The Octopodes, the oldest a cappella group on campus, held their annual spring concert on April 19 in the Bloomberg auditorium. The group performed 11 new covers and an original song written by senior Duncan Crystal, the business manager of the Octopodes.
The concert also featured professional beatboxer Ben Mirin, who performed a solo as well as an impromptu collaboration piece with the group. The Octopodes began the concert with an arrangement of “Runaway Baby” by Bruno Mars, which featured sophomore Corbyn Yhap as the soloist. They also performed an arrangement of “Stay the Night” by Zedd, which featured freshman Katrina Estep. The group bid farewell to five seniors at the concert as well.
Non-graduating members gave a speech about each graduating member’s impact on the group and presented them with customized Octopodes flasks before the seniors performed their solos. The first senior solo was Crystal’s, who sang “I Won’t Wait,” an original song he wrote and composed himself.
“It’s especially cool to perform a piece of music that you’ve created yourself,” Crystal said. “It was easier to connect emotionally with the lyrics because I wrote it, and there are no barriers to what the message is. It was a lot of fun.”
Publicity Chair Lucy Coyle, who decided to remain with the group for another semester after graduating early, performed “Your Song” by Ellie Goulding.
“I sort of felt like this was more of my graduation than walking across the stage in a couple weeks … because the Octopodes is really what college has been for me,” Coyle said. Coyle noted that preparing for this final concert was, in general, a lot calmer than the usual preparations.
“That being said, we started to learn one song a week before the concert,” Coyle said.
The song that the group prepared just a week before the event was senior Sean King’s solo, a mashup of Rihanna’s “Don’t Stop the Music” and Justin Timberlake’s “Suit & Tie,” arranged by an alumnus of the Octopodes.
“One thing led to another, and we got the arrangement a week before,” King said.
“But you know, it was simple enough so that we could learn it, but cool enough that it sounded okay.”
King said he thought he would be very emotional during what could be his last chance to perform on stage, but it ended up being more of a joyous moment than a sad one. “It was in the right place at the right time,” King said.
“I had all my friends around me. It wasn’t so much a sad moment but rather one that celebrated the past four years and all that we’ve been through.”
Senior Melissa Jordano chose to perform “Animal” by Ke$ha, a song she had been performing since spring of her sophomore year.
“It’s just a song that has stuck around the group because it’s a really fun arrangement,” Jordano said.
“I think people enjoy singing the background, and I like singing the solo, so I thought it was a good song to go out on, because it has a lot of history in the group.”
Musical Director Peter Yang also performed his last solo, an arrangement of “Beside
You” by Marianas Trench.
In addition, the group performed Olly Murs’s “Dance with Me,” Avicii’s “Wake Me Up,” Little Mix’s “Boy,” ‘N Sync’s “It’s Gonna be Me,” and John Legend’s “All of Me.” Videos of the performances are available on the group’s YouTube channel, jhuoctopodes.
The Octopodes are currently producing an album to be released next fall. Yang and sophomore Joseph Paek, Assistant Music Director, chose the soloists who will write and compose their own songs. Crystal’s “I Won’t Wait” is one of the tracks that will be featured in the album.
“We are hoping to hit a wide range of genres and grooves with these originals in order to keep the tracklist diverse and interesting,” Paek said.
Paek said he “absolutely loves” recording new albums because the recording studio gets the group to really push themselves, experiment and be innovative.
“With this original album, students can look forward to the same innovation along with hearing each individual song writer’s style that will distinguish each song from one another,” Paek said.
Because the group is still working on their album, Jordano says she has had;
“Waves of sadness [but] there’s still things ahead for us to do, it’s not quite the end yet.”
