CL
Christopher Lavallee
  • Class of 2012
  • Georgia, VT

Local residents, Saint Michael's students perform in popular new a cappella singing group

2009 Feb 4

Christopher Lavallee, son of Peter and Rita Lavallee of Milton, performs in the 15-member popular Saint Michael's College men's a cappella singing group--"Mike Check." Lavallee, first-year student English literature major graduated from Milton High School before coming to Saint Michael's, a liberal arts residential Catholic college located in the Burlington area of Vermont.

The group grew from a barbershop quartet to the four-part men's a cappella choir, and the gig invitations are flowing in. "Mike Check" sang to an SRO audience in the campus Alliot Student Center Eddie's Lounge in December, presenting ten songs and some improv, to great applause. They sang the national anthem at the January 24th and 31st Saint Michael's home basketball games in the Ross Sports Center, and will be performing at the 3rd annual Vermont Family Network Walk-a-thon in the SMC Tarrant Recreation Center on Sunday, Feb 8, at noon.

The singers have been invited to headline a concert with the Westford Academy, the alma mater of singer Chris Gosselin, in Westford, Mass., on April 16th, and will proceed from there on April 17th to perform at the Massachusetts State House at noon. Rep. Jim Arciero's office is helping them set up the concert. Afterwards, they will sing to pedestrians on the Boston Common and at Quincy Market.

On Saturday, April 18th, "Mike Check" will be back in Vermont performing on Church Street for the lunch-time crowd, followed that evening by an end-of-the-year concert April 18th, in Eddie's Lounge again.

The dedicated group rehearses twice a week, and performs a varied repertoire of barbershop standards like "Goodbye My Coney Island Baby," current hits like Ben Fold's "You don't Know Me," and classic a cappella arrangements like Billy Joel's "The Longest Time."

Saint Michael's College, www.smcvt.edu, founded in 1904 by the Society of St. Edmund and headed by President John J. Neuhauser, is identified by the Princeton Review as one of the nation's Best 368 Colleges. A liberal arts, residential, Catholic college, Saint Michael's is located just outside of Burlington, Vermont, one of America's top college towns, and less than two hours from Montreal. As one of only 270 institutions nationwide with a prestigious Phi Beta Kappa chapter on campus, Saint Michael's has 2,000 full-time undergraduate students, some 500 graduate students and 200 international students. In recent years Saint Michael's students and professors have received Rhodes, Woodrow Wilson, Guggenheim, Fulbright, National Science Foundation and other grants, and Saint Michael's professors have been named Vermont Professor of the Year in four of the last eight years. The college is currently listed as one of the nation's Best Liberal Arts Colleges in the 2009 U.S. News & World Report rankings.

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