By Alyson Kay
For the Mitzpeh
@alysonlyn

The all-female Jewish a capella group Mezumenet held its fall concert in Memorial Chapel on Saturday night.

The group sang eight songs with an intermission after the fourth song. About 100 people ventured to the chapel to watch the group perform. Most of the audience members were students from this university and Mezumenet alumnae, although a few parents also attended.

The group started out with the song “Evolution of Feminism,” which is a mixture of songs that began with Aretha Franklin’s “Respect.” The song switched between different tempos quickly as it transitioned between different songs.

After the first song, the group shifted between contemporary American songs such as Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida” and Hebrew songs such as “Ba’Layla.” Although Mezumenet kept the original lyrics for “Viva La Vida,” the group added some Jewish flair to Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space,” which it named “Blank Ketubah.”

For the last song of the evening, the current members Mezumenet members invited alumnae to the stage to sing “The Rabbi’s Son,” a Jewish version of the Fountains of Wayne song “Stacy’s Mom.” Sophomore Delany Crabtree sang the solo. As the song ended, group members and alumnae played air guitar and danced. The audience clapped along with the tempo as the group sang the final lyrics.

 Alumna Rayna Friedman, 22, said she was impressed with how much the group has improved over time, even in the short duration of months since she graduated in May.

“I was in this group, Mezumenet. And I was there from a freshman to a senior, all four years,” Friedman said. “And I know, we worked our butts off. We worked so hard. And from my first to my last year, we got eons better. They just blew us out of the water. I’ve heard all of the groups and I’ve heard this group a hundred times and they blew my mind.”  

Katherine Davis, a senior cinema and Arabic major at McDaniel College came to watch her friend, Mezumenet co-president Natalie Batchelor, direct one of her final shows before she graduates. Davis said that she enjoyed the arrangement of songs that were used in the performance. She particularly enjoyed “The Rabbi’s Son.”

“I really liked the arrangement to ‘Stacy’s Mom’ that they did, ‘Rabbi’s Son,’” Davis said. “I thought it was really funny and clever, and I’ve never heard it before.”    

The group added three new members this semester, who each performed for their first time at the fall concert. The new members were freshman singers Rebecca Elspas and Gabriella Epstien and sophomore Dena Fishman. Fishman and Elspas both sang solos with Elspas being the soloist for “Blank Ketubah.”

Shannon McDonnell, a sophomore secondary education history major, came to show support for Mezumenet music director Jenna Marcus. She said that she appreciated fall concerts.

“I’ve been to a couple so far and they’ve always been fantastic. Always,” McDonnell said. “I love the style and the energy, and just everything about it.”

Sophomore communications major Jocelyn Broth, the group’s public relations manager, also thought that the group performed well, especially the new group members.

“We have three new members who have added tremendously to the group, so I think we sounded really full,” Broth said.

Fishman also enjoyed the concert. The psychology major’s favorite song of the evening was “Evolution of Feminism.”

“There’s just a combination of all of these different songs that I’m a fan of. And they’re always stuck in my head, so it’s always fun. It’s the first song I also learned with them, so it’s the one I remember the most,”  she said.