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Arts Stories In Focus

FEATURE: Ortlip Gallery Features Husband-and-Wife Artist Duo

By Rylee Archambault (’23)

The Ortlip Art Gallery at Houghton is now presenting ‘Side by Side’, a series by Amanda Parry Oglesbee and Brian Oglesbee, an artistic husband and wife duo. She’s a painter and he is a photographer; can I make it any more obvious? The Oglesbees met at the Art Institute of Chicago in the 1970s and have been “side by side” ever since. 

This is a show that needs to be seen in-person. While Brian Oglesbee’s photographs look like they are photoshopped, there is no post-production done on his work. They are all exactly what the camera sees. Along with this, Amanda Parry Oglesbee displays her latest series, titled ‘Beings,’ which consists of large paintings of trees in an editorial style.

Her artist statement:

“I am moved by the beauty and courage of all things that grow on earth. As I paint trees and flowers they become portraits of beings compelled to grow and survive. Some of my paintings are made directly observing nature.  My work is sometimes influenced by historical art and other times built entirely from my imagination allowing the piece to grow organically with an equal combination of intent and acceptance. Most of my paintings are a combination of these different approaches.”

His artist statement:

“My photographs are very ‘straight;’ in other words, the camera simply records what was in front of it. What is seen in the print is what was presented to the camera; (with the exception of one of the ‘Tangles,’ which features stitched exposures, and the early multi-media works) there is no subsequent manipulation of the image after the initial single exposure.”

This exhibition will be on display through December 18th. A reception for the artists will be held on Friday, December 3rd, from 5:30pm to 7:00pm, at the Ortlip Gallery.

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Artist of the Week Arts

Artist of the Week: Emily Mulindwa

Emmy Mulindwa is a senior majoring in fine arts. She loves painting, working with pastel, paint and clay. Two of her favorite things include spending time with friends and eating frozen concentrated orange juice.
Check out more of Emmy’s work on Instagram at @emmymulindwa.art!

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Arts Campus News

Percussion Ensemble Concert Thursday

On Thursday, April 26 at 7:30 p.m. in the CFA Recital Hall, the Houghton College Percussion Ensemble will perform its spring concert.

Percussion Ensemble brings a variety of unique and energetic music to Houghton’s campus, pushing the limits of the conventional understanding of “percussion.” In the past, the Ensemble has performed everything from works for mallet percussion and drums to pieces that utilize flower pots, squeaky toys, and balloons as instruments.

a percussionist strikes a drum with their mallets
The Percussion Ensemble will perform at 7:30 p.m. in the CFA Recital Hall next Thursday.

Houghton’s instructor of percussion, Dustin Woodard, remarked that the vast scope of percussion repertoire is one of the things he loves about working with the Percussion Ensemble. “As percussionists we can play literally hundreds of instruments and the repertoire is just as diverse. I am never bored working with a percussion ensemble because there is always something new to learn about,” Woodard said.

That excitement, however, also makes it incredibly challenging. “That being said,” Woodard continued, “it is also a great challenge because there are so many instruments, styles, pieces, and composers that I need to know about. I don’t get to focus on one or two instruments and really perfect them, I have to balance between playing an enormous variety of styles.”

The program for the upcoming concert reflects the great diversity of the percussion world. In just one hour, the concert will journey from jazz to a marimba concerto to a contemporary piece written for six triangles, and more.

In addition to a great variety of music, the Percussion Ensemble n features a diverse set of players. The ensemble is made up of not only percussionists, but also students who come from backgrounds in brass, woodwinds, strings, and piano.  Graduate student Nathaniel Libby ‘18, a member of Percussion Ensemble, commented, “Percussion Ensemble is not only an ensemble that makes great music, but seeks to expand and grow the standard percussion literature. Chamber percussion ensemble is a newcomer to the larger musical world and many of the works are completely new and highly inventive. Also, it’s simply a blast!” Playing in Percussion Ensemble gives every student an opportunity to have fun and to expand their musicality.

The wide variety of people who participate in percussion ensemble speaks to the wide appeal of percussion music. Woodard said, “percussion is very relatable to everyone. It is an easy concept to understand for the most part; everyone knows that you take a stick then hit a drum and noise comes out. What most people don’t understand is how wide and complex our art is. I love seeing the audience’s reactions to all of our music. Most people don’t realize what we can do and it is a joy to see the get excited.”

