On Feb. 22, the Five College Consortium came together in John M. Greene Hall for the annual Five College Choral Festival. The event opened with a performance of Ave Maria by the Five College Collegium which was followed by performances from the Amherst, Smith, Mount Holyoke and UMass Chorales, Chamber Choirs and Glee Clubs.
The skill and practice of the singers was obvious. Led by their directors, the choirs filled JMG with their powerful songs. Their notes were so measured that one could be forgiven for forgetting how many disparate voices made up each choir. The pieces’ elaborate arrangements provided ample opportunity for the choirs to show off their abilities.
The pieces were mostly somber, and the subject matter ranged from religion to love to the passage of time. The pieces also covered a number of languages, including English, Latin, Spanish and Tagalog. One of the more memorable pieces was “Breathe in Hope,” sung by the Mount Holyoke Glee Club, with text by Maya Jackson. The piece features lyrics taken from a Facebook post by Jackson reflecting on the potential for community action in the wake of police brutality, and in particular, the murders of Philando Castille and Alton Sterling. Over and over, the Mount Holyoke Glee Club sang, so that the message hung in the air, “This is going to sound wrong / But I hope this pain lasts / I hope that it holds.”
The event ended with a performance by the combined choirs of the Five Colleges. The group of singers, too large to fit on the stage, sung together from the JMG balconies. The subject of these last two songs was the natural beauty and power of music. The night closed on this line from Encomium Musices, translated here from the Latin: “The person who is not moved [by music] is neither a man nor a beast, but a stone.” Certainly, everyone in that room was moved.
Unlike some other college consortiums in the United States, it takes some effort to engage with the resources of the Five Colleges. The schools aren’t adjacent, so one needs to take a bus or drive to get between them. With the exception of UMass frat parties, this means that many events don’t see participation from members outside of their home college. Seeing students from the consortium singing together as one group is a nice corrective for this, a reminder that we make up one undergraduate community.
That having been said, the night was made slightly bittersweet by the absence of any choir from Hampshire. As the future of the college remains unclear, one can only hope that next year, Hampshire will be able to rejoin its sibling colleges in song.
