Another April Come and Gone

The Pine State Pitches pose for a photo before their fourth annual concert at One Longfellow Square in Portland, Maine. Photo by Quinlan Ashmore.

Hello and happy - finally - spring!! We’ve made it to the critical turning point - the shovels are tucked back in the far corner of the garage, the bicyclists are out in full force, and Fred is once again ferociously expressing his distaste for every motorcycle on the road. The fact that it’s already May is inconceivable to me. I blinked and April was gone!

It’s been a few weeks, but I am still living off the emotional high of our annual concert. The energy of the crowd, the spectacular team at One Longfellow Square who takes such good care of us, and of course, the amazing women I sing with made this year’s concert unforgettable. If you were there - thank you from the bottom of my very full heart. If you were not there, don’t worry, we’ll have videos to share soon!

My favorite addition to this year’s concert was the layering exercises we did, including excerpts from Daft Punk’s “Doing it Right,” “Fireflies” by Owl City, and “The Subway” by Chappell Roan (all arrangements by @maisiebull on Instagram). In the exercise, we start with a single voice singing one part, and after each phrase, we add another voice and part to the song. By the end, we have up to 8 parts singing together. It shows the audience how we build a song one piece at a time, and is also a great way for us to practice listening to each other and balancing our sound. You can listen to us sing “Fireflies” on our Instagram page (@pine_state_pitches).

As always, we learned some fabulous new songs for the set this year. My favorite is a medley of “the Dog Days are Over’ by Florence + The Machine and “Geronimo” by Sheppard. It is so much fun to sing - one of those songs you can’t help but dance to. Another new one was “Golden” from KPop Demon Hunters. We asked Rachel L.’s brother, Blake Dahlinger, to arrange the song for us, and he did not disappoint! It’s such an uplifting song, and the perfect ending to our concert this year.

Another song we premiered was “Sisters of Winter” by MILCK. Rachel H. introduced this powerful anthem to the group earlier this year, and we immediately connected with the lyrics and encouraging communities to come together and fight for what they believe in. With this message, we also encouraged the audience to join us in donating to Project Relief Maine, a mutual aid and racial justice collective based in Maine. This organization does important work to keep our communities safe for all.

Our final new song was arranged by our very own Victoria with help from Rachel L. The song “Don’t Lose Sight” by Lawrence is about not letting the world drag you down. Victoria and Erin bring power-house vocals to this song, and it is just plain fun to perform. We will definitely be adding this song to our regular performance rotation, so if you missed it at our annual concert, you will have many more opportunities to hear us sing it!

The Pine State Pitches perform at the Downeasters Chorus’ Community Benefit Concert for Maine Needs.

The week after our annual concert we had another fun performance opportunity - the Downeasters Chorus invited us to sing at their Community Benefit Concert in Gorham. They have a large mixed choir, and their full sound was amazing to hear. They also shared performances from some smaller sub-groups who perform barbershop. Hearing the barbershop style arrangements with tight harmonies was absolutely captivating! We were honored to be invited to join this incredible group and help raise funds for Maine Needs at the same time. If you have not seen the Downeasters Chorus perform, I highly recommend going to one of their shows - they are such a fun and talented group!

That’s all for this month, but keep an eye on our social media for videos from our annual concert coming soon. Now get outside and enjoy the warm(ish) weather!!