The ensemble has pieces for those that enjoy swinging to jazz, exploring classical music literature, or even delving into the avant-garde. All are welcome to come out to the Percussion Ensemble concert to support their fellow students and enjoy creative, exciting music.

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Arts Campus News

A Capella Anything But Canned

All are invited to attend Houghton A Capella’s final concert of the year, tonight at 7:30 p.m. in Wesley Chapel.  Admission is free, but the ensemble urges audience members to “bring a can if you can.”

Alto Michaella Aliperti ‘19 commented, “It’s going to be like nothing we’ve ever done before—we’re really excited to share all of our hard work with everyone…and the fact that we’ve turned it into a food drive is really cool and exciting, because we get to take something that’s already bigger than ourselves, and turn it something into even more. We can’t wait to see everyone there!”

Despite being a relatively new ensemble in the Greatbatch School of Music, Houghton A Capella quickly gained an elite status and a reputation for both high-quality and highly entertaining performances. Professor Rebekah Brennan, director of the group, titled the concert “Episode 1,” with the anticipation of creating a series of episodic concerts that are more elaborate than most traditional productions.

The repertoire of this concert is highly varied, ranging in genre from pop, to country, to worship music. It features songs by Reba, Michael Jackson, Walk the Moon, and more.

Music and equestrian studies double major (and soprano) Lauren Grifoni ‘19 stated, “This concert is going to be a fun experience for everyone to enjoy. We’re having so much fun putting the program together and we know the audience will enjoy it too. It’s going to be staged somewhat like a production with fun choreography and set pieces.” Saxophone performance major and bass Derek Chase ‘19 added that “There’s moments that give me chills and moments that get me really lit. You’ll have to come and see all the emotions!”

Houghton A Capella, formerly known as the Houghton Singers, is a group of 16 highly skilled vocalists, comprised of both music majors and non-music majors. “I hope other students at Houghton can see they can all audition and it’s not a ‘music major exclusive’ activity,” commented Chase. He went continued, “The whole group is really cohesive and we all work together very well. I think this show really demonstrates how this group has helped us form a really special friend group.”

Houghton ACapella includes a beatboxer, Ross Atherton (Bass) ’21, and three graduating seniors: Kingsley Kolek (Soprano), Ellenore Tarr (Alto),Vera Motley (Soprano), and Andrew Welch (Tenor). Both Kolek and Tarr are planning to return to Houghton next year to continue their studies at the graduate level. Motley is currently working on her first EP, Scream, which will be available on iTunes and Spotify on April 30. Welch, a theology major, described plans to become a youth pastor after graduation.

When asked about the concert, music education major Ethan Bast ‘21 (Tenor) ’21 coolly replied, “Bruh, it’s gonna be groovy like a drive-in movie.”

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Arts Stories In Focus

Kinesthesia: Designed to Engage

Professor Ryann Cooley’s solo show, Kinesthesia Room (2), opens at the Olean Center Gallery on Friday, April 20 at 6:00 p.m.

Kinesthesia Room (2), designed to engage the present viewer, is an immersive environment constructed on site. In a darkened room, projected video footage reflects from 54 strips of metal suspended from the ceiling. These reflective strips, stirred by the motion of viewers, cast light dancing on the bare gallery walls.

a mother and her baby gaze at an exhibit
On Friday, April 20 at 6:00 p.m., Professor Ryan Cooley’s solo show, Kinesthesia Room (2), opens at the Olean Center Gallery. It will remain open through May 25th, 2018.

Installation art such as Kinesthesia Room (2) diverges from traditional two-dimensional media such as photography. Rather than an experience which draws viewers out of themselves and their sense of space, installation art allows them to physically enter the piece, and activates awareness of the space it occupies. In Cooley’s recent piece, the projected video footage is fragmented by multiple moving reflective strips. The dynamism of moving footage and abstracted reflections, as well as a sound component, requires the viewer to center their senses in the present to engage with the piece and make sense of the obfuscated information orbiting and immersing them.

