The best way to embarrass your friend or express gratitude to your favorite teacher at SBHS is to send a singing valentine. For all four blocks on February 10 and 11, members of Concert Choir interrupted the normal academics of third quarter to fulfill their 160 orders, and spread cheer through music during this annual holiday event.
For over a week prior, students and staff filled out the annual forms noting the name, block, and room number for their valentine. For $8 the recipient would be sung to and given a small card telling them who the purchaser was. Two dollars more and they would receive a red or white foam flower. All proceeds go directly back to the choir, funding their field trips and music rights throughout the year.
“A lot of the proceeds so far is helping to fund our transportation and our admission to be able to perform at Carnegie Hall this year, for example,” said choir director Mr. Aldo Aranzulla. “It’s also going to help lower costs for students when we do our Disney trip next year. There’s always the opportunity [to use this fundraised money] if we can’t get money from the school.”
Purchasers could also choose the specific song, or leave it up to the choir to pick! The songs included classics like Can You Feel the Love Tonight? from the Lion King and a choir rendition of Elvis Presley’s Can’t Help Falling In Love, as well as Thousand Years by Christina Perry, Misty by Ella Fitzgerald, and Your Smiling Face by Jame Taylor. As per tradition, the seniors all learn the solos in each song and are able to mix-and-match throughout the day.
A few of these songs have special additions, like a step-touch and snaps, or turning off the lights and waving phone flashlights concert-style. One of the most hilariously awkward moments is doing as the lyric says in Thousand Years and taking “one step closer” to the recipient’s desk. The most requested song over both days was Your Smiling Face with the choir performing it over 36 times.
Senior Concert Choir member, Mckenna Caffery, shared what makes this song so popular. “It’s our most peppy song, and I think that it just brings a lot of excitement when we’re singing. I feel like everyone involved has so much fun with it every time. We get to dance so much in it too!”
As a member of the Concert Choir myself, I noticed a few categories of reactions throughout the singing festivities.
Reaction 1: flush in the face and light-heartedly laugh the entire song. This was the most popular reaction, with many students being caught completely off guard as we circled around them and began singing in the middle of government presentations, AP Lang mini-essays, and science labs.
Reaction 2: sing or dance along! My personal favorite category, as people pushed past the embarrassment and truly had fun in the moment. This reaction was most common when we sang the upbeat number Your Smiling Face.
Reaction 3: completely zone out and not make eye contact with anyone. I get it, not everyone wants the attention abruptly turned to them in the middle of class. While this is the least energetic response, I can understand not knowing where to look when about thirty members of concert choir are circled around, singing directly to you.
Reaction 4: glaring intently at their friend filming them (who bought the valentine for them). Often mixed with some combination of the other categories, this always made me laugh as I could see the joy of the purchaser at their flustered friend.
Putting it all together, the seniors play a crucial role in this choir tradition. “As seniors, we pretty much organized the entire thing,” said Caffery. “We pick the route that we go, we organize all the money, write out all of the cards and we do the spreadsheet of all the orders we get. It took a long time, about 2 weeks since we started as soon as we got orders in.”
In Concert Choir, both Mr. A and Caffery agreed singing valentines is considered the best part of the year. Raising over $1,500 over both two days, singing valentines were a joyous success, leaving students excited for next February a valentines season.
