Choir serenades the Humanities Center at Café Samo

This year’s Café Samo brought a night of music, laughter and donuts to an audience of parents, teachers and students. Filled with giggles and chuckles as well as beauty and soul, the show ran from Jan. 24 to Jan. 25, and displayed the talent and character of Samo choir students.Café Samo is almost entirely student-run, led this year by Tatiana Bedi (’14), and Abby Zakharin (’14). Students hold auditions, select the acts that will be performing, decide the order in which they will perform and design the sets almost completely by themselves. Its cabaret-style structure allows students to break down the barriers classical choir music puts before them, and instead sing songs that are more fun and upbeat.“If there’s something you see tonight that you find questionable, then it’s all [the students'] fault, but if you see something tonight that you rather enjoyed, then remember I taught them everything they know,” Choir Director Jeffe Huls joked.In addition to being a cheerful and interesting event, Café Samo serves as a fundraiser for the choir program."In addition to the revenue from ticket sales, [the choir program] also sells baked goods and snacks donated by parents during intermission," Bedi said. "Thus, it is viewed as a vital fundraiser for the choir program. It generates enough income to almost pay for an entire Winter Concert."In years past, Café Samo has consisted of three very different shows. There was a small number of core acts that performed all three shows and multiple other acts that performed in only one or two shows. This year, Bedi and Zakharin decided to change that custom, and planned three shows with programs that resemble each other more closely, according to Bedi."This year, Abby and I decided that we wanted to have three identical shows," Bedi said. "There were far fewer acts that were let in this year, only about 25 out of the 60 that auditioned, and that encouraged people to do more group acts instead of solo songs, which honestly can become a bit boring after a while."These group acts, more often than not, included one or two instrumentalists, and several singers. Franky Kohn (’15) was a recurring guitarist, performing with more than three acts per night.“[Café Samo] gives me a chance to perform with all my friends in choir,” Kohn said. “Even though I'm not officially in it, it makes me feel like a part of choir.”Because of its cabaret style, Café Samo fills the Humanities Center with a wide variety of music, this year’s selection ranging from Bob Dylan to Destiny’s Child to Cyndi Lauper. Some performances this year, such as that from Isabelle Sherouse (’15) who sang “Jolene” with Amelia Reynolds (’15) on Violin, were heartfelt and earnest."The songs at Café Samo tend to be on the slower and softer side, and I wanted to choose a song that would be different," Sherouse said. "Jolene is one of my favorite songs and being able to perform it at Café Samo was a great experience."Other performances were more humorous and lighthearted, such as the one by Julio Escarce ('14), Harry Gilboa ('15) and Kohn who sang the song “Ain't No Sunshine” by Bill Withers as "Los Tres Amigos", a self-created humor/musical act."[Cafe Samo] gives us choir students a chance to use our talents to create something that is entirely our own, and to make music independent from class." Escarce said.Overall, this year’s Café Samo was a fun-filled, enlightening and inspiring production, which spanned the interests of many generations."Performing at Cafe Samo was an incredible experience I don't think I'll ever forget," Gilboa said. "As an aspiring musician, the ability to perform a song I loved, and had a large connection to in the company of close friends was amazing and surreal, I'd do it again in a heartbeat."