A month removed from the third competition on the Texas schedule, Keller Central’s Lone Star Invitational, the Texas circuit has one last hurrah for the year this weekend at Rouse. Cap City is an established event for Lone Star State show choirs; it is the third-oldest event that is still running and its first edition was in 2017. This year, a field of 13 high school choirs and 10 middle school choirs will take the stage for one last weekend of sequins and suits.
High School Choirs: Burleson “Breakway”, Cedar Park “Timberwolf Show Choir”, Centennial “Shades of Blue”, Fort Worth Southwest “Southwest Effect”, Fort Worth Southwest “Sound Machine”, Hebron “Harmony!”, Glenn “Dynamicz”, Keller “Blue Lights”, Keller “Lumina”, Lake Park “Legacy”, Leander “Legacy”, Montgomery “Melodic Motion”, Timber Creek “Aerodynamix”
Rouse returns only three of its finalists from the 2023 edition. Arlington, who took a no-caption win to round out the season here last year, is not entered. Texas City, for which Rouse is the closest competition, is also not on the sheet after taking fourth and Best Vocals here last year. Soundsations only competed once in the 2024 season, at Keller Central. Also not returning is Westwood, who made the drive down from Iowa last year in what turned out to be longtime director Tom Gerking’s final competition with the group.
Who does that leave? Timber Creek was second last season, Fort Worth Southwest was third with Best Choreography, and Hebron was fifth. Aerodynamix is in prime position to take home another good placement again this year, placing third at Fort Worth Southwest and sixth at Keller Central in February. Fort Worth Southwest is in a similar boat. They have a pair of fifth-place finishes so far this year, one coming in Nebraska, and they’re potentially the only group in the field that has a competition left after this one. They will be at Jenks in early April. Hebron is a group that generally only competes at Rouse. They notched their first-ever finals appearance here last year.
Who else is returning from last year? Cedar Park and Leander are both very close to Rouse and make the Capital City Showcase their only competition of the year. Montgomery is a Houston-area choir that traditionally only makes the trip to Rouse each year as well. Centennial and Burleson are two Dallas-area choirs that did not make finals at Rouse in 2023 and will look to flip the script this year.
Who is new this year? Lake Creek is a sister school to Montgomery. It is a new school that opened in 2018, and Legacy’s director, Cameron Carnley, used to direct Montgomery’s choir. The much larger addition, however, is Keller. Blue Lights came out on top as the winner at Fort Worth Southwest earlier this year and has two second-place finishes to its name as well. They enter as the de facto favorite here, having soundly defeated both Timber Creek and Fort Worth Southwest in 2024. Should Keller win, they will become the first non-Keller Central group to notch two wins in Texas in the same year in a long time, and perhaps ever.
Middle School Choirs: Indian Springs “Infinity”, Kerr “Electric Blue”, Rosemont “Revolution”, STEAM “Soundwaves”, Timberview “Ovation”, Trinity Meadows “Agility”, Trinity Meadows “Ignite”, Trinity Springs “Fusion”, Trinity Springs “Titanium”, Wedgwood “Voices of Wedgwood”
Not a single choir in this middle school division is local to the Austin area – they are all making the drive from some place in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex. Timberview won the division here last year and have two wins on the docket already, making them the odds-on favorite to win this competition. After that, it’s pretty much a toss-up. Several heavy hitters from the DFW area will not be attending this competition, opening the door for choirs who have been lost in the shuffle so far this year to shine. It’s an interesting dynamic that will pit some great intermediate school programs – Trinity Springs, Trinity Meadows and Indian Springs – against some middle school programs that may not be the first ones that come to mind. Wedgwood, Rosemont, Kerr and STEAM would fall into that category. Can anyone from the field upset Timberview at the top? It seems unlikely, but with late-season show choir, anything can happen.
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