Raiders Host Seasonal Coffee House

Bosoon+Karimi+and+Abel+Banko+performing+at+Coffee+House.

Rokhaya Niang

Bosoon Karimi and Abel Banko performing at Coffee House.

Brionna Colson-Fearon, Staff Writer

This school year’s Fall Best of Coffee House, a concert in which students get to share their musical talents with others, returned to the ERHS stage on Friday, October 7. Students entertained the audience by either singing, playing an instrument, or both, and the auditorium was full of the friends and families of performers.

There were a total of fifteen acts performing at Coffee House this year, and each one brought great voices and amazing instrumentation. One of the crowd favorites was a group consisting of seniors Alyssa Malenab and Jada Antoine, as well as junior Tijan Glover, who performed an original song entitled “Over and Over.” The audience appeared amazed by how beautiful the song was, and even though they could not sing along to it, that did not stop them from swaying to the music and cheering whenever Jada hit one of her remarkable high notes.

A group by the name of Kaffee Haüs closed the show. They were definitely the right group to go last because they had amazing personality and an abundance of energy throughout their whole performance. They were introduced as a German group that was straight off of their world tour, performing the song “Back Against the Wall.” The group of four ran onto the stage in tie dye shirts and rainbow sunglasses, and immediately the audience began to cheer. During their time on stage, many people stood up and danced to the music, singing and shouting along. This was surely the highlight of the night.

My personal favorite act of the night was sophomore Christian Bryant, who performed a song entitled “Going Merry” on the piano. The song started off slow, and then sped up quickly, seeming to catch the audience off guard. One of the most impressive facets of his performance was how fast his fingers moved across the instrument, which earned him a standing ovation from many of the people there. Bryant is very talented, and looked like he was enjoying himself the entire time that he was on stage. This was only the second performance of the night, but it was still on my mind even after the concert was over.

Junior Elias Kallon, who attended Coffee House for the first time, said that all of the performances were amazing and beautiful. “I cried like ten times,” he added. He said his favorite was the last group, Kaffee Haüs. When asked if the performances were everything he thought they would be, he responded, “Yeah, definitely.”

Junior Kaitlyn Smith shared similar views, saying that Coffee House “was a blast, and I loved it.” Like Elias, she also believed that the ending was wonderful, but said her favorite act was the song “Closer,” performed by juniors Anna Tuit Farquhar*, Vivian Tran, and Roland St. Michel. Smith said that the “song hit me right in the heart.” She ended the interview by adding “I don’t know what to say except that I’m amazed.”

*Anna Tuit Farquhar is also a member of The Raider Review staff.