Why We Sing

“Welcome, welcome, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, to our 17th annual Belmont High Senior Concert!” Our chorus teacher cried.

From an early age, I loved to perform. Being the youngest girl with three older brothers, I could never get enough attention; This meant singing, dancing and being extremely outgoing to get everyone’s eyes on me. I still hear stories about my younger self dancing in front of mirrors, babbling about my dream of being a “star”. It wasn’t until much later, however, that I found I could put my love of performing to use.

As I sat enveloped in her story of overcoming conclusions, she taught my heart to embrace each quirky part of myself. I identified with Elle Woods’ need to prove herself. This idea of accepting individuality provided me with the courage to audition for my first show, the Arvada Center’s production of Footloose. Since that first nerve-racking, nail-biting experience, I have come to find myself through each move I dance onstage. Getting my first big role, the Dragon in a production of Shrek, I poured my heart out, knowing the people ready to judge and mock were watching. After the show, the peers who judged my intelligence approached me, saying things like, “I never knew you could sing like that.” Through performing I found myself again. I shifted back to the girl I was, the girl who cared about her morals. I want to perform, hoping to provide audience members with the ability to connect with characters who can offer them a point of realization, as Elle Woods did for me.

I joined in as we yelled towards the stage, our words on repeat. 10 more minutes passed and the crowd sang lyrics to their song and I could hear my voice getting raspy, which I liked. I liked that there was a story behind why I wouldn’t be talking the next day, and how I wouldn’t be able to tell that story until I got my voice back.

"I’m so nervous,” I complained to my mom as we walked into the Waukesha Civic Theatre. “What if I’m not good enough. I haven’t even prepared that much!” It was a crisp September day and some leaves had already started changing color. On the way home from school my mom told me about a play that the theater puts on near us every year and thought I would be good for it. Since I had only heard about the audition that day, it gave me a few hours to pick my song and be prepared for whatever part they wanted me to read. The next song that came on the radio was the song “Edge of Glory” by Lady GaGa and because it was in my vocal range I thought it would be good for me. Little did I know that this audition would change my view of theater.

Now, I am not a great actor and I can’t sing beautifully to save my life, but I did anyway. I love it so much it doesn’t matter whether I can do it or not. I met many people during that production and we all shared the same passion of theatre and music.

The event lasted two hours beginning at 7:00 pm. All students were invited, but only a handful of students showed up, all of them somehow involved in theater. Participants were allowed to sign up to sing any song alone or in a group. Songs that were well known in pop culture included, Hakuna Matata from the Lion King, Ice Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice, and We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together by Taylor Swift. The night ended with a rendition of Don’t Stop Believing where everybody sang.

Standing on stage behind The Philadelphia Orchestra, I peered into the empty auditorium. The red velvet-lined seats were plush; the crown molding was elegant and classic. As I stood on the stage of Carnegie Hall’s Isaac Stern Auditorium, I wished I had smuggled my camera onstage to capture the scene from my vantage point as some of my fellow choristers of The Philadelphia Singers had done. Here I was, at the mere age of twenty-five, performing on the same stage as musical greats such as Enrico Caruso, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Yo-Yo Ma, Joni Mitchell, and Itzhak Perelman. In the moment I felt scared and excited, and unsure I even deserved to be there.

Smiling to myself at the memory, I thought of how much I had grown since that audition. I remembered the concerts I had performed in, the choirs I had tried out for, the sectionals I had lead. My growing confidence in my musical abilities had spilled over into other areas of my life, too: I spoke more in class and I no longer hesitated to try new things. I fondly glanced around the chorus room one last time, mentally absorbing every detail. I closed the door behind me, not feeling like running anymore, and strode the rest of the way down the hall, moving on to the next stage of my

It is late November, the week before the first performance for our choir. Even though we’ve had our music since June, we were woefully unprepared. Each section, including mine, was wrought with apathy. Choir wasn’t fun anymore.

Our first song was Silver Creek Lullaby. In this song I feel like we started and ended together as a group very well. For my section, the second sopranos, measure 12 through 14 was hard for as we practiced because the altos and first sopranos were louder than our own sound, but as we sang in the concert, I was proud of us because we sang and our voices were loud enough to be heard, but soft enough to make a beautiful harmony. On the other hand, our note for the beginning of sail on measure 24, took us a moment to find the right note, and in the process of finding the note we slid up the E. We also took time to find our note the second time through on measure 8. One other thing I felt like we could have improved was our rhythmic accuracy and our diction especially on the word sleep. Overall for this song I felt like there was much room for improvement but we did very well for our first concert.

I've heard many compliments on the forces you led… You did wonders with the "pickup chorus"! They did a competent job with ensemble, pitch, and timbre--a most enjoyable presentation, especially considering that some of them had not sung with you before.

In the University of Alabama’s performance of A Chorus Line, the performers tackled this infamous piece for its dramatizations of what actors and performers endure in the line of work that is theatre. As explained by the actors in the documentary “Every Little Step”, being a performer in A Chorus Line is the ultimate dream because it was made by actors for actors. There were a few factors that made the University of Alabama’s performance stand out to me including the choreography, seeing the documentary Every Little Step before the show, and the live music.

Sounds of crisp, clean harmonies with lots of diction crept into my ears when I was singing with a large group of students at a big high school. Over the summer I was able to participate in a theater camp that was called Upper Darby Summer Stage. This camp was located in Upper Darby. This is a camp that is for students going into 8th grade and all the way up to high school. This camp took place from July 18th to August 11th, since I was in their last show of the summer.

“If I cannot fly, let me sing.” This has been said by Stephen Sondheim. Opportunities to sing are scarce in Berlin. There are only school and church-related choirs here. People with special needs also get shut out of choirs that are out-of-town. If we have a choir in Berlin, things would change. There wouldn’t really be auditions. If someone wants to be in, they’re in. Berlin could benefit from a choir because people with special needs can enjoy it, out-of-town choirs waste a lot of car gas, and our community could bond.