After a semester of preparation, the ACU Music Department’s A Cappella Chorus performed last weekend at various churches and schools in the Dallas/Fort Worth area for their Spring Tour.
The trip was led by Director of Choral Activities Jeffery Goolsby.
“All this is covered in the music department budget,” Goolsby said. “It’s very expensive when you consider the hotel costs, all the meals, renting the charter bus. This is a huge investment for the university and for the department.”
Spring Tour has not only proved to be rewarding and memorable, but also a great way to show ACU talent in areas where many prospective students interested in music could come from.
“It’s not just recruiting. It’s outreach and public relations in some ways,” Goolsby said. “It’s getting the ACU name out there and putting our students in front of different audiences so people know that ACU is here and we have a wonderful music department and fine choir.”
Working Monday through Thursday from 5-6 p.m., the group has perfected their selection of songs. The students have continued to work on 14 songs since winter break. Last weekend gave the students the chance to perform and get feedback from a few different live audiences.
“We’ve worked really hard. I’m really proud of how we sound right now. And I think it’s really going to show,” said Katherine Cotten, a sophomore music education major from Richardson.
Students got to show the work and time they put into the musical pieces and had the chance to bond and be together with the whole choir.
Bree Hembree, senior vocal performance major from North Richland Hills and the president of A Cappella, along with senior vocal performance major Jarrett Ward from Houston have toured with the ACU choir for the past four years.
“We really like spending time with each other,” Hembree said. “It’s probably the thing we look forward to the most on tour. It sounds cheesy, but – all of us being on the bus, being crazy and being loud and playing games – it’s a lot of fun to hang out with each other.”
Aside from their Sunday night concert being cancelled due to weather, the choir stayed positive during the tour despite the exhausting number of performances. The tour offered a great way for the students to gain insight into audience response and the fast-paced style of back-to-back performances.
“There’s definitely mixed emotions, it’s been our last tour and the experience of getting to perform this music,. It’s probably something I’ll remember for the rest of my life just because it’s so rewarding,” Ward said.
