Vocal Pops Concert Summary

On November 15, 2015 and November 22, 2015 I attended two concerts at the Harris Theater put on by the George Mason University School of Music. The two performances I attended were the Mason Jazz Vocal Night and the Vocal Pops concert entitled “Sing, Sing, Sing”, respectively. The MJVN featured the Mason Jazz Vocal Ensemble as well as some soloists from the Jazz Voice Studio such as Linnea Monson, Tracey Wright, and Markus Ellis. The Herndon High School Vocal Jazz group was also present and performed a few songs as their own group and then the closing piece “America the Beautiful” with the rest of the performers. As stated throughout many of these group names, the genre these performers fall into is jazz. Most of the songs performed were traditional

There were only three soloists and they were Huy Ngo, Linnea Monson, and Whitney Akridge. For the final song the two groups came together for an acapella version of “Londenderry Air (Danny Boy)”. This particular concert focused more heavily on “popular” songs from all periods in time, ranging from classic “Ave Maria” to The Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby”, but instead of having a band to back them up, all of the songs were performed acapella. Many of these performers were also in the jazz groups. The audiences for both show ranged greatly in age. However, for the MJVN there were significantly younger audience members, as they were probably there to support their fellow high school classmates. Yet there was no distinctive lean towards a certain age cohort. Both shows were extremely casual in attire, the audience wore everyday casual clothing as it was indoors and nothing too serious. Members from all social, economic, and racial groups were in attendance which provided great

All of these songs were sung acapella, while handful of songs such as “Don’t Stop Me Now” was accompanied by a beat boxer. The majority of these songs ranged greatly in their sounds, as the group chose pieces from all varying time periods in music. While the timbres of these songs held some variety, there was still an overwhelming “choir” sound to their voices, in order to prevent varying vowel sounds and having a unanimous sound as a group. Since this pieces were acapella it is important to blend in order to sound as one