On November 8, 2015, Belmont Hill and Roxbury Latin singers, parents and communities gathered together in the Chapel for an afternoon of music from the B-Flats and the Roxbury Latin Glee Club. As the “away team”, Roxbury Latin started the concert, packing their huge group onto our (relatively) small stage, and sang several beautiful, although less known, songs called “Beati Mortui”, which translates to “blessed are the dead,” “Lowlands American,” and “Ding-a Ding-a Dong.” The main group then left the stage, leaving the select “Latonics” on the stage to sing their a cappella repertoire. They started with a somber but nice piece called “Ave Verum Corpus”, which translates to “Hail the True Body,” written by William Byrd. They then sang an American Spiritual called “Been in the Storm.” After this song, they changed course to a much more modern repertoire, singing their arrangement of “Change in My Life” based on Rockapella’s version with a very talented soloist named Ian Kelly. The Latonics ended their performance with a Weezer song called “(If You’re Wondering if I Want You To) I Want You To.” Despite the relatively unknown song choice, they excelled and performed very engagingly. Finally, the Glee Club returned to the stage to finish their performance with two more songs.
After Roxbury Latin’s army of singers left the stage, the B-Flats had their chance to sing. They started with a comical song called “Manly Men,” which poked fun at the traditional men’s choir style of music, sampling such classics as “La Donna E Mobile” and “Habanera”. The B-Flats then followed this song with a beautiful rendition of a Hebrew wedding song called “Kala Kalla.” Continuing the performance with another song in a foreign language, they sang a French madrigal from the 16th century called “Il Est Bel et Bon”, translating to “He is Handsome and Good”. They sang the song with a Renaissance-style and executed it well, despite it being a conversation between women about the goodness of their husbands. Then, the group moved to a more modern song, with Stevie Wonder’s “As,” in which Alessandro Zenati, Henry Vettel, Peter Knowlton, Maahin Gulati, and Harrison Rohrer all soloed very well. Following this song, most of the group left the stage, leaving the 13-member Senior A Cappella Group, called the Acafellas. This group sang a mash up arranged by Brendan Pulsifer of “Price Tag” by Jessie J, “No One” by Alicia Keys, and “My Girl” by the Temptations. The arrangement and singing were a high point in the concert, as were the solos by Alessandro Zenati, DJ Demetri, Christian Dolan, Chip Daley and Alex Afeyan. After this energetic performance, another sub-group of the B-Flats, the Troubadours, took the stage with their rendition of Bob Dylan’s “Forever Young.” The B-Flats ended their performance with a song in Latin called “O Magnum Mysterium” (“O Great Mystery) and a rousing performance of a gospel song called “Jesus is a Rock”. Finally, to cap off a wonderful day of music, the B-Flats and Roxbury Latin Glee Club joined together to sing the “Parting Blessing.”