Cooley’s upcoming show is the second iteration of the Kinesthesia Room, which was first shown in a 12’ x 12’ space in the Visual Arts Gallery in NYC. A viewer’s account of Kinesthesia Room (1) had a strong physical and emotional reaction to  the piece.

“Upon entering this darkened environment, solely visible by the movement of an ethereal luminance, my spatial and physical awareness becomes obfuscated. As I slowly move around the space, color, light and sounds modulate,” reads the statement, found on Cooley’s website. “What appears to be an object central to my surroundings becomes inaccessible at moments and then obtainable at others. Everything is in motion.”

Houghton students are invited to make a pilgrimage to the Olean Center Gallery to engage with the experience he has created in Kinesthesia Room (2). The way you experience the piece is up to you – and your body. Some people have been dazzled, some have become meditative, and others have felt vertiginous dizziness amid the dynamic light and sound.

Kinesthesia Room (2) opens on Friday, April 20th from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the Olean Center Gallery, and runs through May 25, 2018. A Houghton shuttle will be bringing a group of art majors and minors to the opening, and all students are welcome at the show.

Contact Ellen Hatch at Ellen.Hatch@houghton.edu to inquire about shuttle availability.

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Arts Campus Stories In Focus

An Invitation to Marvel

On Saturday, April 14, the Ortlip Gallery will open an annual tradition and its final show of the semester: the 2018 Senior Exhibition. At the end of every spring semester, senior art students have a chance to prepare work and hang it in the gallery as the culmination of their time in the Houghton College Art Department. The reception for the opening of the gallery will be from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. on the 14.

Rebecca Firstbrook ‘18 is both an art and intercultural studies major. Speaking about getting her work ready for the show, she said, “This semester has been challenging to balance senior art work along with my other senior capstone. I always wish I could devote more time to the other.”

paintings and sculptures on display at Houghton's art gallery
On Saturday, April 14th, from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., the Ortlip Gallery will open its final show of the semester: the 2018 Senior Exhibition.

Firstbrook is showing an installation with papermaking. “It was a really relaxing process and I wanted to explore it more after the class was over,” she said. “I spent several hours just beating and pulling paper, along with a lot of digging through old photos for inspiration. I got to rediscover how relaxing it is to assemble something with my hands.”

Firstbrook had no any prior experience with installations before and felt out of her comfort zone. She commented, “There are so many other factors to consider beyond craft of the actual piece—trying to get the thing to stay up, presentation, and how the view can experience the piece.” However, Firstbrook also acknowledged that being pushed out of her comfort zone seems to positively reflect her time at Houghton. Firstbrook hopes that people enjoy the show, calling it “a privileged glimpse into the hard work and thought all the senior students have gone through this year.” She feels honored to show alongside a very talented class.

Christopher Cilento ‘18 turns his struggle with PTSD into art. “My process involves delving into the darkest regions of my memories, pulling them out and examining them. Then I turn them into works of art. This way, art becomes a catharsis, a meditative experience that helps me cope with my daily struggles in a positive way,” he said.

Cilento also mentioned that being a senior is surreal. He began his journey at Houghton in 1991 as a freshman, but at the time, supressed his artistic side in favor of practicality. After coming back to finish his degree, this time as an art major, Cilento said, “I have experienced more happiness than ever before. Art is my world. It helps keep me alive.”

On the topic of the senior show, Cilento acknowledged the amount of work he put into his exhibition. “Not only in the time spent, but in the emotional trauma each piece causes,” he shared. “This is not a bad thing, and is part of the healing process, but it is incredibly taxing.” Cilento’s work in the senior show centers around his personal battle with PTSD, suicide, and journey toward healing, including a mask sculpture and drop painting. He added that seeing his pieces complete and how far he has come is why he makes art.

Alicia Taylor-Austin, professor of art, shared some details about the process that leads up to the show. “The capstone class for students in the art program at Houghton is a senior seminar course that supports and facilitates the development of a body of work focused around a thesis for exhibition,” she said. “Seniors are also required to complete a thesis paper and include formal documentation through images and artist statements. Typically, students submit proposals for their body of work at the end of the fall semester of their senior year and receive feedback on the work they create leading up to that point from the art faculty in the form of a senior review that takes place in December.” This year, 11 students received approval to display their work in the show. 

