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Carnegie Is Calling: Choir Returns to New York
Carnegie Is Calling: Choir Returns to New York
by Meg (Mojica) Calvin '08
[Photo: 2005 SC A Cappella Choir in front of Carnegie Hall under the leadership of Dr. David Gardner.]
"I hadn't seen that picture of us in a very long time," said Ben Rivers '05, "and when I saw it, it was literally like that scene in Ratatouille, where the food critic takes a bite and he's taken back to his home." Seeing the photo above for the first time in over two decades, Ben was swept right back into "all the kind of stupid excitement and joy that we had" on that trip.
Since earning his Bachelor of Arts in Music from Southwestern College, Ben has studied the Kodály method of music education in Hungary. He has sat beside the principal organist of a Budapest basilica during a service and seen a musical at the London Palladium. Yet nothing has compared to performing at Carnegie Hall with Southwestern in May 2005. As amazing as those other experiences were, he said, "that's still not the same as performing myself,” in a historical theater.
[Photo Right: Ben Rivers ‘05]
Some of his most vivid memories are from backstage, in the same rehearsal rooms used by the world's greatest performers. "I think of Joyce DiDonato," he said, referring to the Grammy-winning, Kansas-raised mezzo-soprano, "and some of these amazing people are still on a pedestal for me. But the fact that all musicians use these spaces, we're all creating, we're all involved in this process, it kind of evens the playing field a little bit." Then there was the view from the very top of the hall. "Getting to sit all the way up in the rafters and see that space as it came alive with music was really pretty magical."
The trip didn't just affect Ben as a music student, it catalyzed him in his teaching of junior kindergarten through fourth-grade music students. At Carnegie, choirs that had never sung together, including adult singers who weren't professional musicians, had only a short time to come together. That taught Ben that live music is never flawless, and he traded "practice makes perfect" for a new motto: practice is progress.
"I can remember making a mistake when we were performing," he said. "I'm sure none of us did it perfectly, but I know I made a mistake, and you know what? The concert still happened, and it was still beautiful." That's the lesson he passes on to his students: "Perfection is not the goal. The goal is the expression and the moment, and the story and the message."
The SC A Cappella Choir returned to Carnegie Hall in 2010. Now, seventeen years later, SC plans to grace the Carnegie stage once again, though the music program looks different than it did when Ben was a student. In November 2022, Southwestern cut seven majors, including music, to achieve financial sustainability and make room for new opportunities.
One of those opportunities is the revived nursing program, led by Sara (Peterson) Denly '00, MSN, APRN, FNP-C. A couple of years ago, over coffee in Gretna, Nebraska, Sara told her daughter Abbey's friend Vanessa Lopez, "Vanessa, I think you would love SC. I think you would really thrive there."
At the time, Vanessa was unsure where she could afford to go to college. Her backup plan was to live at home and commute to the University of Nebraska Omaha. Then she found SC's Pillar Scholarship, a full-tuition, competition-based award. She applied, competed, and won. "I would rather live on campus and go to a small private school," she said. "I'm really glad that I came here. I love it here."
[Photo: Sara Denly, Vanessa Lopez, and Abbey Denly celebrating Vanessa receiving the Pillar Scholarship.]
It turns out Sara was exactly right. Vanessa and Abbey are now in their second year at SC and have starred in many plays and concerts on campus. Vanessa is a business administration major who plans to stay for her MBA, and she is also president of the SC Choir.
She's leading the choir during what can only be referred to as a new frontier for the music department. "With the majors being cut and a lot of our income also being cut, I think I'd be a good person to start bringing up the program and building it up more, because I do love and appreciate this program," she said. "I think this program can be more than that, and I want to make it bigger and better than it's been in the past couple of years."
[Photo Right: Vanessa Lopez ‘29]
Carnegie is a giant part of Vanessa's vision for reviving music at SC. Beyond catching a Broadway show and grabbing a greasy slice of NYC culture, she believes the trip will pay off long after the final bow. "It's going to be a really great promotion for us," she said. "I think a lot of [students] are going to feel a lot of empowerment when it comes to performing in different states. A lot of them haven't left the country, or even Kansas. It's going to be a lot of fun."
Fun is sure to be found, as long as the pre-curtain jitters don't steal the show. Ben admits he is usually "riddled with anxiety" before he performs. He grounds himself with deep breaths and a classic exercise he also teaches his students: name five things you can see, four you can hear, three you can touch, two you can smell, and one you can taste. Today's SC singers have their own ritual. Before shows, they stand in a circle, hold hands, and do what they call the energy pass, squeezing hands down the line so "you see the energy go throughout, and it just gets bigger and bigger," Vanessa said.
Above all, Ben's advice for this year's acapella choir is simple. "Just immerse yourself in the whole process and the experience. Just absorb it," he said. "Try your best, enjoy what it is, but really absorb that experience and let it be what it is, because it's really easy to think of what it should be. This is an experience you get to have. It's amazing."
For Vanessa, that experience "is all about the future of the program. I'm always looking to the future, because that's what matters the most to me right now. I think this trip is going to really prove, to not just the Winfield community but to surrounding colleges and universities, that despite a lot of the setbacks we faced, a small liberal arts college in the middle of nowhere, Kansas, can sing at Carnegie Hall in New York City."
[Photo: Current 2026-2027 SC A Cappella Choir.]
Ready to feed a Builder in the Big Apple? SC Choral professor, Adam Lange invites you to buy an SC student dinner in New York City, tip for the server included, for just $20. Give by October 16 to support the May 2027 A Cappella Choir trip to Carnegie Hall.
