Berklee adventures: Audire Soundtrack Choir and Orchestra
I was walking around campus and stumbled upon one of those boards where people clustered live gigs posters all over them. As a freshman student, I looked at every single one of them in search of something interesting, and I was shocked when I saw this:
Sing music from The Prince of Egypt?! The Nightmare Before Christmas?! Pirates of the Caribbean?! HELL YEAH!!! This was just for me! But despite my excitement I was a bit intimidated and almost had to force myself to go to the audition. Now that I think about it, it was going to be my first audition at Berklee, and one I cared about deeply.
So I showed up at the audition and I met this lovely little group of people. I’m a very shy introvert, and they all seemed to know each other already, so I found a sit and shrank there waiting for the audition to begin. Back then Hannah Hoyt and Tim Laurio were directing the choir. When the audition started, we warmed up a little, and then we sight read an excerpt of one of their arrangements. It was from Pirates of the Caribbean! It was then when I realized that it was an arrangement they had made, and I thought that was awesome! Anyway, after butchering this fine arrangement with my awful sight reading skills, we were called in one by one to do a few vocalizations. It all went well and fortunately they were not really thinking of rejecting people or anything, so they welcomed me into the choir!
For a whole school year I sang in the soprano section. Even though I was still pretty shy and still adapting to my new life at Berklee, I looked forward to those rehearsals and concerts. I felt really lucky to find a little family here, and I was always astonished at how hard Hannah and Tim worked to book events, music videos, collaborations, made arrangements, etc. I realized we even had an orchestra! Imagine putting that together! One of the highlights for me was when I got to sing the part of Yocheved on ‘Deliver Us’ from the Prince of Egypt. This was the first soundtrack I ever loved and I was just a kid when I listened to it nonstop. I’m embarrassed to remember how overly excited I was when I volunteered to sing the part, sorry guys!
Can you find me? Hint: choir’s front row
After a wonderful year, I was sad to discover that most of the people in the choir (including one of the directors) were graduating already. Then during that summer back at home, I was minding my own business when I got a message from Tim asking me if I’d be interested in a position in Audire’s leading team...say WHAT?! I was both overwhelmed and excited and couldn’t decide which half was taking over. My workload at Berklee was about to get bigger, and now I would be helping out managing a choir with zero previous experience on a leading role. Of course I accepted, and motivated by this, I even started doing my very first acapella arrangement: Coraline - End Credits.
I teamed up with Will Brenner and Victoria Vitti for one semester, as they were graduating soon as well. It was a bit of a rough start because we literally had to gather a whole new Audire generation. We started off with a few people but we still managed to have some fun activities. At the end of the semester, I realized that I now had to step up as the director.
I had just started taking conducting classes, so it was a blessing to have Audire but it also frightened me. It was great to put into practice what I learned right away, but that meant I had to learn many skills ‘on the job’. In the first conducting classes, they teach you how to use the baton and the general body language of conductors. But there was something crucial that no one teaches you in class: how to be a leader. So this shy introvert had to keep it together and just go for it. I had this scary thought that maybe people would not like me and wouldn’t join the choir. Or they would join for the concept, but leave because of me. But the people that joined believed in this project so much that some even stayed until I graduated. They were very supportive and I felt really lucky to have them in the choir. To my surprise, Audire kept growing and growing, and I discovered I enjoyed directing a lot. I took a semester of directed study in conducting so I could improve my technique. My teacher was very excited about Audire too, and she even nominated me to one of the student conductors awards. I didn’t win, but to me it was more than enough to know that she believed in me that much.
I was always very inspired by Hannah and Tim’s leadership, because I felt they did so much for Audire, and I wanted to bring this new generation to that place we were before. I also had a very important goal in mind: to make the members feel at home, just as I did when I first joined. We were not the kind of choir that sought praise or to win competitions. The goal was to have fun, and celebrate soundtrack music from our favorite movies, TV series, anime, and video games. We had auditions, but you didn’t have to be a top notch singer to get in, you just had to be really committed and motivated. I know from experience that joining a choir is the perfect ear training learning experience, and I could see how some of the members that were a bit insecure at first gained a lot of confidence with their singing. I was very excited to see that people were taking the initiative to arrange music as well! I was happy to help out if this was the first time they attempted this. We even started collaborating with the Harry Potter Soundtrack Orchestra, which sold out the Berklee Performance Center more than once!
Can you find me? Hint: My hair is burning your retinas
Each semester we had new challenges and goals, but there was one constant struggle for me: most of the time, I was the only member of the leading team. Before people started volunteering to make arrangements, I was arranging most of the repertoire (by the time I graduated, I made a total of 18 arrangements). I was also in charge of booking concerts, emailing, scheduling rehearsals, planning music videos, conducting, etc. I had a few assistant directors but life can get pretty busy at Berklee so they had to leave the group. It took a toll on me. I was dealing with anxiety, and I felt all over the place most of the time. In fact, there are some decisions I made that I regret and it was all because I was not paying enough attention to things that mattered. I try not to beat myself up so much because at the end of the day, it was a learning experience, right? Fortunately, on my last year Elaine Lizardo stepped in as my co-director, and she saved my life more than once. I wish I had met her sooner because I felt we made a good team. And for our last semester, we were to achieve a huge milestone for Audire: having our own show at the Berklee Performance Center. We never thought it would happen, although we dreamt about it many times. We used to make our shows at the Berklee Loft, and we could barely fit the choir, orchestra and audience in there. We got excited every time someone in the audience suggested we should do a concert at the BPC. Well, it finally happened...but I’ll save that journey for another blog entry! ;)
For now, let me finish by saying that I felt extremely sad when I had to leave Audire. I was finally graduating and therefore had to leave the group in charge of someone else. I made a little team with Joaquin Litchtle, Utsav Bhargava, and Blythe Schulte. They took over the leading roles and did an amazing job maintaining Audire’s growth and evolution. Now, a few years later, I’m happy to see that Audire still lives and has achieved great things. I didn’t get to meet the current directors, but I’m excited to see that with the Boston Conservatory merger, they are taking advantage of all these new resources we didn’t have back then. I wish them all the best! I truly hope Audire can carry on for many generations!
I’m extremely thankful to all the people I met during my time with Audire. It continues to be one of my most treasured experiences of my career.
Monica Lyrae
Composer, Songwriter, and Audirean at heart