Once a month, McGill Hall organizes a coffeehouse that brings together a group of students who perform various songs and tell stories. For the October coffeehouse, titled “The Annual Transylvanian Convention,” students sang along to a number of classic hit songs and listened intently to poems and Halloween-themed stories.
Performers on stage throughout the evening included members of the project who live in McGill Hall and some members who don’t, the latter of whom are known as satellite members. A McGill satellite member is any person who does not live in the dormitory but is still interested in being involved with the project and the events it hosts each month. The night started with a performance of original songs by Goldfish Yearbook, a folk singer-songwriter.
Following Goldfish Yearbook’s set, a number of students came to the stage throughout the night to perform various covers of hit songs, which included Adele’s “Someone Like You,” Bruno Mars’ “Just The Way You Are” and girl in red’s “We Fell In Love In October.”
Coffeehouse headliner Aura Avani, a first-year, performed a number of covers during her set, which included popular songs such as Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers” and Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams,” as well as Broadway classics such as “A Million Dreams” from “The Greatest Showman.” For the final song of her set, Avani invited first-years Annette Ma and Liam Sobolewski to the stage to sing the theme song from “Phantom of the Opera.”
“Ever since I came here [to Vanderbilt], I’ve really just been looking to meet other people in the performing arts community who are interested in contemporary music,” Avani said. “I feel like McGill is definitely the performance opportunity for that sort of thing, so I’m really happy to have found this community.”
Aside from music, other forms of performance were also showcased at the coffeehouse. One student told short horror stories to capture the event’s Halloween theme. Another student performed pieces from a personal poetry collection, and coffeehouse coordinator Anna Rice even performed a lullaby she heard during her childhood.
The night ended with a group performance of Vanderbilt’s Alma Mater, which was followed by a rendition of “The Munchie Mart Song,” which is traditionally performed as the final song during every coffeehouse and consists of senior members of McGill gathering onstage together and singing along with the attendees.
McGill’s monthly coffeehouses not only serve as a place for students to gather and appreciate music and art in all forms, but for students to find a community they feel they can truly express themselves in.
“McGill is a community where being your most authentic self is the norm,” McGill President Grayson Pitt said. “Everyone can find belonging in McGill, and I am grateful for the opportunity to have been a part of this community for the past four years.”
Rice echoed Pitt’s sentiments about being thankful for the McGill community.
“McGill, above all, is my happy place, the place I feel most myself,” Rice said. “This community has given me so much at Vanderbilt, and I am so grateful.”
Personally, this experience was an incredible one, which showcased a part of campus that consists of lovers of all art forms. Whether it is performing music, reading poetry or telling stories, the community within McGill celebrates everything, and it’s not hard to appreciate what the community works to achieve and what it represents.
