This year, the Xavier Vocal Music Department’s request for a new acoustic shell was granted. For every choral concert put on, an acoustic shell is used to create a full, rounded sound. After many years of beautiful music, a new one was requested by the Xavier Vocal Music Department head, Mr. Phillip Schroetter.
“The acoustical shell was requested before my time at Xavier started. After putting up our current shell last year, I realized it was time to push for a new one. Our current shell is in pretty bad shape. One of the 'floating' pieces is missing the entire corner and has very sharp edges. One of the stationary pieces does not stay vertical. The portion that angles out to the audience has a tendency to become loose and can fall at any time which would result in injury if someone was standing under it. Another stationary piece's supports do not lock into position correctly,” Schroetter said.
The shell is also useful for more than just choir concerts. The instrumental department is also benefited by it. It can also be used for more than just music, as it has been used as a background piece for Christmas, graduation, and award ceremonies.
“The support the Booster Club has provided the music department to purchase this shell shows us that they are there for all programs in the school. This purchase is not an inexpensive one. New equipment like this comes at a price and we are grateful to XBC for providing us with the funding to purchase the shell since we would never have it in our regular department budget,” said Schroetter.
The Xavier Music Department is grateful for the support to their program and is looking forward to putting the new shell to use.
For more information on the 40+ activities that Xavier Booster Club sponsors each year and a detailed breakdown of the $89,026 of allocations for 2021 please visit https://xaviersaints.org/xbc.
The new shell is scheduled to ship this spring.