by Christine Sung
For the second year, Cheerful Clefs performed a small concert for Women for Afghan Women, a grassroots civil society organization in Queens, New York dedicated to protecting and promoting the rights of disenfranchised Afghan women and girls in Afghanistan and the United States. This year, in celebration of the last day of their Youth Program, Cheerful Clefs, a student volunteer organization of six student volunteers passionate about the arts, provided a 40-minute concert including both vocal group and solo performances that included the following repertoire: O Del Mio Dolce Ardor by Christoph Willibald Gluck, I Wish You Love by Laufey, Rainbow Connection by Jim Henson, Let Us Adore You from Steven Universe, The Moon Will Sing by The Crane Wives, and Blackbird by The Beatles.
Christine Sung, Katie Machado, and Nyla Anderson opened the performance by doing a short dance to The Pink Panther Theme Song, jumping straight into a group vocal performance of The Moon Will Sing by The Crane Wives. After, they introduced themselves warmly greeting everyone. Then, the group performed vocal solos: Katie performed Rainbow Connection by Jim Henson, Nyla performed I Wish You Love by Laufey, and Christine performed O Del Mio Dolce Ardor by Christoph Willibald Gluck. After the vocal solos, the group performed Let Us Adore You from Steven Universe. Lastly, the group performed Blackbird by The Beatles. To close the performance, Claire Shin gave a Korean Drum (buk) performance. Christopher Sung was on the Cheerful Clefs staff and assisted performers in setting up technical aspects of the performance. After the performance, they left some goody bags for the students to take on their way home.
The performance was anticipated with excitement and met with enthusiasm. Some audience members recorded parts of the performance and after the performance found members of the organization to thank them for the performance and exchanged kind words with performers.
“We are grateful that Women for Afghan Women allowed us to join them for the last day of the Youth Program and perform for the students. We appreciate deeply that we were able to spread some joy of music and art on a day of celebration!” – Cheerful Clefs
