The Griffin’s Favorite Duo goes to the CrescentDONT’S concert (again)

By: Hannah Wiley, Managing Editor and Kaitlin O’Meara, Copy Editor

The Griffin’s favorite duo went to the event of the semester (CrescenDONT’s spring concert) this past weekend and similar to last semester we can’t wait to share our thoughts. If you happened to miss it – or left halfway through – we figured we’d provide a recap for you…because you missed out!

For those of you who are somehow unaware, CrescenDONT’s is Canisius University’s a cappella group, and they put on a concert each semester. As reported in the April 17 edition of The Griffin, this year’s theme was “red carpet,” so all of the songs came from different movies and TV shows. As two people live with two members of the group, we’ve been hearing a lot about the concert, and were very excited to hear what they’d been working on all semester.

In typical movie a cappella fashion, the show opened with two pieces from “Pitch Perfect.” The mashup featured the audition song in the movie, Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone” and the Treblemaker’s finale song, “Bright Lights, Big City.” Mashup is a bit of a stretch in referring to this song, not in a disrespectful way, but rather because there was a bit of a break and a costume change between the two songs. This was such an incredible way to start the show, because if you’ve ever been sitting in Montante, it sometimes feels like a very serious venue, and then all of a sudden, the whole group comes out in ties, sunglasses and sideways hats. It was so much fun, and I (Kaitlin) loved that this was how they started the show. 

Something unique about this semester's show was that since the seniors graduate in less than a month (let’s not talk about it) they got the opportunity to sing a song of their choice with a small group. My (Hannah) personal favorite was Kaitlyn Belile (KB)’s senior song “Flashlight” from “Pitch Perfect.” If you’ve ever been around me while KB is singing you know that I love hearing her sing and this was no different! I also thought all of the songs the seniors chose fit them so perfectly! Kaitlin Pusateri singing “Invisible String” was so beautiful and I almost cried – and Carlie Porter singing “Sh-Boom” brought such a fun energy to the room!

Another cool new thing with this season’s concert was that the DONT’s arranged most of their songs themselves. In the program, they noted which member arranged each song, and it was so cool to see another level of work that went into the making of this concert! We got to see some of the work of arranging when KB was working on putting together the sheet music for “Since U Been Gone,” so it was so cool to see the rest of the show with the knowledge that even more work than usual went into it. And in my (Kaitlin) opinion, they did a great job! If I hadn’t known that they arranged everything themselves, I honestly wouldn’t have known. 

Something we had been hearing about all semester from several Dont’s members was the “Victorious” mashup and it certainly did not disappoint. The small group consisted of Katie Dusza, KB, Ria Minhas, Kaitlin Pusateri and Gianna Fuentes and you could tell they were all having so much fun singing the mashup together! Not only that it was the longest song of the show and the group sang for around nine straight minutes (round of applause). They also ended the night with “Dance the Night Away” from the “Barbie” movie and it had the whole

crowd clapping, cheering and was such an upbeat way to finish off the show! 

Throughout the second half of the show, the group worked to announce their new executive board and say official goodbyes to the seniors. Outgoing e-board announced the members taking over their positions, and underclassmen members read a letter to a senior on stage to celebrate them and all that they have accomplished throughout both their collegiate and DONT’s career. One of the sweetest moments of the night was between outgoing president Kaitlin Pusateri and incoming president Matt Morcelle, where he said that not only was she so involved on campus in so many ways but also had “a full-time job being his older sister.” Though I (Kaitlin) don’t know either of them very well, it did make me tear up. (But as everyone who knows me will tell you, it doesn’t typically take much to make me cry – but it really was so sweet).

This was a great way to end off our many times watching CrescenDONT’s concerts, both thematically and performance-wise. We had so much fun going out to support our friends with our friends, and we hope that if you haven’t taken the opportunity to watch one of their shows, please do so! It’s a very fun time and you won’t regret it.

With this being our last (real) print of the year, we would like to say a thank you to everyone for reading and supporting the paper. We have loved being The Griffin’s Favorite Duo and writing together, and hope that we have inspired you to try something new based on our (hopefully) fun recounting of our various experiences throughout the year.