During Community Time on Oct. 25th, the Upper School houses put on a spectacular show demonstrating their vocal talent and GA spirit by singing unique renditions of the Alma Mater. Each house had to put on a four minute performance that displayed their ability to sing the Alma Mater, and the winner of the competition gained points towards House Olympics. While each house gave a great performance, the three judges, Mr. Schellhas, Mrs. Martin, and Mr. Houston decided that the winner of this competition would be Galloway.
Galloway began their performance with Charlotte Baughman ‘25 playing the melody of the song and then the rest of the house joining in and singing the lyrics. Serena Bagga ‘23, one of the prefects of Galloway said, “We practiced a lot and we had a lot of musical talent which contributed to our upbeat performance and we had a lot of energy in our house which made it a group-oriented performance.” Although all of the houses did fantastic, I think Galloway was one of the houses that displayed their house talent the best, along with Roberts.
Roberts came in fourth place. They displayed their musical talent with Claire Durkin ‘24, Madison Destefano ‘24, and Gianna Mooney ‘25 on stage singing the Alma Mater along with the rest of their house. They then had Rob Eppinger ‘25 come on stage and act as an opposing house by German folk dancing, which I believe was the best part of the entire competition. They put on an amazing performance, but Roberts went a little off track with the concept of the competition. Overall, it was truly an entertaining performance, and I think they definitely deserved to be put in the top three.
Another very entertaining and hilarious performance was Alcott Day, which came in second to last. Alcott Day began their performance with the entire house singing the Alma Mater and then shifted gears with Sanya Bandekar ‘25, Aubrey Daniel ‘26, and prefect Claire Mateo ‘23 rapping the Alma Mater. Then, they added another surprise factor into the performance with a dance battle between the gators, Alan Liu ‘24, Christine Sfida ‘23, and Ryleigh Dougherty ‘23, and Cooper Paule ‘24 and Jack Wescott ‘25 dressed as opposing houses, Osbourn and Roberts. Ryleigh Doughtery ‘23, who was one of the dancing gators behind Alan Liu ‘24 said, “We gave it our best shot; the gators will rise again soon.” Just like Roberts, Alcott Day had some amazing dancing and singing, but they also went a little off track with the concept of the competition.
A performance I think should have gotten first, if not Galloway, was Truesdell. Truesdell had a great segway into the main part of their performance, which was having the entire house sing the Alma Mater. They started off with the freshmen singing part of it, then the sophomores, juniors, and seniors. After that, they had the entire house stand up and have them sing the Alma Mater together showing their school spirit and house unity.
The Alma Mater competition displayed the Upper School’s musical talent and school spirit, and this was definitely one of the best house competitions. Good job to all of the houses!