By Jay An, Contributing Writer
As the violinists perform their introductory songs and the audience is settling in, behind the scenes, there is a buzz going on in the room next to the Black Box Theatre. The singers are prepping for their last big Christmas concert of the season, filled with classical Christmas songs and beautiful music from the orchestra.
The stage is set, and the concert is on its way. The singers and the Rhythm Machine team performed 12 Christmas songs, in accordance with Joshua Theis, the pianist, and Michael DiRubbo, the alto saxophone player and an adjunct music professor at Saint Leo University.
The concert received copious amounts of applause and standing ovations. The director, Dr. Cynthia Selph, thanked everyone who came to see the Christmas concert and wanted to keep the Christmas spirit alive with hot chocolate and coffee. Dr. Selph is a professor of music at Saint Leo.
Prior to the performance, singer and president of the Music Collective, Ashlynn Summers, was ecstatic for their final performance.
“Even though I think we did really good last night, I think we’re going to get better this time because we’re loosened up a bit more!” said Summers. “We all love performing […] I think yesterday we were nervous, but we’re going to have a lot of fun with this one tonight.”
Summers later went on to explain who the performance included.
“It is different vocal groups. We have a soloist, we have pianists playing, we have the Saint Leo Rhythm Machine, and the jazz band,” Summers said.
Another singer, Isabella Riano, the secretary of Saint Leo Music Collective and a junior who is double majoring in psychology and communications discussed the stakes of the concert.
“I feel like we want to make it even better than yesterday. I know yesterday we were a little nervous because we knew a lot of people from the upper administration of Saint Leo were coming,” Riano said. “They told us it was going to be in Fox News, so we were a little nervous.”
When asked about the confidence level for tonight’s performance, both Summers and Riano were confident that tonight’s performance would be better than yesterday’s performance.
After the concert, Hadassa Larissa Ferriera, an international freshman student majoring in political science, shared her thoughts.
“I knew that I was not expecting a lot of students because of the time of the first concert… I was not expecting a lot of students, at least people I know.” Ferriera said.
Ferriera also commented on the idea of doing something like the Christmas recital again, as well as possibly getting involved.
“Yeah, I would love to,” said Ferriera. “And I love to sing.”
In conclusion, the Christmas concert helped illicit the Christmas spirit; attendees got in the spirit with their friends and loved ones. Saint Leo looks forward to the return of the Saint Leo Rhythm Machine and singers back for next year’s performance. Merry Christmas, Saint Leo!
