ok thank you for coming out tonight i'm so excited like we have a lot of good stuff planned i'm sam and i'm so in yeah and will be your mcs for tonight all right so we'd like to remind everyone to turn your cell phones and pagers all the way if you have a pager we welcome you to join us in the two thousand and eight season please and our goal for tonight me and say i want to become you tube famous because we've had some people in our grade like playing for tonight and they're getting money for it so we want to try out being you tube so our first try i want to be a barista forever one is going to be a tutorial this is how you turn your phone all the way off take your phone then you're going to press your off button and hold wait till this light comes on and then you slide it all the way and then  have pulled this off without them as many of you may know this event is a fundraiser to support that verse of the programming here at the h s different events presentations panels discussions where students are exposed to new ideas world culture and challenges and alternative lifestyles and given the environment in which they can feel comfortable asking questions and discussing challenging social and political ideas some examples of the things that go on during diversity weeks are workshops and trainings for both students and staff members some examples of those examples would be workshops on homelessness sexuality and gender identity personally my experience with diversity week has been fantastic we had the g s a panel our last week because we have we are lucky to have two during the year and i was able to speak on it and share my story and share kind of answers to hard to ask questions the ones that people don't always feel comfortable and i was it was just cool to see everybody come together as a school and have such an accepting response yeah as a leader of g s a it was really great to get people who come to my club a voice and to also hear other people's stories and ideas and all of the money i earn from this evening will you are helping fund us you all very much thank you and on the topic of diversity we have a wide range of entertainment for you tonight we have solos we have groups and we have dancing so we had a ton of fun putting this together we were like jamming out backstage it was great to get to know everyone so this event would not be the same without a judge right now my idol and we happen to have three of them so now we're going to introduce our panel of generous and community oriented volunteer judges all the way from belmont massachusetts first judge we would like to welcome is returning as part of the panel of judges miss heather quae heather heather play is a singer songwriter who has been on stage for many years she performed in musical theater through high school and college and also founded two acapella groups one in high school and one in law school as one half of the folk to acquaint o'connor heather has performed at colleges and clubs including columbia university and club passim and has released an album of original music and there is also a member of the loom ors an award winning band led by her husband and fellow judge john key in addition heather and john sing and play their guitars as a folk duel called the yellow room and they will be performing at the second friday coffeehouse at the u church here in belmont next friday april thirteenth thanks a million for being here tonight misc way  band the loom are our two time winners of the jury prize at berklee college of music battle of the executive bands and they were finalists in fortune magazine's a battle of the corporate bands john and the luminaries have and fellow judge heather quaid and just to throw another shameless plug they will be performing at the second friday coffeehouse at the u church in his right here in belmont next friday april thirteenth our third judge rounds out our panel of judges quite nicely as he is also a local musician and not a stranger to music in the town of his name is mr richard richard kirsch he is a keyboard player singer arranger and composer who has lived in belmont since one nine two he concentrated in serious music at harvard in the seventy's but has focused on popular music and jazz for much of his life his taste in music is very like a collective that's a new word i just learned for many years he performed and arranged for the popular r and b group the marcels he plays regularly with them air con a roots music band the blue blood mountain brothers his main project is leading the belmont group positive energy that covers many musical genres and has been a favorite act for many years at the second friday coffeehouse and at fundraising events for the haiti earthquake relief and belmont parents of music students pa most recently there's more most recently richard found that the belmont rocks orchestra a group of mostly orchestra and band members with added an amazing new dimension to positive energy performances richard is also a founding member of love fest a tribute band that celebrates the music of the sixty's festivals and finally he sings regularly in the first church choir and has composed and arrange some choral music for them so thank you so much for being here curry's you thank you so much for helping us out and we'd like to give the judges a chance to say something if they'd like to for us we'll see if the microphone works if it does this is our second time being judges that we did win a couple a couple years your third my second and it's always been great fun so we're looking forward to i'm anything to add we're just anticipating a good show these judges will be witnessing our axis evening addressing each of them after their performance voting on their performance and ultimately telling their votes to begin i think i should probably say a little bit about what i'm about to play this is not actually a normal guitar i have up on stage today you see a while back i wanted to learn how to play