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At quarter to six last Tuesday evening, Kavya Doraswamy ’24 stood outside the Peucinian Room in the basement of Sills Hall, waiting. She was there to audition for BOKA, one of six a cappella groups on Bowdoin’s campus.
This weekend, the Meddiebempsters are meeting in the WBOR record vault to record its first studio album in several years. This is the result of collaboration between Meddiebempster alumnus John Galushi ’20, the Meddiebempsters themselves and WBOR.
This coming weekend, two of the College’s a cappella groups will perform at St. Mark’s High School in Southborough, Mass.. BOKA and Miscellania will be taking part in the Wick Festival, where high school and college groups perform together for a shared audience.
Next week, dance and a cappella groups will perform in a joint winter concert for the first time in the College’s history. Featuring six a cappella troupes and four dance troupes, the show will be held on Wednesday in Pickard Theater at 8 p.m.
Miscellania, Bowdoin’s first and only all-women’s a cappella group, celebrates its 50th anniversary this weekend with the return of many of the group’s alumni. This will be students’ first chance in four years—the last time a reunion happened—to connect with Miscellania members of the past.
Bowdoin students and members of the Brunswick community packed into Pickard Theater on Monday night to watch a medley of a cappella groups perform. All the campus groups—BOKA, Miscellania, the Longfellows, the Bear Tones, the Meddiebempters and Ursus Verses—performed two songs each, all of which were well received by the energetic crowd.
The spring round of a cappella auditions concluded with an unexpectedly-high turnout. Auditions began Monday evening, and the final step of the decision-making process took place Wednesday evening. While all a cappella groups held auditions in the fall 2021 semester, not all choose to do so in the spring.
After a twenty-month long hiatus, Bowdoin’s six a cappella groups reconvened last Friday at Kresge Auditorium for their annual recruitment concert, one of the College’s first large indoor gatherings since prior to the pandemic. “It felt amazing to finally be back in an auditorium, watching groups perform,” said Henry Jodka ’24.
After a long year without the chance to sing in person, the Bowdoin Meddiebempsters, Bowdoin’s oldest a cappella group, are back on stage. When COVID-19 cases surged last March, the Meddiebempsters had just started their annual tour and were prepared to sing at colleges and venues all over the northeast.
In a normal academic year, Bowdoin’s six a cappella groups would have finished recruitment several weeks ago. The week-long process, which typically takes place in late September, consists of a first round of auditions, a second round of callbacks and the “draft,” where the A Cappella Council meets to express interest in singers and then issue bids to them.
With only first years, transfer students and a select few upperclass students on campus this semester, maintaining club connections requires extra creativity in the virtual sphere. Ursus Verses, one of Bowdoin’s coed a cappella groups, is working to overcome the challenges of remote learning and to cultivate a supportive musical environment despite the distance.
As remote learning has become the new global norm, college communities have been searching for ways to stay united while physically apart. At Bowdoin, student performance groups are channelling their creativity to bring the College’s community together with virtual performances.
With pews so full that students spilled over onto the floor, the current members of Bowdoin’s a cappella groups performed their best, hoping to attract their futures. Supporters, friends and a cappella hopefuls packed into the Bowdoin Chapel last Friday night for the annual recruitment concert, where each of Bowdoin’s six groups performed two songs.
Life imitates art. Or rather, for Miscellania, life just might imitate the hit 2012 movie “Pitch Perfect.” The group, Bowdoin’s only exclusively female a cappella group, will appear on the Boston television show “Sing That Thing!” tonight at 8 p.m.
Last weekend, the Meddiebempsters’ 80th reunion brought together current and former Meddies representing eras of Bowdoin’s history stretching as far back as the 1950s. With such an extensive history on display, cultural shifts over the years were clearly apparent, in everything from the diversity of the group to the music they performed.
