MCLA
Allegrettos to Perform Concert
02/15/2013
NORTH ADAMS, MASS. - The
Allegrettos, a student a capella group at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts
(MCLA), will perform a concert, "Back to Basics," on Friday, Feb. 22, at 7
p.m., and on Saturday, Feb. 23, at 5 p.m. in the Eleanor Furst Roberts
Auditorum in the MCLA Church Street Center.
Both concert events are free and open
to the public.
The Allegrettos recently won
the Lenox Caroling Festival. At Friday night's concert, they will be presented
with their first place trophy by State Rep. William "Smitty" Pignatelli,
D-Lenox, and Richard Wise, chair of the Lenox Caroling Festival. The trophy
will be on display in the MCLA President's Office for the remainder of the
school year.
On Saturday, the Allegrettos
will be joined by the Williams College Gospel Choir for what Allegrettos
Co-Director Juwonni Cottle '13 said will be "a truly majestic and
moving night of gospel music and performance."
According to Cottle, the group embraces the traditional gospel experience with their music.
"For two years, the Allegrettos
have worked on getting the MCLA campus acclimated to the gospel genre," Cottle
explained. "We're going to do our best to deliver a rocking concert that
encapsulates the heart and soul of what gospel is about, which is to inspire."
According to MCLA
Residence Director Emily Schiavoni, the group's advisor, the Allegrettos have
worked incredibly hard to get to this point.
"This year, they
truly came together as a group to achieve their goals," she said.
"Their growth
has astonished me. They are so fearless and intentional in the way they want
the club to grow and the direction they want it to take."
Schiavoni first heard the
students sing in the lobby outside of her apartment in fall 2009. That semester
they decided to form a caroling group and perform as a community service around
the campus and for senior citizens living in North Adams.
After that experience, the
students came to Schiavoni with the desire to become a campus-wide group. They
held their first concert in spring 2010 and since then have performed at a
number of venues, including for the WGBY series, "Together in Song:
A Celebration of Choral Music in Western New England."