Happy Friday, arts, ink!
It’s a good day to be a Wolverine. With the news of vaccine eligibility increasing in Michigan sooner than many anticipated and President Schissel’s announcement of a closer-to-normal looking Fall semester plan (let’s not forget the exciting win of our basketball team, either!), things are looking up for the campus. Of course, until we get a larger portion of our community vaccinated and further recommendations from the CDC + state officials, we all need to continue doing our part to socially distance, gather in small groups and preferably outdoors, and wear masks. Hopefully, though, we will be able to create together again in the near-ish future. My fingers are crossed!
For this week’s spotlight, I chatted with Hannah deSilvia, Business Manager for Sirens A Capella. She told me a little bit about how the Sirens have adjusted to COVID restrictions while still building strong relationships between members and creating amazing music. Let’s dive in!
“We’re just a really tight-knit group of girls that likes to sing and we work collaboratively all semester to put our repertoire together and have our concert at the end of the semester normally. We really emphasize, like, building friendships and having fun, especially now because that’s something that we don’t get to do and we often miss each other, so we try and make the most of our time together.”
This year the group has moved their rehearsals to being completely virtual, a transition they started to plan for over the summer. Although Zoom doesn’t effectively allow the group to sing synchronously together, they’ve found ways to still make this time productive by allowing individuals to sing their part alone while others mute their sound and sing along. Hannah also explained that they’ve made their rehearsals a little more of a relaxed and flexible space – spending a little more time than they normally would to catch up and talk about things. It helps them feel more connected despite not having some of those more casual conversations as you walk into the building or get settled in. 
Rather than performing a concert like usual, the group decided to focus their energy on recording music – something that they could do remotely, and individually. The group has recorded music before (you can check out their song “Talia” on Spotify) but they typically did so in a physical studio. Although it was a little bit of a learning curve, the girls made the best of it and the recordings are being mixed now.
April 20th will be Siren A Capella’s 10th anniversary, a special milestone for the group. No spoilers, but I would definitely recommend you keep an eye on their Instagram, Facebook, and Youtube pages in case they drop some fun content to celebrate. The group will also be holding auditions in the Fall – so if you’re a singer, warm up those pipes and stay tuned for more details in the first few weeks of the semester.
That’s all from me this week! I hope you all have a fun and safe Saint Patrick’s Day. Come back next week for a spotlight on the Korean Student Association.
Lucy
This week I had the opportunity to chat with Cinderella Ksebati, Co-Founder and Music Director of BlueNote Vocal Jazz Ensemble. As another fairly new organization on campus, I was excited to learn more about how they have adapted this year and what their upcoming plans for performances were like. Let’s dive right in!
