The News of The Blake School Since 1916

The Spectrum

The News of The Blake School Since 1916

The Spectrum

The News of The Blake School Since 1916

The Spectrum

Minneapolis


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Treble and Dozen Take on New Year

Student bonding and performances ramp up
Treble and Dozen Take on New Year

The student-led Treble and Dozen choirs have been an integral part of Blake’s choir community for years. Felix Reidel ‘24 has been a member of Dozen for the past two years and commented “It’s really fun, it’s a tight-knit group. We have inside jokes…it feels a lot closer and you get to know the people in the group and it’s a way to connect singing to the community that’s overall fun. It’s never a bad experience.”

The two clubs meet twice a week before school to work on many different aspects of singing. According to Reidel, “Usually if we have something that we have to work on or if it’s just reviewing we will go into sectionals, meaning we will split up depending on if you’re bass or tenor, and just run through whatever parts we need to…then we’ll come back together and run through the song, check on any parts that we may be getting confused on.” 

Right now, the clubs are focusing on perfecting “The Star Spangled Banner” which they are singing during the homecoming football game. Treble and Dozen are currently practicing together, however, this is not common. Reidel stated “Sometimes we’ll be singing an all-group song. Last year for our winter concert we sang a song altogether but in the spring concert, we didn’t. It just depends, we’ll even connect with all of the other choirs and listen to each other and give each other some feedback. Normally we are kind of separated.” The choirs also have joint traditions, for example, they go around the school singing songs on Valentine’s Day. 

Dozen and Treble have two concerts throughout the year, a winter and spring concert, as well as a tour in Chicago. Reidel added that their leaders “are going to choose a couple of songs and run it through the rest of the group and we’ll probably vote on it and see which ones we like the best.” That’s not all, the leaders also have to make sure there is sheet music or an arrangement that works for A Capella singing.

There are many advantages to a student-led choir. Reidel voiced his experience with the choir stating, “It’s a mix of both [individual and group growth]…most people are required to do choir to be in Dozen’s so it’s kind of about individual growth and a lot about reading music and participating in a one gender choir. It’s also about being able to be student-led and still succeed.” According to Reidel, a direct advantage is that “it takes a little bit of stress [off], in the sense that you’re not worried about your choir teacher always checking in on you and really nitpicking. You’re kind of able to choose….not only what your singing, we do get to pick what we sing in choir, we get to choose modern or old songs. It really changes the dynamics.” Reidel also mentioned that he “was originally not gonna [join dozen] but I just said, “why the heck not” and it was super fun” and attested to the positive fun environment the clubs provide.

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Amelia Bush, Editor-in-Chief
Hi everyone! My name is Amelia and I am a senior and the Editor-in-Chief. This year I am editing the food and sports pages. My favorite part of Spectrum is the people, I love the fun supportive energy that it brings. I joined Spectrum freshman year as a writer and became an editor in my sophomore year.

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