The University of Michigan Museum of Art was temporarily transformed into a jazz club Thursday night as U-M student organization Touch of Blue: New American Vocal Ensemble held their final concert of the school year titled “Discover Possibility.”
A jazz-centric American vocal music group, Touch of Blue presents semesterly jazz concert repertoires which showcase the ensemble, as well as individual members, through solo and duet performances. Music, Theatre & Dance junior Lucy Koukoudian, business manager of Touch of Blue, told The Michigan Daily the ensemble is focused on expanding their jazz choices.
“We’ve really been trying to premiere works that focus on new jazz composers and focus on a side of jazz that isn’t really covered in how we traditionally approach the genre,” Koukoudian said. “To have this concert is really exciting for us.”
Rackham student Harry Castle, music director of Touch of Blue, said he was excited for the group to hold their first concert outside of the Music, Theatre & Dance School.
“All of our previous, larger concerts like this have been at the music school,” Castle said. “So it’s really great for us to be performing somewhere that’s on Central Campus in a space that’s not specifically associated with the Music Department or even vocal performances in general.”
Koukoudian said the ensemble spends a great deal of time rehearsing as a group, which allows the vocalists to successfully improvise in collaboration with the instrumentalists during the performances.
“There (are) different sections where the ensemble just gets to close their eyes and sing anything within a set of chords,” Koukoudian said. “Those require a lot of rehearsal and making sure that we are all on the same page vocally — whether that be in tune or we’re all just syncing … with our breaths and making similar choices as an ensemble.”
Castle said this ability to improvise is what makes Touch of Blue such a successful and close-knit group.
“Building some spaces into the program where we can do what we want and improvise as an ensemble together is really important for us in this concert,” Castle said.
Music, Theatre & Dance freshman Justin Ingui attended the concert and told The Daily he was moved by the performance.
“The singing was incredible,” Ingui said. “The last piece, especially, was outstanding. I thought the blend of instruments and voices was phenomenal. I’m sad it ended.”
Music, Theatre & Dance freshman Alondra Damian-Noyola also attended Thursday’s concert and said she felt the experience was particularly unique because the songs were composed on the spot and would never be played in the exact same way again.
“I was really mesmerized the whole time,” Damian-Noyola said. “I think this is a really beautiful space to sing in. It makes me so sad knowing that I could only listen to these songs once, because they are all original compositions. I feel really special to be in this audience.”
Castle said she believes Touch of Blue’s form of communal singing is especially meaningful.
“There’s so much joy to be had in communal singing, and a lot of people think that it only has to look like choir, for example, or something that maybe they are not already interested in,” Castle said. “But this is something different.”
Daily News Contributor Hannah Cuenca can be reached at hcuenca@umich.edu.