Aasha Sendhil Watchtower Editor-in-chief
The choir students held their annual spring Coffee House event with many laughs and minimal technical difficulties to raise money for the Vocal Music Program on the Third Floor Patio on Thursday, May 6.
“Normally, Coffee House is our program’s main fundraiser. It’s an event that unites the entire program, more so this year than any other,” Madrigals singer senior Parsa Farnad said. “Since all our concerts are virtual this year, Coffee House was the only time we could all get together in person and create something to show others.”
To open the night, the hosts, the self-proclaimed “The Tenors,” comprised of Farnad, senior Joshua Tracy and junior Julien Collet, welcomed the audience with a few jokes and introduced the first act, which was a recorded video of freshman Kate Schirmer singing Mitski’s “Strawberry Blonde.”
In between each act, The Tenors would perform a skit incorporating the song title of the following performance.
“[Joshua, Julien and I] have already been performing for years and have been doing improv together for the past two years, so we were able to click together pretty easily,” Farnad said. “It was a lot of fun too, and we were all really happy with how well our hosting turned out.”
Following Schirmer, junior Chloe Levine gave a live solo performance of Damien Rice’s “The Blower’s Daughter,” which received a wide round of applause from the socially distanced and masked audience. 
The third act was a duet of Jason Mraz’s “Lucky” between senior Mielle Mann and junior Eli Okum on the guitar. 
The next act was a trio of The Greatest Showman’s “Million Dreams” performed by sophomores Isabela Painter, Rachel Kohley and Sydney Gasmer. 
Mann and senior Noa Brenner sang the second duet of the night to Joey Contreras’ “Break From the Line.” 
Senior Kaily Khaloyan sang a powerful rendition of Rachel Patten’s “Fight Song,” which received a loud roar from the audience who sat 10 feet away from the stage. 
Levine played piano, while junior Emma Maurer sang Ben Platt’s “Run Away.” 
Following the duo with his guitar, junior Miles Platt performed an original song entitled “All You’re Gonna Get.” “[‘All You’re Gonna Get’] is part break up song, part ‘be your own person and live your own life’ song. It’s really about accepting not only your flaws, but also accepting all of the emotions and anxieties that come with not knowing how a big decision is going to turn out,” Platt said. “I chose to perform it because it was one of the more upbeat songs I had written in quarantine, and I really like the message it has.”
As they played piano, senior Maya Mejia sang the last solo of the night to Hayd’s “Suffocate” with their youngest sister watching from the front of the audience.
“Performing in front of my youngest sister Leena will be the most memorable part of my performance. She herself has a passion to pursue music and is already loving singing in choir and participating in music classes, so I hope my performance has encouraged her to keep falling in love with music and expanding on her skills and knowledge every single day,” Mejia said. “I think she’s very proud when watching me perform, but mainly excited as she can see herself singing on that stage at Coffee House in high school.”
To end the show, the Vocal Music Program displayed a video routine to La La Land’s “Someone in the Crowd” produced by Brenner, Kohley, Mann, Levine, freshman Hayden Radonsky, seniors Hadley Gold, Jasmine Singer, and Dorsa Samouha, who are a part of different choir classes.
“Coffee House signifies unity to the Beverly Hills High School Vocal Music Program. In concerts we are split up into our four different classes with occasional opportunities to perform together, but at Coffee House it is a combination of all the four classes performing at once,” Mejia said. “Truly, it is a night for the entire program to join together and perform as a family.”
Bringing the Vocal Music Program together in person for the first time in over a year signified more than just unity.
“With COVID making it difficult for people to engage with performing arts, [Coffee House] allowed [the Vocal Music Program] to step into everyone’s awareness again,” Farnad said. “We’re still here, and hell or high water, we’re still going to be performing.”
