With auditions over, Vanilla, WJ’s female a cappella group, sets their sights on the current school year. Under new leadership of seniors Noya Levy and Lizzie Cooke, the 12-member group is in the process of planning future musical arrangements.
In contrast with other choral groups at WJ, Vanilla is not a music class. Though all members are required to be enrolled in chorus classes, the girls must meet outside of class on their own time. Cooke says they plan to meet at least twice weekly to rehearse, and more often when preparing for performances. At meetings, members share their ideas and the group as a whole discusses them. The girls are still in the planning process, though they do have some definite ideas.
“Well the one song we know we want to do is ‘Cry Me a River’ by Justin Timberlake,” said Cooke.
Covering Justin Timberlake will also be taking Vanilla in a new direction in terms of music style.
“It’s kind of a different kind of genre of music than we would [usually] do,” said Levy. “[Before] we would always do kinda cutesy songs, and so we kinda want to change it up a bit.”
The next step in performing a song is getting a musical arrangement, which can be purchased or created by an individual. Cooke acknowledges it as one of the more difficult and time-consuming parts of the process, due to the fact that most arrangements found on sites such as YouTube are formatted for all male or co-ed groups.
In addition to new arrangements, Levy and Cooke have other plans for Vanilla. According to Levy, for the past two years, Vanilla had been run by the same director, who was in charge of the majority of planning and arrangements. This year, Levy and Cooke plan to have section leaders who can assist their sections with their parts, speeding up the process and leaving more time for group rehearsal. They also plan to have more performances, apart from the annual winter and spring concerts.
“We really want to do more things especially in the community. Especially around Christmas time, we’re gonna really try and get a lot of like Christmas caroling gigs,” said Cooke. “That’s one of our main goals, to just get more performances, to get our name out there more.”
Most female a cappella groups only rely on two of the four major vocal parts: soprano and alto, unlike many co-ed choral groups, which also need tenors and bases. Each soprano and alto part is broken up further into two subparts, soprano one and soprano two, and alto one and two, respectively. Each subpart has multiple people assigned to it. According to Cooke, balance was a key factor during auditions in determining whom to accept.
“We basically only let in who we needed to. We didn’t want to have a big group, and with a group like Vanilla, it’s all about balance, so if you let in a soprano one, then you have to let in a soprano two, to basically make sure that you have the same number of people on each part,” said Cooke. “If we had let in even one more person on a part then we would have to let in three more people [to balance that part out].”
People were also accepted in order to fill spots that were left open by last year’s graduating seniors.
“Because last year a lot of people left that were alto twos, we really needed that alto two, that lower part,” said Levy. “So we were mostly searching for low singers who could hit all the low notes.”
Auditions this year added three new voices to Vanilla, though still a downsize from last year’s group of 16. Vanilla is currently comprised of two sophomores, two juniors and eight seniors.
They are still in the early stages of mapping out their year, but the directors speak highly of their members and their commitment to the group amid school and other activities.
“[Vanilla is] definitely a commitment. You have to sacrifice some lunches and some after-school [time], but I [don’t] think it’s a crazy time commitment and everyone who’s in it is so committed to the group,” said Cooke. “I don’t think anyone really considers it a burden.”
“I really love everyone [in the group],” added Levy.
