ArtsFest: A Very Vocal Evening 3.0

On Wednesday night I had the pleasure of attending my first ArtsFest event of the year – A Very Vocal Evening (3.0), presented by The A Cappella and Musical Theatre societies. All four established A Cappella groups gave performances, and various solos and duets were performed by members of both societies old and new.

The ladies and gentlemen of the A Cappella society, many of them fresh from the International Competition of Collegiate A Cappella, performed versions of songs that ranged from classic barbershop harmony to a sneak preview of the new Beatbox group, which will debut next Thursday in Metric.

Making the crossover between A Cappella and MT was Nick Bradshaw, who performed with the Techtonics in the second half. He later gave a rendition of ‘Moving Too Fast’ from The Last Five Years, accompanied by jack-of-all trades Ehsaan Shivrani.

Ehsaan in fact featured in 12 of the 17 acts presented at the evening, appearing separately as an on stage pianist, a temp, an off stage pianist and an electric guitar player.

The evening had performers ranging from their first year with the society to individuals now on their third degree at Imperial, but the focus was on the new. The Scopes performed a new piece in addition to their normal set; Take Note are almost entirely new following a rebranding from Girls’ Barbershop; and there were no fewer than six performers new to MTSoc this year. Confident deliveries from Heather Campbell, Roshani Abbey, Farah Shair, David Phillips and the aforementioned Nick Bradley served to show that the society’s upcoming productions do not lack for performers!

This is the third year now that the event has taken place, and audience numbers were once again high. By the end of the second half, we were down to standing room only – the audience apparently having been drawn in by the promise of great singing and dad dancing.

_The Artsfest Finale takes place tonight (Friday) in the Union Concert Hall. Doors 18:30, curtain 19:00. _