Sweet Serenade

Hundreds of people scrambled into the cafeteria on the evening of Oct. 12, waiting to see the choirs of Samo. While some people were finding seats, others were bidding on auction items that ranged from gifts cards to pieces of art.  Outside, audience members were waiting in huge lines to get a potluck dinner consisting of pastas, salads and Kentucky Fried Chicken. An array of chocolate brownies, homemade cookies and fruit platters delighted everyone's stomach. Finally, at around 8:45 p.m., the choirs filed into the cafeteria and the opening of a pop-rock song started to play.Sweet Serenade isn't your ordinary choir concert; instead, it's more casual and there is no classical music whatsoever. The first part of the event showcases a few soloists and small ensembles that entertain the audience. During the latter part of Sweet Serenade, the choir ensembles sing pieces from a variety of modern genres. Here's a look at what happened at this year's concert:The Soloists and Small EnsemblesHuls initially planned for the soloists and the small ensembles to sing country pieces at the start of the evening because the country theme had never been used before and Huls wanted to do something fun and interesting. However, not everyone wanted to use a country piece, so each performance had its own style and type of music.Perhaps one of the more interesting pieces of the night came from Tati Bedi (’14), who sang her own version of Miley Cyrus’ “Wrecking Ball.” Bedi was accompanied on the piano by Quinn D’Andrea (’14).“I chose this piece because its message is currently relevant to me and I would rather sing a song that I can connect to on a deeper emotional level,” Bedi said.Other singers chose songs that were happy, sad and just plain funny. Some songs were sung a cappella, while others were performed with the help of a piano, ukulele and the kazoo.The performances of the solos and small ensembles only foreshadowed what would be a great night of music.The ChallengeAbout half an hour before the ensembles started singing, Huls called Samo’s top choirs, Madrigals and Chamber, onto the stage. He announced that the two choirs were going to learn a brand new piece of music on solfege, the choir’s method for teaching pitch and sight-singing. (If you’ve seen "The Sound of Music," solfege is the do-re-mi stuff.) The restriction: the two choirs only had 30 minutes to learn the song, and they could only use a pitch pipe to help them."At first I was super nervous because last year he didn't have the upper choirs do the sight reading challenge," Nicole Rosenberg ('14) said. "When I finally got the piece in my hands and practiced it a couple times it was a lot easier and I felt fine going in to sing it."Soon, the Renaissance piece, “Salvator Mundi” by Thomas Tallis, was performed with a minimal amount of errors. Each note of “Salvator Mundi” flowed nicely as the sopranos, altos, tenors and basses harmonized. As the song ended, the two choirs were met with thunderous applause. It was clear that the concert had begun.The SerenadeEach Samo choir member soon stood in the cafeteria and the opening notes of “Home” by Phillip Phillips filled the atmosphere with joy. According to Huls, “Home” was chosen as the opening song for Sweet Serenade to welcome the freshmen to choir, since many choir students think of their fellow choir students as a family and choir as their home. This song did a great job of opening up the concert, and this was only the beginning of a wonderful night of music.The audience enjoyed every song that the choirs sang, which ranged from "Viva La Vida" to "Under Pressure." Two pieces stood out, though: “Billionaire,” sang by Men’s Chorus, and “Bellas’ Finals,” performed by the all-women Chamber ensemble.“Billionaire” encased many elements of the original song, including the rap. This song was performed with a beat-boxer and many soloists, including one which really captivated me and stole the show. Justin Braun ('17) would come up to the microphone and go, "Yeah," and, "So freakin' bad," at certain times in the song. The timing of this was hilarious, and everyone was impressed with this performance.The Chamber ensemble performed a spectacular cover of "Bellas' Finals," which is from the movie Pitch Perfect . In the movie, the women’s a cappella group, the Bellas, perform at an a cappella competition."Bellas' Finals" is a mash-up of different songs, including Jessie J's “Price Tag” and “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” by Simple Minds.Each Chamber member filed onto the stage with matching t-shirts, and of course, their scarves. The song opened with one soloist and quickly became a dance party on the stage full of energy and great singing. The different soloists that were featured all had unique voices and Chamber’s performance blew the audience away. At the end of the song, each member hit a pose, signifying the end of what would actually win the competition in Pitch Perfect.The evening concluded with all the choirs joining together and singing the band FUN’s “Some Nights.” This final piece of the evening once again unified all the choirs, and it left a great impression on the audience. This piece was creatively arranged and everyone was jamming to the piece, and more importantly, having fun. This song was the perfect ending song to Sweet Serenade, as the night was really some night to remember."I thought it was a great experience for all the Samo choir students to sing two pieces together," Rosalind Niu ('16) said. "The atmosphere was amazing and the audience was great."What’s Next?The performance at Sweet Serenade usually foreshadows how well the choirs will do in the upcoming year. Since there were amazing performances in the concert, it seems that the choir program has a terrific year ahead of it. The choirs have only been practicing all of the pieces for about six weeks, so with more time, the performances can only get better and better.“The choirs don’t sound anywhere near what they’ll sound like near the end of the year, but people are just having a good time,” Mitchell Won ('14) said. “[Sweet Serenade] is mostly about showing everyone how fun choir and singing can be.”Sweet Serenade is definitely the most exciting choir concert of the year: it's full of fun, (free) delicious food and good modern music. High school choir concerts don't get better than this.