{"id":7391,"date":"2018-03-17T21:36:21","date_gmt":"2018-03-18T05:36:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wou.edu\/westernjournal\/?p=7391"},"modified":"2018-03-17T21:36:21","modified_gmt":"2018-03-18T05:36:21","slug":"the-west-of-us-debuts-at-western","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/the-west-of-us-debuts-at-western\/","title":{"rendered":"The West of Us debuts at Western"},"content":{"rendered":"

Zo<\/span>\u00eb<\/span> Strickland | Editor-in-Chief<\/span><\/p>\n

On March 8, members of the community piled into Smith Hall for a 30-minute recital put on by the campus\u2019s renamed and rebranded a cappella group, The West of Us. <\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span> Last term they were busy preparing for the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella \u2014 \u201cif you\u2019ve seen \u2018Pitch Perfect\u2019, that was the competition,\u201d noted Chloe Miller, a first-year in the group, during the event.<\/span><\/p>\n

For their performance, The West of Us sang a total of six songs.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we sang at the concert is 100 percent of our repertoire; we\u2019re working on building it back up,\u201d commented Brianna Williford, a history major who finished her degree during fall term. <\/span><\/p>\n

The group began the night with their renditions of \u201cForget You\u201d by Cee Lo Green and \u201cAnd So It Goes\u201d by Billy Joel, followed by two songs that were part of Suspended and 15 Miles West\u2019s individual setlists.<\/span><\/p>\n

After introducing themselves to the audience, the women went on to perform their \u201cDestiny\u2019s Child Melody,\u201d an arrangement which was part of their set last year as well. Following the women, the men took the stage to perform their \u201cDisney Melody,\u201d which is a mashup of songs from \u201cMulan,\u201d \u201cHercules,\u201d \u201cMoana\u201d and \u201cFrozen.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The members regrouped to perform a mashup that included songs by Kanye West, Estelle and Daft Punk. They ended the night by performing \u201cBet on It\u201d from \u201cHigh School Musical.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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. <\/span><\/p>\n

The groups had considered joining forces for the past couple years, and finally did so because the timing felt right.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThrough ASWOU, we\u2019re one club. We\u2019re \u2018A Cappella club\u2019 so we\u2019ve been working together, we\u2019ve done all of our retreats together, we usually sing mixed group songs,\u201d explained Williford. \u201cMixed 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.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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. <\/span><\/p>\n

As part of their preparation for the event, the group is adding more songs to their repertoire.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m arranging a medley of [\u201cThe Greatest Showman\u201d] for us to sing next term,\u201d commented Cole Aldred, a junior communications major and three-year member of the group.<\/span><\/p>\n

Contact the author at journaleditor@wou.edu<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Zo\u00eb 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\u2019s 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1030,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1030"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7391\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}