Being in the All-Ohio State Fair Youth Choir is an experience like no other in the world.

Many people have never even heard of this choir, so I’ll start from the beginning. You can get into this choir if you are in 9th-12th grade, involved with singing and go to school in Ohio. Ohio is currently the only state that has a program similar to this.

Once in, you get around 30 songs to memorize for your 18-day stay at the Ohio State Fair. In short, the choir practices for five days and then performs at various venues throughout the duration of the Ohio State Fair to thousands of fair-goers. We perform all different types of choral music, from short rounds to long, beautiful ballads.

But how does this change a person’s entire life?

I went to the choir for my first year after completing 9th grade. At this point in my life, I was a shy little girl with big dreams but little to no means to accomplish them. I had the drive but could barely talk to most of my peers, let alone the adults that intimidated me so much. While this experience seemed like a great opportunity, I was also terrified. I really didn’t know anyone, so I was going to be living away from home with 200 brand-new faces for 18 days, all while having to memorize 30 songs that were all much more difficult than I had ever had to learn. This terrified me, but somehow it ended up as the most important experience I’ve ever had. It made me who I am today.

No matter who you are, when you spend such a long amount of time with people in such a small area, you’re bound to make friends. The AOSFYC staff makes this even easier by giving you a mentor as well as a small group called an “opus." My mentor was so important in making my first year in the choir great. She always made sure to check in with me and hang out with me, but once I made friends, she let me go out on my own and make my own experiences. Today, her and I are still extremely close, and we see each other on a weekly basis because we both ended up at Miami University. Like mentor, like rookie, I guess.

This group is so positive and supportive. Just in my first year in the choir, I spent so much time sharing some of my deepest insecurities with my friends, but they still loved me all the same. Having this support group made me realize that who I am is valid, and the feelings I have are normal.

Everyone in the choir is very… weird. We all have our quirks, and we all know that this is a place where we don’t have to hide those quirks. I realized this during my first year, and I finally found out who I really wanted to be. I didn’t want to be a shy girl who cared deeply about people behind the scenes. I wanted to make sure people knew how much I cared for them. I wanted to be the center of attention, the person people looked up to. I wanted to be the girl with a big, silly, loving personality.

At fair, that’s who I became, and by the end of my second year in the choir, I had found a way to take that big personality back home with me and integrate it into my everyday life. Being in the AOSFYC took me from being a shy, quiet girl to a proud, independent and loving one. I was this person all along; it was just inside of me, waiting all those years to come out.

Before the choir, I had a problem with authority. Not that I was a bad kid in any way, I was just absolutely terrified by authority. I couldn’t raise my hand in class, and I was even more scared of talking to my teachers in one-on-one settings. This caused problems in school because even though I did fine, my teachers never knew if I was getting the material until I took a test. If I didn’t know it by that point, I was in trouble, because there was nothing I could do about it anymore.

At AOSFYC, the staff makes a big deal of forming relationships and tight bonds with us. I was able to open up with staff, and even became friends with them! This helped me realize that those in authority didn’t have to be scary, and they just wanted what was best for me.

I also realized truly how much music meant to meㄧ and how much I still had to learn. Going into this choir, I had learned nothing about “tall vowels” or good breathing techniques. I had to learn quick, but with help, I did learn. From that point on, I continued to learn. I also realized how music really made me, me. I found out that I could create bonds using music. Being in the choir made me realize that I always wanted music to be a part of my life.

Finally, this choir gave me a new family. Through music, laughs, new experiences, and even tears, we really all become a family over those short 18 days. My AOSFYC family are people I turn to when something amazing or sad happens or I just want to talk. I still talk to at least one person from the choir each and every day. They are and always will be my second family.

It’s a hard experience to capture in words, so maybe you should just experience it for yourself. It made me who I am today, and I can’t say enough good things about the entire experience. The All-Ohio State Fair Youth Choir changed me for good, and I could never thank each and every person involved in it enough.

Learn more or apply here: aosfyc.org