Somewhere there’s music

My first few days at Mount Holyoke must have looked a lot like a movie about a nervous teen who moves away from home. I was timid, shy and trying desperately to meet the people I would call my friends.

That’s when I found and auditioned for the Victory Eights, Mount Holyoke’s oldest a cappella group, which was founded in 1942 by Abigail Halsey Van Allen ’44. (After she attended a Williams College concert given by the Williams quartet and the Bennington College double quartet, she kept thinking, “Why don’t we have a group like this at Mount Holyoke?” So she started one.) 

During the audition, I sang Hozier’s “Take Me to Church” (a cappella, of course), sang scales to show off my range and participated in a round of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” with current members.