Carleton’s brand new Glee Club is set to start practicing in the upcoming weeks, said co-founder and third-year political science student Chelsea Sauvé.
Sauvéand two other third-year students, Komal Minhas and Emile Scheffel, all sang or performed in high school and said they wanted a relaxed environment in which to continue singing.
“The only thing that was offered was really the Carleton choir. It’s a great choir but we couldn’t make the practices because of class conflicts,” journalism student Minhas said.
Glee Club was founded because of a joke on Scheffel’s and Minhas’s Facebook pages, said political science student Scheffel.
“Just as an experiment we put it up on both our Facebook statuses that we were thinking of starting a glee club,” Scheffel said. “I think I got like 47 comments from people wanting to join in the first two hours.”
Auditions for Glee Club were held on Jan. 21 and 22, but the co-founders agree they weren’t so much about finding some people that are right for the group and cutting the rest.
“We really don’t want to let anyone go because we don’t want it to start off on that foot of being exclusionary or anything, people just love to sing,” Minhas said.
Sauvé said she, Minhas and Scheffel were very impressed at the auditions and people brought a lot of different skills to the table. All those trying out had to sing Lean on Me, and also got to choose another song to sing.
First-year human rights student Caitlin Phillips, who said she’s been singing her whole life, sang her own version of Amazing Grace.
“It’s not the normal church version,” she said.
But not all of the students who auditioned had previous musical experience.
“I just love to sing,” said first-year journalism student Lauren Coulter.
“There were some really great songs,” Sauvé said. “Someone came in and sang the Arthur theme song.”
Glee Club auditions generated 41 members. The club also has a pianist and arranger working with them.
“We’re looking for a lot of technical help from members who know more than we do,” Minhas said.
Minhas said for now the club has no competitions ahead because there are no other university glee clubs that she knows of in Canada.
“Because I’m running Relay for Life this year, we’re going to make it our goal to perform at the actual event,” she said. “And we want to do sort of flashmob performances in the atrium.”
But the co-founders said the club isn’t about competition, anyways.
“It’s supposed to be a fun place for people, it’s an outlet for people. It’s not supposed to be a stressor,” Sauvé said.