Zoë Strickland | Editor-in-Chief
On March 8, members of the community piled into Smith Hall for a 30-minute recital put on by the campus’s renamed and rebranded a cappella group, The West of Us.
The West of Us is comprised of members from the groups that were known as Suspended and 15 Miles West. Though the two groups joined together at the start of this academic year, March 8 was their first recital on Western soil. Last term they were busy preparing for the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella — “if you’ve seen ‘Pitch Perfect’, that was the competition,” noted Chloe Miller, a first-year in the group, during the event.
For their performance, The West of Us sang a total of six songs.
“What we sang at the concert is 100 percent of our repertoire; we’re working on building it back up,” commented Brianna Williford, a history major who finished her degree during fall term.
The group began the night with their renditions of “Forget You” by Cee Lo Green and “And So It Goes” by Billy Joel, followed by two songs that were part of Suspended and 15 Miles West’s individual setlists.
After introducing themselves to the audience, the women went on to perform their “Destiny’s Child Melody,” an arrangement which was part of their set last year as well. Following the women, the men took the stage to perform their “Disney Melody,” which is a mashup of songs from “Mulan,” “Hercules,” “Moana” and “Frozen.”
The members regrouped to perform a mashup that included songs by Kanye West, Estelle and Daft Punk. They ended the night by performing “Bet on It” from “High School Musical.”
The group is led by Eli Schenk and Brianna Williford, who have been involved in Western a cappella for six and four years, respectively. Schenk is in charge of most of the musical arrangements, while Williford handles group organization and personnel.
The groups had considered joining forces for the past couple years, and finally did so because the timing felt right.
“Through ASWOU, we’re one club. We’re ‘A Cappella club’ so we’ve been working together, we’ve done all of our retreats together, we usually sing mixed group songs,” explained Williford. “Mixed group songs are more dynamic, you have more range, more ideas that are all going to be different. We were already doing so much together, and this year we reached a point where it made sense.”
As next term begins, The West of Us will be gearing up to learn more songs for their spring concert, which is tentatively scheduled to take place in the amphitheater at Main Street Park.
As part of their preparation for the event, the group is adding more songs to their repertoire.
“I’m arranging a medley of [“The Greatest Showman”] for us to sing next term,” commented Cole Aldred, a junior communications major and three-year member of the group.
Contact the author at journaleditor@wou.edu