Everyone is invited to the opening reception to see all of the featured seniors in the show. Come to support the class of 2018, enjoy light refreshments, and marvel at the works of art in the gallery.

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Arts Campus News

Music At The Movies

Houghton Symphony Orchestra will present its first concert of the Spring 2018 semester tonight at 7:30 p.m. in Wesley Chapel.  The orchestra has been working on the repertoire for this concert since the beginning of the semester, in tandem with music for the recent production of Oklahoma! and repertoire for their concert in April. When asked to comment on how she felt about the collection, computer science major and clarinetist Teresa Soley ’20 sarcastically quipped, “Some of the songs sound like things I’ve heard previously in movies.”

Dr. Armenio Suzano, dean of the Greatbatch School of Music and conductor of the orchestra, stated that “This concert [features] an incredibly eclectic program with something for everyone: from the old school Magnificent Seven movie score, to the delightful ‘Ashokan Farewell’ (Ken Burns’ Civil War documentary), to the gorgeous Schindler’s List theme and all the way to the heart-wrenching ‘Adagio for Strings’ by Barber (theme from the movie Platoon) and the must-have Star Wars theme. There will be a special movie theme for every movie and music lover!”

It has become a tradition for the orchestra to put on a “Music at the Movies” concert nearly every spring semester, because of the great opportunity it offers to reach out to the non-musical members of Houghton’s community. The popularity of film scores like Star Wars cannot be denied, especially when it features a saxophone part played by none other than the fantastic Derek Chase ’19.

Many of the orchestra members enjoy playing such familiar repertoire. They reported that it can be fun for musicians to take a break from the seriousness of Bach and Beethoven and delve into the well-known sounds of John Williams and Danny Elfman.   When asked if she was excited for the concert, Alanna Paris ’18 exclaimed, “I am! It’s my favorite concert of the year. It’s always fun to listen to music you know and to see just what Dr. Suzano might say that’s delightful in his opening remarks.”

Many hands always come together to organize concerts like the one tonight.. One important person who helped with the production of this concert is Kira Browning, second year graduate student and violist. She was able to offer some information on what the orchestra has planned for the evening.  “We’ll have introductions to many of the pieces showing a highlight from the movie to which the music belongs,” Browning explained.

Browning also added that “Two pieces [in] the concert feature the violin, with the solos to be played by our co-concert masters: Chantalle Falconer and Cassie Harrison.” The Houghton Symphony Orchestra’s co-concert masters will both be graduating this semester. Falconer is a third year graduate student studying collaborative piano performance. Harrison is a senior majoring in music education who will be going on to study Suzuki pedagogy at Ithaca College’s school of music.  Symphony Concert members reported that both Falconer and Harrison are incredibly talented musicians.

All members of the orchestra have been working hard on this fun and approachable repertoire and look forward to sharing it with the greater Houghton community.

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Arts Campus News

Seniors Steal The Show

Senior recital season is upon us, and there are several original and anticipated recitals happening in the next few weeks.  Already this week Autumn Stone gave her performance on the clarinet.  Coming up before the break are Marissa Perez on the oboe with Sarah Showers on the violin, as well as a vocal recital by Aniela Perez.

Many students outside of the music building are not entirely familiar with the reasoning behind or nature of the recital, aside from the fantastic student posters that accompany them.  For music majors, however, it is the single event they have been working toward during their four years at Houghton.

Ellenore Tarr, a senior music major at Houghton, explained the reasoning behind the showcase. “A senior recital exists to showcase the work we’ve completed over the last four years,” Tarr explains. “Music, like any discipline, involves gradual, consistent growth. This is a capstone project, graded by our music faculty, that aims to exhibit that growth.”

Tarr’s recital that will be a historical first for the Greatbatch School of Music. She will hold her recital alongside good friends and peers Hannah Jager and Brandon Mellerski, both music education majors with vocal concentrations. A group of three has never performed in one recital together, as the general rule is one or two students.

