On Saturday, February 27, Water Night, Choate’s winter term student choral concert, took place at the Larry Hart Pool. The concert was conducted by Choate’s choral program director, Ms. Alysoun Kegel, and featured both the Festival Chorus and the Chamber Chorus. The ensembles performed a wide repertoire, ranging from early music to African American spirituals to opera, all of which shared the common theme of water. The pieces performed included “Sicut Cervus” by Giovanni Perluigi da Palestrina, “Water Night” by Eric Whitacre, and “At the River” by Aaron Copland, among many others.
The thought of having the choirs hold a concert at the pool occurred to Ms. Kegel at the beginning of winter term. She was interested in observing how the acoustics of the Larry Hart Pool could add another layer to the music being performed, thus providing the audience with a new, profound, and different musical experience. An added benefit of holding the event at the pool was familiarizing the performers with a new space and completely different acoustics than what they were accustomed to, finding ways to pair the space with the music itself.
A strong believer in the power of music as a tool for activism, Ms. Kegel found how to incorporate into the program the way Choate students want to change the world as well. The final song of the concert, “Making Waves,” was performed by the Chamber Chorus and was an original piece composed by Ms. Kegel in collaboration with the members of the choir. Before performing “Making Waves,” Ms. Kegel asked the audience to close their eyes in an effort to let them more profoundly appreciate the way different sounds resonate in the concert space. It also involved singers jumping into the pool while other singers remained on land and improvised chords. Eventually, each singer would also shout a “proclamation” stating how they intend to change the world for the better, such as “I will jump in” or “I will make waves.” Katharine Li ’17, for instance, proclaimed: “When there is thirst for beauty, I will jump in.”
The chorus heavily studied Pauline Olivero’s work over the course of winter term, and so “Making Waves” was inspired by this 20th-century composer whose whose music contains a high degree of improvisation and calls for a high degree of self-reflection. According to the concert program, “Olivero’s pieces often inspire social activism and address the problems that currently face humanity.”
For many who attended the concert, “Making Waves” created a lasting impact. Riley Choi ’18 commented, “I thought closing my eyes really emphasized the sounds. They formed a sort of harmony that really let me appreciate the different things that were going on around me in a way that I had never appreciated before. It was such a cool piece, and definitely my favorite song of the night.” It is safe to say that the concert did, in fact, “make waves” with the audience—and the ripples will certainly continue.
