By Brandon Levin, Member of the Yale Whiffenpoofs
As a member of the Yale Whiffenpoofs, an a cappella group that has supported P.S. ARTS over the years by singing benefit concerts with featured celebrity guests to help raise money for the organization, I hold education and the arts particularly near and dear to my heart. As a Los Angeles native who attended Harvard-Westlake High School and is now a senior at Yale University, I grew up playing the piano and singing in a variety of environments, in and out of school alike. However, some of my most formative experiences with the arts were in school, where a mutually supportive atmosphere of musically inclined teachers and fellow students was essential to my development as a performer. Singing in choir in high school as well as participating in numerous musical theater productions beginning in 9th grade cemented in me a desire to continue singing in college, a path which led me to ultimately audition for the Yale Whiffenpoofs, the world’s oldest and most well-known collegiate a cappella group.
The Whiffenpoofs have the good fortune of singing for audiences all across the country and the world, benefiting a variety of causes. Carrying forward our beloved, century-old tradition, each year we perform over two hundred concerts in such venues as Carnegie Hall, Broadway’s Lincoln Center, and the Rose Bowl, as well as at private parties, country clubs, corporate events, restaurants, and hotels. Last year, the Whiffenpoofs sang for President Obama at the White House and toured to over thirty countries over all seven continents. We have been featured on television shows such as The Sing Off, The West Wing, The Today Show, 60 Minutes, Gilmore Girls, Jeopardy!, and Saturday Night Live. The New York Times did a piece on us last month, as did the American magazine GQ.
As musicians, many of whom were inspired to sing in high school and college, none of this would have been possible had we grown up without supportive arts education environments. We thus see P.S. ARTS and the mission it espouses as a central part of providing what truly is an essential part of early education for children.
This year, the “Whiffs” will be singing a concert on April 14th at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica with “Glee” star Darren Criss. I hope you’ll join us in raising money for this truly wonderful cause by attending a concert that aims to celebrate all that is wonderful about the arts, which will in turn enable students to enjoy the wonderful musical opportunities many of us Whiffs had in school and growing up!
