For the first day of Family Weekend, all five of Colgate University’s student a cappella groups held a joint concert on Friday, Oct. 27. The event was held from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. in the Colgate Memorial Chapel and brought together Colgate students and families in one of the largest concerts to date this year.
Well before the event started, students and families lined up outside of the Chapel and found their seats in the crowded building.
The first group to perform was the Colgate Mantiphondrakes, a co-ed and identity-inclusive group, which performed two songs. Second was the Colgate Dischords, another one of Colgate’s co-ed a cappella groups. Next to come on stage was the co-ed Colgate Resolutions, who were followed by the Swinging ’Gates, Colgate’s only all-female a cappella group. Last to perform was the Colgate 13, Colgate’s oldest and only all-male a cappella group.
The concert was organized with the help of student leaders and community members at Colgate, including senior and President of the Colgate Resolutions Raashi Jain.
“About a month ago, I reached out to our OSI advisor, Dayna Campbell,” Jain said. “Between that and submitting the event at Colgate — and working with David Williams, whom all of us have been using for sound — we were able to pull everything together, from reserving the Chapel to doing the sound and getting it on the Colgate calendar.”
The a cappella groups typically perform separately, so it was important for the group leaders to coordinate their acts for this concert.
“In terms of knowing what to do in terms of the planning of the event, it’s a lot of leaning on past years of precedents as well as working with fellow presidents of the other four a cappella groups on campus. It’s great because, as presidents, we are constantly maintaining communication, but at the same time, we are all very independent, student-led groups,” Jain said. “We love to do our own thing and have our unique aspects to groups, but at the same time we’re always collaborating and texting each other about planning events. Family Weekend is definitely one of the biggest times of the year when all of the groups work together.”
Juniors Brett Lynott and Rania Chowdhury performed a duet together with the Colgate Resolutions.
“Practicing for a duet is very nice because you get to add your own personal touches; it’s very ornamental in the way you can coordinate the things we do,” Chowdhury said. “At practice, we’ve been sectioning off time for each one of the different songs we’re doing. We’re pretty diligent about practicing.”
In addition to the importance of practice is the team spirit on the day of the concert.
“Making sure that everyone is in a good spirit in the group is really important, because we’ve learned all these songs and know them really well, but how we sound has a lot to do with our disposition and our enthusiasm, as well, so that can impact our success. I feel like we were really excited about things today, and we sounded really good,” Chowdhury said.
For Lynott, performances like the Family Weekend concert are essential in bringing together the Colgate community, including students, families and anyone who enjoys music.
“I was a first-year during that time period of [the COVID-19 pandemic], so the Resolutions were on hiatus from performing. Just this last year, we really started doing more concerts in the community,” Lynott said. “It’s definitely a way to bring the Hamilton community together with the Colgate students. [The concert] was definitely a success in that regard.”