Tarr, Jager, and Mellerski have combined for a 90-minute recital that will consist of each of their 30-minute performances. This allows the group to collaborate on some pieces, work together choosing music, and just have fun with each other before graduation puts them on different paths in life. Among other aspects that make the recital so fun and unique, it will feature a piece composed by 2017 Houghton alumnus Hunter Gregory, along with some theatrical pieces and a Dean Jordan cameo.

Another original recital is that of resident harpist, Lillie Blakeslee. Blakeslee is a music education major known to everyone for her laughter, and to friends for her bright and energetic personality.  She started to play the harp in 7th grade. She had played the piano, but before long her parents kindly demanded that she play an instrument more intensively. Blakeslee’s history teacher played the Celtic harp, and she decided that she wanted to play the harp as well. Blakeslee took lessons with her history teacher, and later from a member of the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, until she found her home at Houghton.

Blakeslee also has a decent amount of performance experience thanks to the rarity her skill.  She has performed at multiple Scottish festivals and weddings, especially those of her Houghton friends. Blakeslee is the first harpist in recent memory at Greatbatch, and her recital will feature both styles of harp, the Celtic or lever harp and the pedal harp. Blakeslee’s recital will also feature her immensely sought-after baking abilities, with such delicacies as peanut butter cookies with toffee bits, snickerdoodles, and cheesecake.

Both recitals featured will take place on April 11, with Blakeslee’s at 6:30 p.m. and the Tarr, Jager, Mellerski recital at 8 p.m. in the Center for the Arts Recital Hall.

There are many more recitals coming up, from a variety of instruments and voices.  Sole composition major, Jeffrey Hansen, will take the stage the Wednesday after break. April will also bring multiple graduate recitals, voice recitals from Angela Matson and Jenna Munro, and an instrumental recital from Cassie Harrison.  The talent of Houghton’s music program is too extensive to enumerate in a single article.  A more complete list is available on the school calendar.

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Arts Stories In Focus

The Brilliance of “Bone Memory”

Houghton alum and abstract painter Stefan Zoller displayed his exhibit “Bone Memory” from January 12 to February 3 this year in Sla307 Art Space, NYC. Zoller works with heavily layered acrylic paint, and bases his pieces on the diagrammatic line drawings of his paternal grandfather, J. Harold Zoller. Intergenerational connection echoes through his recent works, and he drew the title “Bone Memory” from a poem of the same name by his father Dr. James Zoller, who teaches writing and English at Houghton.

a geometric and abstract painting of hay in a field
Houghton alumn and abstract painter Stefan Zoller works with heavily layered acrylic paint and bases his pieces on the diagrammatic line drawings of his paternal grandfather, J. Harold Zoller.

Before he graduated from Houghton College in 2008, Stefan Zoller studied under Ted Murphy, who, he said, was his first example of a practicing painter, and whose “influence on [his] development as an artist cannot be understated.” Zoller was struck by the variance between Murphy’s “vividly colored abstractions” and his older “traditional representational portraits and floral paintings.” Zoller’s mature works are “in a constant state of flux.” He may have between 10-40 paintings in process at any given time, and, he said, Murphy’s “willingness to delve into wildly different styles of painting served as [his] primary model for what it meant to be a painter and artist.“

Stefan spends hours, days, and sometimes years with each painting. He builds thick layers of acrylic paint and other materials to create detailed textures that separate the viewer from J. Harold Zoller’s diagrams, upon which Stefan paints. These barriers obfuscate his grandfather’s precise drawings, and echo the legacy and experience of remembering a man whom Stefan never met.

“They provided an opportunity to discover things about myself that I had been attempting to get at for years,” said Stefan Zoller of the minimalist heirloom drawings his father passed on to him in 2015. “They helped crystallize the conceptual aspects of my work as well as provided a formal framework upon which to paint.”

Were you to see him wrangle copious quantities of acrylic paint as he experiments amid a mess of materials in his home studio, you likely wouldn’t guess that Zoller was once a “prideful oil painter” with a disdain for acrylics. During Zoller’s early career, the long drying time of oil paints stymied him, as they forced him to “hurry up and wait” rather than work rapidly and experimentally as he does now. When he chanced upon an opportunity to acquire a mass quantity of acrylic paints during his second semester of his MFA at Syracuse University, he found a liberty which allowed his artistic development to flourish.

