LGPE SCHEDULE 2024

6th/8th Grade-Monday, March 11

    • 11:45: Students Board bus and leave

    • 12:45: Arrive at South Cobb HS

    • 6th Grade LGPE ACTIVITIES:

      • 1:00: Warm up 

      • 1:15: Perform 

      • 1:30: Sightreading 

    • 8th Grade LGPE ACTIVITIES:

      • 2:00: Warm up 

      • 2:15: Perform 

      • 2:30: Sightreading 

    • 3:45- Arrive back at Dodgen 

7th Grade Tuesday, March 12

    • 10:15- 3 School Buses Arrive/students board

    • 10:20- Buses leave

    • 11:05- Arrive at South Cobb HS

    • 7th Grade LGPE ACTIVITIES:

      • 12:00: Warm up 

      • 12:15: Perform 

      • 12:30: Sightreading 

    • 1:45 Arrive back at Dodgen 

      LGPE Location: South Cobb High School

What is LGPE?

NAfME (National Association for Music Education) designates March as “Music in Our Schools” month. Every year parents and teachers alike ask, “What is LGPE?” and in education with all of our acronyms it is easy for it to get lost in the shuffle. So here is a little explanation of LGPE.

LGPE is sponsored by the Georgia Music Educators Association and stands for Large Group Performance Evaluation. Each middle school in Cobb County must take one choral ensemble to LGPE for evaluation.

You should know that these events are public evaluations. Anyone can come to these performances. Many times when we perform for LGPE there are students and parents from many different schools in the audience. Each group performance is evaluated by a panel of 3 judges. Sight Reading has a separate judge to evaluate that portion of the experience. The judges are approved by GMEA by a panel of teachers on the individual councils (i.e. Band, Chorus, and Orchestra).

The judges have score sheets for each ensemble. Each of the elements of judging criteria are based on the National and State Music Standards. These are elements that are worked on from the beginning of the year and in many cases are overlapping standards. We rarely work on the standards separately for they are occurring at the same time during each particular piece of music. It is possible to choose selections that focus on a specific idea but we are always working on breathing techniques, tone, and intonation. Those concepts are present at all times.

Here you can see the ratings that are obtained from the ensembles for the performance and sight reading at LGPE. This is directly from the GMEA handbook.

Superior (1): Outstanding performance. Worthy of distinction of being recognized as among the very best.

Excellent (2): Unusually good performance in many respects, but not worthy of the highest rating due to minor defects. A performance of distinctive quality.

Good (3): A good performance, but not one that is outstanding. Shows accomplishment and marked promise, but lacks one or more essential qualities.

Fair (4): A performance that shows some obvious weaknesses, generally weak and uncertain.

Poor (5): A performance which reveals much room for improvement. The students reveal almost a complete lack of preparedness and understanding.

The final component of LGPE is the sight reading portion. It is expected in our music classrooms that we work on sight reading skills. Not only should each individual be able to read but the group should read at a certain level. The instructions vary a little between vocal and instrumental groups but the basis is that they get a preset amount of time to work on the examples using the skills from class. At the end of the time, the ensemble will perform the example live for the sight reading judge. The ensemble is then graded on this performance and practice. It is important to note that a portion of the grade is based on their practice. This part of the process is most important for without a method, they will not be able to read the music. They must demonstrate a competent reading method during this time.

As you can see there are many, many elements that go into this evaluation and it is no small feat to earn Superior Ratings. It is a huge honor that we do not take lightly. All of the Dodgen Music Ensembles have representatives that participate in Large Group Performance Evaluation each year.

There are many comparable things to the evaluations that go on in core curriculum and there are some major differences but the unifying element is that we begin this in August and it is cumulative. I hope that this is some information that you can use and see a little bit of the behind the scenes in our chorus classroom.

LGPE 2023

We are SO VERY PROUD of all 3 groups who performed at LGPE this year! ALL of our groups scored Superior in sight reading, with 6th and 8th grade scoring Superior in Performance and 7th grade scoring Excellent in performance! See our performance recordings for all three grade levels below!