Brown Commons Coffeehouse Series: Antje Duvekot
Students filed into 110 Broad Street on Thursday, March 21 to listen to songs by Antje Duvekot during the last Brown Commons Coffeehouse Concert of the semester.
Brown Commons hosted the semester’s last installation of the Coffeehouse Concert series at the social house on 110 Broad Street on Thursday, March 21. The headliner, Antje Duvekot, a folk singer-songwriter based in Boston, performed her set for the crowd from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Duvekot played mainly originals from her eight solo albums. Several of her songs have been praised by critics in the music industry—her song “Soma” won the grand prize in the John Lennon Songwriting Contest in 2000. It was easy to understand why Duvekot’s songs have been praised after hearing the deeply personal stories she tells so elegantly through her music.
In between songs, Duvekot explained how she came about writing or performing each one. Duvekot spoke of her past lovers, worldview and medical scares all while strumming chords in the key of the song she was about to perform.
Before singing some cover songs, Duvekot explained that she has been working on an album of covers, to be released this year, as a result of a benign cyst that grew in her throat near her voice box. The cyst had to be removed along with part of a bone that is imperative for voice production.
“The whole thing was pretty terrifying because I was told that my voice maybe would just come out different, or maybe not even okay,” Duvekot said.
She went on to explain that in the two weeks leading up to her surgery, she bought a microphone and recorded her voice, in case anything were to happen.
“I sang every single song I’ve ever loved . . . it was sort of like an insurance policy. I had been meaning to make a cover album, but I guess there’s nothing like a hard deadline.”
Thankfully, the story ended happily, with Duvekot’s cyst gone, her voice preserved and her cover album underway.
Duvekot went on to sing a cover of “Ring Them Bells,” by Bob Dylan and “If I Only Had a Brain” from “The Wizard of Oz.” The latter was a crowd favorite, with serval audience members swaying and singing along.
For those who couldn’t make it to the concert, Colgate’s own WRCU radio station broadcasted the show live. However, the in-person experience created a special connection between performer and audience, especially once the music was over. Duvekot mingled with community members and Colgate students over FoJo Beans coffee and Flour and Salt cookies.
Since it began in 2017, the Coffeehouse series has offered a perfect way to wind down on Thursday nights since its start in 2017. Although Duvekot’s concert was the last of this academic year, Brown Commons director and Physics and Astronomy professor Jeff Barry assured the crowd the Coffeehouse Series isn’t going anywhere.
Contact Marissa Volkman at [email protected].
Marissa Volkman is a senior from Long Island, New York concentrating in English literature and double minoring in philosophy and writing and rhetoric....
