Requiem

by Eddie Sonnie

University Chorale held a concert recently. We sang the 50-minute long “Requiem” by Mozart, and it turned out so much better than I could’ve hoped! I absolutely love being a member of the University Chorale.I have made such amazing friendships and I feel like I can unapologetically be myself around this group of people. In my other involvements, I get great experience, have lots of fun and focus on personal growth, which is very future-oriented. Don’t get me wrong, I love that, but University Chorale is different. I get to live in the moment, which is something I have struggled with throughout my life.

This semester in UC, our director challenged us. Usually, we would learn a few different pieces of music and perform two different concerts per semester, but this semester was very different from that. Mozart’s “Requiem” is one piece of music, about 80 pages long, almost 20 different movements, and 50 minutes of singing. It took us all semester to perfect it, and the end result was amazing. I absolutely love performing with my peers and showing off all of the hard work that we put into this piece.

This work was really special because it was the last spring concert I would have with my section leader. He’s one of those ‘tough love’ people, and as such, we had a dynamic friendship, sometimes we worked perfectly together, and sometimes we butted heads. Usually, we roast each other. When we were standing offstage, about to go on, I realized that this was my last spring concert with him, and we had a mushy moment, and he said: “you know I pick on you because you’re cool, right?” Any hard feelings we had for each other from butting heads disappeared and we hugged and then we went on stage and sang the heck out of some Mozart. Yes, it’s cheesy, but yes, I loved every second of that. You know why? Because it’s really cool having those dorky moments that you would see in a movie, it means a lot to me to have friendships like these, and it makes me happy to be a Captain.