The William Floyd High School ‘Acabellas’ made it to the finals of the NBC 4/Telemundo 47 Star Choir Competition. The winners of the Star Choir Competition perform at the Tree Lighting in Rockefeller Center.
Though they didn’t win it all, their performance rated so well that their rendition of "Deck the Halls" will air during commercial breaks on NBC/Telemundo on November 20 through the evening of the Rockefeller Center tree lighting on December 4.
The Acabellas are under the direction of Choral Director, Donia Rivera. Ms. Rivera has been the Choral Director at Wm. Floyd High School for the past 23 years and loves every minute of working with the students and getting them ready for performances and competitions.
Wm. Floyd High School said, “Congratulations to Ms. Rivera and these amazing student-vocalists on this great honor. Look for their amazing performance during commercial breaks.”
The Acabellas are an all-treble a cappella performance group at Wm. Floyd High School. The group is all girls from all four grades of high school. There is a companion group of all boys called the Soundsations.
This is a big accomplishment for the group to make it this far in only their second time competing against such a large number of schools across four states.
The contest is for participants residing within WNBC-WNJU’s viewing areas in New York, New Jersey, Fairfield County, Connecticut, and Pike County, Pennsylvania and groups must have between 10 and 35 members. This is just the second time the Acabellas have competed, the last time being in 2021.
The first video submitted was singing only, but when called back for the second round of competition, Rivera said, “They told us that we needed to have some choreography. Round two was a visual performance as well as a singing performance. So, we tried to jazz that up a little bit.”
When asked what the group does next now that they have fine-tuned this performance, Rivera said, “We're taking this group and our men's a capella group from the same school and we're going to do a little mini holiday tour around the community.”
“We are going to sing for the elementary schools and also perform at a nursing home facility. It's nice when we do the Christmas carols because the residents recognize those songs and can sing along. It's a a wonderful opportunity to give back to their community,” added Rivera.