Graduation: An Underclassman’s Perspective

On July 5th, the Concert Chorus and Young Men’s division began their summer trip together with a concert at St Vincent’s Church for music teachers and educators. We sang a selection of our Transient Glory music and other songs that we had learned for the occasion. The Young Men joined the Concert Chorus for our traditional choreographed spirituals and also for "Cantique" by Jean Racine. The concert was for the American Guild of Organists and we were able to perform several songs with organ, some written by our own conductor, Francisco.

As usual, we left an hour late the next morning for our trip to the Catskills (held up by none other than our own conductor, Francisco). We stopped at Bear Creek Landing, where we were temporarily delayed by uncooperative weather, before we played paintball and minigolf. Bruised, wet, and tired, we arrived at the hotel. There, we had dinner, swam, and dressed up in our PJ’s for the traditional Senior Skit and Senior Circle.

The Senior Skit is a created by all of the Freshmen (that is, everyone who is not a graduating Senior). Usually modeled after a chorus rehearsal, the skit lovingly embraces the seniors by mocking and dramatizing their idiosyncrasies. It is created as a way to remind us all of why we love the seniors and will miss their unique personalities and characteristics. The freshmen try to act as much like the seniors as possible. They even sneak into their hotel rooms and take their clothing to wear in the skit. In addition to creating the skit, the freshmen write a song to commemorate the seniors. It is usually a take-off of a well-known tune or a one sung in chorus.

After the entertaining atmosphere of the skit, the entire chorus sits in a circle and we turn off all the lights in the room. Francisco shares with us the story of how the chorus began and why it is so incredibly important to continue what we do. We next hold graduation for the seniors, in which we welcome each senior, one by one, into the middle. Other choristers had an opportunity to speak to the person in the center before each senior gave parting words of advice to the chorus as they tried to explain what YPC had meant to them.

- Written by the YPC "Freshmen"