Georgia College & State University’s Max Noah Singers presented a Valentine’s Day Rendezvous on Saturday, Feb. 11 in the Magnolia Ballroom at the Student Activity Center.
The Valentine’s Day Rendezvous was started by professor of music and Director of Choral Activities Dr. Jennifer Flory and has occurred annually since 2007, excluding a short break during COVID. The event began as a fundraiser that featured the concert, dancing and food which is why it was called a rendezvous. However, the event has changed to being a free sit-down event where donations are encouraged. All donations support music scholarships or the GC Department of Music.
“I began the event as a fundraiser but that directive changed around 2013 when we moved towards donations,” said Flory. “We used to have a rendezvous with dancing and food but COVID restrictions led us to change the event. Since then, we have altered it to be a listening oriented concert that is still family friendly and welcoming.”
This year, the concert featured 17 songs from famous plays such as Wicked and movies such as The Lion King. The audience was able to sing along to a variety of romantic hits throughout the years in the media.
“It’s a nice assortment of romantic and songs that just discuss love. I hope our audience left feeling uplifted and overall happy,” said Flory.
The Max Noah Singers have been preparing since January for this concert and the songs were primarily hand-picked by the singers. The singers included sopranos Kylie Dallas, Savannah Greene, Anna Ogletree, Addie Resh, Allison Ryder, and Emmaline Wellborn; altos Macy Beddow, Ellie Deener, Abigail Dugger, Riley Greer, and Hallie Thompson; tenors Ethan Chase, Aidan Fortenberry, Tyler Harris, Ben McPherson, Preston Raburn; and basses Jack Grimes, Richard Guyton, Joey Johnson, Michael Marcinko, and Liam Mueller.
“The students helped to pick songs from different shows and musicals based on their personal favorites,” said Flory. “The songs are familiar to our students and the audience so it helped to make it the event family-friendly and open to singing along.”
There were four duets and five solos along with a feature from a tenure bass quartet. According to Flory, this allowed the students to plan and individualize the concert to their interests.
“It gives students the chance to guide the concert as long as it fits the theme of Valentine’s Day and for our non-music majors a chance to perform in a soloist way that they may not have been able to experience otherwise,” said Flory.
Flory expressed that the Max Noah Singers did a remarkable job and the audience thoroughly enjoyed the concert. She hopes that this same spirit can be present at their next recital “Voyage” where guest artist Jasmin Arakawa will play in the Max Noah Recital Hall on Feb. 27 at 7:30 p.m.