The Choral Society Excites Campus With Their S-O-N-Gs!

This Saturday, Oct. 26, the Choral Society performed a pre-game rally to pump up spectators before the Homecoming football game against Wesleyan College. As it was more informal than their typical concerts, it took place in Johnson Chapel, giving the event an intimacy stronger than Buckley Recital Hall can provide. The pianist played “O Amherst, Our Amherst” to welcome in the audience as they grabbed their songbooks and the Choral Society donned their purple baseball caps. It was a playful performance, with audience members being encouraged to sing along to the school songs while the choir waved pompoms and occasionally whistled through purple kazoos. Yet, they still showed incredible technical skill throughout the concert.

The first piece was “To the Fairest College,” a ballad that showed off the Society’s vocal prowess. The next piece was “Hand Me Down My Bonnet,” during which Director of the Choral Music Program and Lecturer in Music Arianne Abela encouraged the audience to participate. Once the chorus reached the lines “Well, as we go marching and the band begins to P-L-A-Y, you can hear the people shouting, ‘The Amherst team is out to win today!’” the audience joined the choir in spelling out P-L-A-Y with their arms, YMCA style, before pointing in the direction of Pratt Field. The choir then sang “Paige’s Horse,” waving green Hampshire College flags at the line, “I am wand’ring home from ‘Hamp,’” a stark contrast to the purple mass that was their outfits with school spirit.

The choir took an interlude to sing three pieces from their repertoire. The first was melancholic and haunting, eventually picking up tempo with staccato refrains. The final two songs were sung by the smaller Concert Choir. The second was choral and hymn-like, featuring impressively high and clear arias before transitioning into an allegro piece with stomps and snaps. The final piece was short and strict with its rhythm, being a good transition to the remaining Amherst songs.

The final two songs returned to pep up the audience for the game. During “Senior Song,” the seniors of the Choral Society gathered in front of the choir, sipping from the traditional silver goblet. Despite my investigative efforts, I could not glean what liquid was in the chalice. The seniors pass the goblet around during the final verse, but the choir stops for each person to drink, resuming for only a few words before halting again. It brought some lightheartedness back into the performance after the impressive pieces that came before.

Finally, “O Amherst, Our Amherst,” returned, the school song that had most of the audience singing along. At the end of the concert, I turned to realize I’d been sitting in front of Dick B. Klein ’61, after Abela pointed him out. He was one of the alumni who adapted the lyrics of the classic tune in 2019 after the college changed its mascot to the mammoth and the song necessitated new lyrics (the original title was “Lord Geoffrey Amherst”). He said there was a sense among alums that they needed to preserve the original melody, while still adapting the song to fit with the mascot change. “I probably have, you know, 100 emails going back and forth [to other alumni] with lyrics, and then some of the people in the choral group tweaked it a little more, and we’re just delighted that it survived.”

The Choral Society will be holding another concert this Saturday, Nov. 2, at 7:30 p.m. in Buckley Recital Hall.