Joy is preparing for more than the solo and ensemble contest. Not only is she involved in two different choirs at school but she also swims competitively, as she has for the past six years of her life.

“I swim on a club team called VAST six days a week for usually two to three hours a day. I swam on the high school team for the past three years and plan on doing it next year as well. I also play water polo for PHS and did [the] club [water polo] for almost three years on and off until completely devoting to my club swim team and only playing water polo for the high school. It still remains an extreme passion of mine,” Joy said.

Despite Joy’s constantly busy schedule, she plans on continuing on with her passions next year as a senior.

Reflecting on her experience earlier this year, Joy speaks of her exciting time spent in Spokane for honor choir with a group of about 170 girls from six different states.

“I was sitting next to someone from Alaska. You just do not know who they are and its like you learn the music outside, then you all come together and it just works so you can work on freezing and not learning it because everyone already knows their part. You know no one, you have three roommates you do not know and you get to know them, so now I have really good friends from Idaho that I did not know before,” Joy said.

Joy is hoping all this hard work pays off, as she plans to swim and sing at the collegiate level and each day she is one step closer to that dream.