On Monday, November 18, the Nobles community welcomed Yale University’s renowned a cappella group, the Whiffenpoofs, to campus. The Whiffenpoofs visited Nobles as part of their 2024–2025 international concert series, a tour that takes them as far as New Zealand and Bali. One of the highlights of the morning was the return of class of 2021 graduate Caroline Fai to the Lawrence stage. Fai, who is a tenor 1 for the Whiffenpoofs, previously served as the assistant musical director of Doox, Yale’s award-winning all-gender tenor/bass a cappella group. At Assembly, The Whiffenpoofs performed lively renditions of six songs, including “House of the Rising Sun,” which they returned to in a workshop after Assembly with Nobles’ own a cappella groups, the Nobleonians and the Greensleeves.
The Whiffenpoofs brought both groups together for the first part of the workshop, as they worked through vocal warmups and other exercises, then split the students into smaller groups for more focused practice and critique. The whole group reconvened at the end for more singing and time for questions and answers with the Whiffenpoofs. Nobles students asked a range of questions, from suggestions for maintaining a healthy voice to how often college singing groups practice each week, with one of the most poignant responses from the Whiffenpoofs coming in response to a question about the audition process for high-level college singing groups.
“I encourage you guys, if you like what you’re doing now, to keep it going in college,” explained Whiffenpoof Student Musical Director and tenor 2 Logan Foy. “There are so many ways to do music that are not competitive in college. So I really encourage you guys to look and find those avenues … If you have learned anything today, it’s that you should keep singing.”
“One of the more beneficial aspects of the workshop was when the students split into a sectional to learn an arrangement of “House of the Rising Sun,” which the Whiffenpoofs already knew. While they are used to sectional time in our normal rehearsals, it’s beneficial for the singers to learn from singers who are not much older or different than them. They get feedback that is similar but worded differently, and this wide range of perspectives deepens our students’ skills, knowledge, and appreciation for what they do.”
—Director of Music and Performing Arts Faculty Member Nhung Truong
“For the Greensleeves, I think the highlight was singing one of their songs (Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep”) and having members of the Whiffenpoofs offer feedback on the performance. The feedback was incredibly thoughtful, supportive, and constructive. The Greensleeves could immediately feel and hear the difference when they incorporated the suggested improvements into their performance. It was empowering.”
—Music and Performing Arts Faculty Member Michael Turner