GFS students practice for A Capella Fest “There’s simply nothing like it,” said Allen Drew, a cappella director at Germantown Friends School, about experiencing GFS' annual A Cappella Fest. …
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“There’s simply nothing like it,” said Allen Drew, a cappella director at Germantown Friends School, about experiencing GFS' annual A Cappella Fest.
“The music is high energy, extremely fun, technically complicated, deeply beautiful, everything in between and sometimes everything all at once,” Drew said.
This annual showcase of close-harmony groups from around the area, headlined by GFS A Cappella, is coming to the school’s Loeb Performing Arts Center stage on Friday, Feb. 7, from 7 to 8:30 p.m., and Saturday, Feb. 8, from 8 to 10:30 p.m.
“I am so grateful for the community that comes out to support the Fest each year,” Drew said. “The supportive, energetic audiences make the shows amazing. The performers are inevitably carried on the wings of [the audience’s] cheers and will, without fail, perform with far more heart, joy and energy than they would have otherwise.
“It is the diversity and quality of the music that keeps the audiences coming back each year. The evening has so much to offer: new music, old music, choreography, humor, medleys, high-energy pop tunes, rich harmonic ballads, a broad spread of musical genres and multiple groups performing in their own ways.”
Each performance includes arrangements and choreography ranging from excitingly complex to powerfully simple: Voices rising and ringing, belting and beating, melding and mixing.
“You literally feel the floor vibrate as the crowd roars,” Drew said.
The Saturday concert boasts a lineup that includes GFS A Cappella, Springside Chestnut Hill Academy Hilltones and Laurelei, Penn Charter Quaker’s Dozen, “The Grads” of the Keystone State Boychoir, and Penn’s Off the Beat.
Tickets are $15, but the show sells out quickly, so call the GFS front desk at 215-951-2300 to check availability.
The Friday performance is geared toward families with younger children and features GFS A Cappella, GFS Middle School A Cappella, Penn Charter Quaker’s Dozen and Temple OwlCappella. For this show, tickets are $10 and will be available at the door.