turkish music on the guitar however i learned that this is problematic because there are actually notes in the turkish scale that do not exist in western music for example take two notes in western music like ian f that are right next to each other  turkish people actually sometimes play a note that's in between those two notes if you play piano a way of visualizing it is thinking about a note that exists in between the white keys and the black  and unfortunately it's on it's impossible to play these notes on normal guitar because of how the frets are arranged however guitarists have discovered that you can fix this problem by adding little miniature frets in between the original ones so it gives it a very otherworldly sound like take for example  that's the western way of playing it a turkish person might play it like to hear the difference so i was placed short collection of a turkish pieces i've learned try to see if you can pinpoint the microtones which is what the notes in between the notes are called so you can definitely see the high level of talent that the students that are going to be performing here tonight so we're now going to move on to the competition so the first performance we have is ab well that was amazing so could you guys tell us a little bit about your music careers and how you came together to play this song well i've been playing guitar for about five years would have liked to hear a little bit more of that a little more at the range the ends of the ranges but you did a really nice job the guitar sounded great your playing was really nice one thing i thought about as you were playing was because you're playing in exactly the same position on the neck you had both guitars in exactly the same place and it might have been nice for one of you to move you know move the paper down and play different chords for the to get to the same place so you'd have some of it you know disparity between the two guitar parts because they were coming at you right in that same bright range  when you're playing as a duo you need to interact a little bit with each other as well as with the audience so that's one other thing to work on a little bit but overall i think it was terrific thank you thank guys i don't have really anything to add to what heather just said i mean there's a lot that you can do with dynamics especially with that song yeah your singing was awesome your playing was spot on and it was you know i to i would the only pragmatic advice i would probably give besides what heather just said was is just to hone from your amps and stuff in learning how to it's hard to do because you're in a room and you probably haven't played with the p a and here and all that sound check but your guitars are maybe a little too loud for your voice and they can't turn you up to like is and we you know it's those are my new show kind of things are performing these things but it was great keep doing so did you did you take an inspiration from any other performer who did that song or was that you complete own ideas i really really like jeff buckley's version sure a lot of other people do that yeah  his the way he plays around dynamics kind of like i guess inspired me it was about i really noticed that you you were able to interpret the lyric in a way that communicated it better than just singing it you know you you paused when it called for it and he's and things of that and overall a really solid performance  it was amazing and i'm sure nothing like most of us have ever heard and so that was just so cool to to listen ok guys tell me a little bit about your group how did you guys come together like what's your  same thing so this is our second performance so far and we've been really working hard and looking forward to this one we've already played in the coffee house and we had a great time putting this together did you guys the have you been playing specific songs after school or was it like this was the one that you worked on this semester and where the idea come from for that particular song that arrangement we actually put it to a vote online are other options we were thinking of or like amazing grace and yankee doodle but this one came out on top this was great it was really really fun it was you know you had highlighted your own thing really really yeah very original arrangement it was a little rough getting into the jazz section that we kind of lost the the synchronized synchronization but you really rocked it out and you could tell that when you're in your what your favorite genre was it was pretty obvious because you guys really lit up when that third section came and it was great it was good yeah it was a lot of fun to watch i would echo a little bit of what said i think there were there were the transitions could have been a little more smooth also i think when you're playing on such a big stage you my guys might want to get closer together because it's hard to it's hard to interact with each other and to be in time when you're spread out so far across the stage but those are just minor comments it really was good  wow so that was really really cool and that was a great first non strings performance of the night so can you guys tell us a little bit about your name the t a s and how you came together to be a group yes it was nice hearing i'm a pianist so i appreciated the fact that we got i felt bad for you though you had to have your back to us that was not your fault it makes it a little hard for you to obviously to communicate with the audience but love harmony and that you guys did a terrific job i liked how you each had some of it that you sang alone so we got to hear each of you individually and kind of understand the different qualities of your voices but you blended really really well hi so as you all know we're trying to get famous rain we're getting back to that right you're like oh they're never going to continue with that well we are so we figured the first logical step would to would be