Accompanied by Megan Cui ’21 on piano, Holt Bitler ’21 sang “Life of the Party” by Shawn Mendes at Fall Coffee House on Friday.
Audience member Loulou Sloss ’22 said, “When [Scharf] hit some of those notes, I could feel chills in my back. The ending was amazing and everyone gave her a standing ovation because it was so good. The energy in the room was completely supportive.”
Scharf added, “I was very nervous while performing, but it was really such a supportive group and such a good crowd. I never did something like this before because it was never offered at the schools I went to previously. So to be at a place where, in my third week, I can do something like that and have that kind of support is really incredible.”
On Friday, September 27, the annual Coffee House event took place in Lower Right of Paresky Commons. The fifteen performers presented a variety of different skills, from singing original songs to tap dancing.
Sofia Garcia ’21, who performed a cover of “Someone You Loved” by Lewis Capaldi, described not only the nerves she experienced during her first Coffee House performance, but also the feeling of support.
“Right after I finished, I was still very nervous because I hadn’t really registered what had happened yet, but I was really happy all of my friends came. It was awesome seeing them in the crowd, and it was a really fun audience… Everybody was cheering for everybody that performed. It was just a really positive experience,” said Garcia.
In addition to the solo acts, there were many joint performances, such as Ethan Chan ’21 and Amy Chew ’20, who sang a cover of Willamette Stone’s “Heart like Yours.” According to Chan, they had been planning on singing at Coffee House together ever since his Junior year.
“I met [Chew] my [Junior] year when she was a Lower in a song writing class. Every time we were writing songs and talking about our songwriting experience, we talked about this song we both liked from the movie ‘If I Stay.’ We told each other [Junior] year that we were going to perform it, but we never did. Now, she’s a Senior, so we decided we should perform it this year because it was our last chance to do it together,” said Chan.
New performers like Garcia and Scharf are looking forward to participating again in future Coffee Houses. For others, it was their second, third, or fourth time onstage at this event.
Audience member Safi Zenger ’20 commented on her thoughts of seeing familiar faces perform during each of her four years at Andover.
“When I was watching [Coffee House], I thought that [this year’s] Seniors [who performed] my [Junior] year had the same good energy that they had [their] first year. It was really nice to see that they kept that for four years. They’re still so energetic and excited to perform,” said Zenger.
