17-year-old Texan Mikhael Rawls has a very rare gift -- a four-octave voice. So impressive is his range that (some, but not all) experts who have heard him have declared him a "true" countertenor...that is, an adult male who can duplicate the registers of female altos and sopranos without the use of falsetto.
Although he can also sing baritone, Rawls prefers the countertenor parts and wants a shot at auditioning for the state choir as a soprano. The Texas Music Educators Association, being fine upstanding guardians of their students best interests, won't give him that shot.
Gender equity, it seems, doesn't extend to boys who sound like their nuts are in a vice. Soprano parts are reserved for girls. The reason, TEMA's past president Mike Ware explains, is "safety":
“We have had girls that auditioned for tenor parts. We did extensive research, and that can be vocally damaging.... We’re not going to put any student in a position to damage his voice.”
But according to Rawls' vocal coach, a TCU professor of voice, soprano really is "his most beautiful voice, and the one that was the most consistent."
Which begs the question, if girls stand to hurt their voice by attempting to sing tenor, then how can TEMA be so certain that Rawls doesn't face a similar danger if forced to sing baritone?
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