to cover a song so actually we're going to i know right and working really hard on that one we are going to wasn't great but luckily you get to hear someone who is amazing so up next we have christina cunningham singing original song and i feel like i have to say that ok so i do want to know what was your inspiration behind the song like why did you write it i write all my songs when i have a lot of emotion going through my mind so in this case it was frustrating and writing the song was it helped me to get over the problem and also made a cool song was all right let's hear what th at was terrific thank you and it's hard to get up and sing an original song and you did it really really nice job i think that the the one thing i would say is that i think you've got a bigger vocal range than than you use in this song and i would have liked to hear a little bit more of it because you've got a terrific voice and especially the verses especially seemed like they were low down in your range when you got to the chorus and you stretched a little more i wanted to hear a little bit more of that but it was a really really good job thank you so that's a really really excellent song i'm assuming you have more than one right you're writing all the time and all that what i really really loved about it was the difference between your chorus rhyming in your ver your first rhyming want you know you're you're slow in your you know how you double timed it in the courses is awesome i'd like to hear you do use your range more too but what i'd also like to hear with with that kind of a song is you know module your course a little bit so use your voice pitch it up higher for the chorus and bring it back down for the verse and to play with the dynamics of that too but it was it was great keep writing thank you yeah and just to add to that the song structure i was really especially like that third section where it breaks down a little bit and you have to really pay attention to what you're saying because of the way you slow it down it really worked very well thank you  my heart just melted who i'm going to miss you singing that song that was so so so great so could you tell us a little bit about how you started singing and why you chose that song act that was really great thank you and you have really really great control over your voice it was really really nice to hear it i thought a version i thought oh boy it's a little too low for him and then no no i was wrong it just like you nailed the whole thing was great i specially loved how you work the mike a little bit took it off the stay and tried to move around a little bit kind of get the audience in your hand a little bit that was nice i would like to have seen a little bit more that maybe but it was great i mean like using the microphone stand using the mike you know if that's that's all really good stagecraft and you know try to involve the audience that was great but nice job really nice job  jon cut all the things i say it does it does add drama to it when you you know change your position and it really worked for the second verse i was a little disappointed when you went back to the mikes then you should have just kept doing it  d i too thought this song was a little bit low for you and you've got a little bit more of a range up above when you when you sing the higher notes it really is resonant and rich so you might want to think of changing the key up a little bit i don't have a lot left to say to add to those those things i just the one thing i will say is it was it was really nice to see you connect with the emotion of the song and i i think that carried to the audience it really comes across when you're and it's hard to be a solo performer up there without even a musician next to you playing you know if that was a tough thing to do you did it really really well thank you so much so we're still trying to famous for you haven't really made it there yet so i think the next logical step in our journey is roasting each other right hi my name's sonia and i think i'm edging quote because i got a nose piercing this your third time here right yeah no yes yes ok how do you guys think you've grown and changes like a group like personally individually or just like a group am will hand you over to the judges for the third time and i bet third time's the charm guitar work there in that guitar breaks very creative stuff at the start of the second song the little big this is pretty complex with the make stuff that was going on was great i was a little disappointed that you had to read the lyrics of the first song you should memorize it or just fake it because we wouldn't know the difference anyway but what what what were the lyrics about can you tell us a little bit so the first one's about this guy who like goes to a beach county he does civil legal narcotics and he's like whoa dude and the second once about about this bad dude who did some really bad stuff and then he goes to argentina and a guy comes up to his door and he's like hey you're so i i totally got the argentina part but i thought it was you guys were having so much fun up there it was great to watch it was really really great to watch also all of you all of your your instrumental stuff was was terrific i was watching guitar with amazing eyes watching the bass player when you're great on the drums really holding it down that was excellent guys you guys have totally been working it you've been improving every every year we've been like seeing this awesome improvement to find your bass playing tonight was just great i mean you're like killin it up there and that was awesome but tone that you get out of your guitar with like that little amp up there was just it was fabulous in  your fretwork was just like so fluid and so clean and everything you were playing was just great i mean in naming your double kick it was just like you guys were awesome tonight really great great job guys in the original tunes and you know oh well it's