Above: Makela performing our grand finale, Tal Bachman's "She's So High" feat. Deb and Joel, with special guest beatboxer Dani. See all the songs from our concert on our Youtube channel.
On June 14 Makela held its 2014 Friends & Family Concert, "Makela Not War," at the wonderful Sitar Arts Center in Northwest Washington, D.C. We performed some of our favorite pieces from our repertoire, including the group's signature song, "Samachti." We revisited pieces from our archive, like the Beatles' "Because." And we added some things that were brand new: the Israeli classic "Yerushalayim Shel Zahav" (Jerusalem of Gold) and a completely original arrangement of Toto's "Africa." The Africa arrangement was put together by our then newest member, Sarah F., dance teacher, alto and Makela jack-of-all-trades (you can find her conducting on your far left in the above video). We also brought back "Down by the River," an American folk tune of unknown origin popularized by Alison Krauss, and which was new at last year's concert.
A special highlight of the evening was seeing our former member Dani supporting us from the audience. Dani is a beatboxer extraordinaire and he was an amazing sport when we asked him to come on stage during our finale to provide percussive awesomeness.
Special thanks go to Joel and Deb for making sure the group was musically well-prepared for our biggest concert of the year; to Jenni for coordinating with Sitar and arranging a truly perfect venue for this performance; to Sarah for jumping in full steam as our newest member and taking on arranging, conducting and beatboxing duties in addition to having to learn 15 new songs in a very short period of time; and to Andrew for basically being our one-man AV team and transporter of delicious snacks.
See all our song clips from the concert using our 2014 Friends & Family Concert playlist on Youtube.
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