After preparing seven songs so far this year, Chock Full O’ Notes (CFON) – Keene State’s a capella group composed of mostly non-music majors – held its Winter Concert, letting their group’s voices ring through the student center for the first time this semester.
To prepare for the concert, the group practiced a song every week during their two practices and took the weeks leading up to the performance to solidify their performance as a whole. The songs ranged in genre from “Natural” by Imagine Dragons to “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley. Every song had its own soloist.
Sophomore Olivia Viola, an alto and a soloist for their rendition of the first song of the concert, “Won’t Go Home Without You” by Maroon 5, remarked on her love for the group. “It’s just so fun to see all the support we get and just to be able to show everybody how hard we work on songs and how much fun we have doing them, so everyone can see that,” Viola said. “When we have a really good run of a song, it just feels so great that we all did it together.”
Senior Stevie Barney, the assistant public relations manager and a soprano and mezzo for the group, remarked on the positive community CFON creates amongst themselves. “I love feeling the energy of our whole group when we’re really in the groove and singing and we’re killing it; it’s awesome.” Barney had a solo for the song “Movement” by Hozier, the last song of the concert.
CFON Music Director and junior Hailey Taylor also reflected on the success of the performance and how the group is more like a community than the other music ensembles on campus. “We’ve stayed really locked in all semester,” Taylor said. “We performed at Pumpkin Fest, and honestly it’s only gone uphill from there.”
Taylor said she was happy to see the rest of the group having fun during and after the performance, as well as the positive feedback they got from the audience afterwards.
“It’s everyone coming together for a love of music just to make music,” said Taylor. “It has nothing to do with necessarily the end product, it’s all about the journey and what we do together.”
Sophomore audience member Sofia Hayward, a friend of Viola’s, remarked on how she really enjoyed the performances, saying “they were all really good,” and that she would definitely come back to watch another one. A song Hayward said she liked was “Movement” by Hozier, and she said that Barney’s vocals were great.
Hayley Doda can be contacted at
hayley@kscequinox.com
Justin Dearborn can be contacted at
jdearborn@kscequinox.com
