Arts

The Azure-Yorkie Connection

“Aw, but girls are gross!” exclaimed Dan Silva ’08 when he heard the news. The others clamored in agreement. “Whatever happened to all-male, all the time?” asked Brooks Canaday ’07 at the beginning of a Yorkies rehearsal. The rest of rehearsal went well, yet we were all thinking the same thing – “The Yorkies and Azure singing together? That’s just crazy.” A month later, we performed the first joint number in Azure/Yorkies history. No one was sure what to expect, as the combination of the two groups meant thirty-some people would be packed onto one small stage. We crowded together and let it ring – and truth be told, I think everyone was a bit surprised. It actually worked. It wasn’t the first time for co-ed pop a cappella at Andover. Outside of Fidelio, there have been co-ed groups at PA almost since Andover merged with Abbot. The group In-Skip was around for nearly fifteen years before it dispersed in 2004. Steve Travierso ’04, the head of In-Skip at the time, said that the school “just can’t handle more than three groups.” 2004 was the founding year of the Yorkies and was also the year that renewed Azure’s potential. With Fidelio taking singers from both groups, many singers in In-Skip were committed to three a cappella groups, not to mention those who were members of Chorus, Cantata and Gospel Choir. But after a four-year hiatus, co-ed pop a cappella might be back. The idea of co-ed pop acappella came from Christa Vardaro ’06, a co-head of Azure during the spring of 2006. “We have to do something. It could be amazing,” she wrote to Yorkie head, Jeff Cutts ’06. Yet, with the end of the year approaching, Vardaro’s proposal did not have time to become a reality. It was not until the winter of 2007 that the idea resurfaced. We started rehearsing at the beginning of February. The choice of Billy Joel’s “And So It Goes,” came from old Fidelio repertoire – a song that the group performed at an AIDS Coffeehouse at the Addison in 2004. Yurie Sekigami ’06 still remembers that performance vividly, saying, “I could barely sing, I was trying not to cry.” The Kings Singers arrangement of the song was perfect – slow, with great tenor and alto suspensions and fantastic word painting. It basically performs itself once the notes are learned. At first, we learned the song separately from the girls in Azure, sort of as an afterthought between the meat of our repertoire. Yet during our first rehearsal with Azure, we knew that this was something special. The Yorkies have a long tradition of closing rehearsals by singing songs with a sad Scottish air in the privacy of the darkened quiet practice rooms in Graves. We sing titles such as Loch Lomand, Shenandoah and others. But this time, we invited Azure to partake. With the thirty of us crammed into one practice room, we didn’t have any choice but to listen to one another carefully. It was odd at first – getting used to other people in our space. And worse – girls. But when we began singing and listening for our cues – we came together effortlessly. The pacing, cutoffs and dynamics were more synchronized than any conductor could give us. “I felt connected to something really great,” said Eliot Shimer ’07. “It was like a magic carpet ride.” It was still a little nerve wracking before the actual performance. In our one rehearsal together at the start of spring term, many members in both groups were missing. We wondered if we would still remember the song. Would the balance work? Would Andover like it? But that night on stage, Azure and the Yorkies morphed together for the brief four minutes, and we sang as one perfect voice.