clear that the audience adores you and for good reason to now was absolutely amazing and it takes so much bravery to stand up here all alone without any backup no music or anything and to sing that beautifully so great job can you tell us a little bit about why you chose that song and when you started singing i chose the song love on the brain because i love me on it and i love the message she sends to the song and i started singing in the shower so let's hear what the judges have to say that was terrific i i it is really it is really hard to sing acappella and and to look you know to get up and be all alone on stage and you had so much stage presence you just really looked comfortable up there you have a really beautiful and really powerful voice and i like the things that you did with the dynamic range that you used you a lot of control over the sounds that you  play with the sounds really well and you can clearly really control and i think it's tough to sing a cappella and it it would help you a little bit just saying to play with music and make sure you're you're not switching keys i felt like a little a few times you were moving away from the key you dealt with that and you kept going and you did a fantastic job thank you i don't have that much to add your beauty but a beautiful voice you have in your stage presence was wonderful and you just looked really comfortable up there and in your range was was amazing just keep it up it was really great thank you so how do you feel when you watching you very comfortable and poised on stage and you really interpreted the song very very nicely i would try to get it i don't know a karaoke track or something next time because we probably would have really enjoyed it  was our last attempt at getting famous and i think we got it can we join your dance club yeah that's the real question god really really well you guys like did away with us  thank you now was super super cool so do you guys want to tell us a little bit about dance club and camilla i know this is your third year here so you want to speak to that a little bit so i organized i made actually day a dance team in our school and we had four dancers and we started learning this dance from september so how a lot of time i was put a lot of effort into it  was a little bit hard because we had different views and but we made it through and this my third year first year i started in sophomore year and i was alone but then i on second year i was trying to make it something interesting like a show so i took my sister and was started doing we did like hip hop and bring it on together and on third year i thought we could do like a whole team so we can show our performance like and share with people around that's what i want to do you guys did you guys do your own choreography yap mostly i did my own car a fee but girls were helping out with change some style so that was there it was it was really really great i mean i mean i don't dance that's a good thing everybody but this synchronization you guys had was really really awesome to watch with the hand movements and the i mean it was really really cool and it's really impressive to me that you guys did that all yourselves you should be really proud of yourselves for putting that all together on your own that was that was great really great thank know whose idea was that the light to go black yeah very nice yeah that was that was great it was so it was so much fun to watch you guys were all having a really good time and you were really the choreography it was original and cool and and interesting and i liked watching each of you i couldn't figure out which one i wanted to watch so i kept sort of going from person to person because you all really had a lot of style thank you thank you thank you but i would like really things so people that support us and we would everyone in every nine my mind's running around the really thank you so much yeah wow my that just made me so happy because that's one of my favorite songs but now my new favorite song is you singing that song so can you tell us a little bit about your musical journey well my dad was in a band when he was younger and basically i always grew up around music i joined chorus at a really young age so i've been singing for a while and then a couple years back i just decided to pick up a guitar so here i am just decided to pick up to come so casual about it but yeah you are so amazing and now for the last time tonight we're handing you over to the judges thank you yeah that was very nice i love that the high notes especially got a great range in your voice and interpreted the song really well that big red guitar i really thank you that guitar and you played it really well you looked really comfortable with it i thought that i the control that you had over your voice was really impressive you were poised on stage you have a really really cool vocal quality and and the song started off so nice job thank you so much i don't have really anything to add i think what heather just said your love your voice your you were so comfortable up there playing just you just owned it it was really really nice to watch and and just keep playing it was it was really really great new thank you thank you been an amazing night lots of emotions for all of us i'm sure and now the job the judges are going to add up their points and figure out who the winners are but while they're doing that we would like to lead you all in a single so we chose the song don't stop believin because we talk a lot about music journeys so we're like why don't we play music by journey i all right so we're going to give each of the winners a chance the say something if they'd like to surprise me would you like to go first so whenever you see you can pick up your prizes in room two zero six on monday and we'd like to thank mr xi you know and all of the judges for helping us out with this wonderful of and i hope you all had a ton of fun i know sam and i really did