“Acrylic paint enabled me to work through ideas and processes much more efficiently,” said Zoller, who has drawn influence from his father’s writing, Norse mythology, and Scandanavian heavy and extreme metal music. The compass of his influences becomes apparent in his body of work, which features pieces that range between complexity and minimalism. Some are thickly laden with paint encroaching beyond the constraining borders of his canvases, and skeletal and topographic forms manifest themselves through his process.

Looking at where his work has brought him thus far, Zoller believes that “Bone Memory” contains his most mature paintings to date, as well as several threads that will lead to new areas of exploration.

Stefan Zoller currently lives in Rochester and teaches at RIT. He fills his days teaching drawing and design, experimenting with his art, and raising his son. His roots, however, lie in Houghton. “Houghton was where I grew up, made friends, and met my wife, he said, “so I will always have that connection.” Houghton College is also the place where he studied under Ted Baxter, the professor who inspired him and arranged his first professional apprenticeship with painter Thomas S. Buechner.

In fall of 2018, Stefan Zoller will be displaying a solo exhibition in Houghton’s Ortlip Gallery. During that time he hopes to interact with the art faculty and students. “My intention is to continue to work hard,” remarked Zoller, “and my hope is that as many viewers as possible can resonate with these paintings in a way that is meaningful for them.”

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Arts Campus News

Choir Comes Home

The flagship vocal ensemble of the Greatbatch School of Music, Houghton’s College Choir, recently returned from their 2018 Mid-Atlantic Tour and now offer all of Houghton the chance to hear their music.  This exciting, well-rehearsed program will be performed at the College Choir’s Homecoming concert tomorrow, March 10, at 7:30 p.m. in the Wesley Chapel. The concert runs for about 90 minutes.

Houghton’s College Choir is an audition-only ensemble, open to sophomores and above.  Dr. Daniel David Black, a Houghton graduate school alumni from Minnesota serves as manager and conductor for the choir. Dr. Black encourages students from all majors to participate in auditions, which generally happen at the end of each semester.  Third-year graduate student and assistant conductor Jerome Bell managed this most recent tour.

In preparation for the tour and their other performances, the ensemble meets for 1 hour, 5 days a week to rehearse their demanding repertoire. The choir had a relatively short amount of time to learn, rehearse, and memorize the 17 advanced pieces they performed while on tour.

Despite the challenge, the choir’s repertoire was generally popular with the ensemble.  Many appreciated the traditional, familiar component of the pieces, although they also pointed out where the music went beyond what could be found in any church.

Lauren Grifoni ’19, who sings soprano with the choir, stated, “The theme of the tour was congregational singing, so most of the pieces were arrangements of old hymn tunes. I really like it because a lot of the music was familiar to me; stuff I grew up with singing in church but also in a newer style.”

Many of those in the choir agreed that the tour was exhausting. Many of them joke about how they don’t get a spring break, but they still find it gratifying. It is worth noting that many of the vocalists are also participating in Lyric Theatre’s spring show Oklahoma!, taking place in just a few short weeks. This means that many of the choir members are memorizing lines for two large productions and participating in multiple rehearsals every day. 

Several of the pieces from the tour repertoire benefited from the addition of instruments.  For the sake of efficiency, some students during the tour served as accompanists, in addition to singing in the choir.

When asked about this year’s tour and repertoire, music education major Michaella Alliperti ’19 exclaimed, “Tour was wonderful! It was just so wholesome and spiritually invigorating, as was the rep. We had a lot of time to reflect on what the words mean to us in relation to our lives. It was full of wonderful friendship and fellowship. Last year’s tour was great, but this year’s was even better.”

They traveled by bus through the states of New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Ohio on their 14-stop tour. Each night, the choir stayed and fellowshipped with various families. The quality of these visits is often a highlight of the tour for the ensemble. When asked about these homestays, Kingsley Kolek ’18 said, “You just never know what you’re gonna get!”

When asked how he felt about tour, Derek Chase ’19 said, “As primarily an instrumentalist, it was exhausting yet rewarding to be on a vocal tour. Since this is Houghton, we all kind of knew each other already, but it was great to become closer friends with people you don’t know that well.”