May 2nd, 2026 was Northern Highland Regional’s annual celebration of Acafest!

This is a festival for high school a cappella groups to meet, attend workshops, and perform for their peers!

The earlier performance included four great headliner groups, as well as professional group Black to Gold.

Black to Gold is a six-person a cappella group out of New York, consisting of members Connor Martin (bass, musical director, co-founder), Courtney Cox (soprano, co-founder), Leah Raquel (alto, co-founder), Andrew Orsie (tenor, business manager), Aldon Knolls (vocal percussion), and Stefanie Sambrano (mezzo, social media manager). At Acafest, they performed countless amazing numbers by many artists, including some original numbers from their newest album.

Audrey Riquelme stated, “This year’s a cappella festival felt especially meaningful to me because the very first Acafest I attended in 8th grade featured the same headliners as this year: Black to Gold. It was such a full-circle moment to have my final Acafest end with the group that first made me fall in love with a cappella music.”

She went on to explain, “I think one of the best performances was Mpulse because something I don’t see from groups at Aca-Fest is a balance between choosing songs that will get the crowd going and a cohesive story within the set, which isn’t always needed in a set for it to be good, but is something for me that makes a group stand out. I thought Mpulse did a great job with tying a story between the soloists when they did Ordinary by Alex Warren.”

The later concert held sixteen high school groups, with EHS’ own, E Major, performing third to last.

There were many workshops to choose from at Acafest, some being beat-boxing classes, how to make a music video, lessons on stage presence, and the notorious Riff-Off. On top of this, each group has a scheduled masterclass to receive some feedback on their set.

Mia Woodward said, “I don’t know if this counts as a workshop but I really enjoy going to the masterclass. I love seeing other directors’ opinions on our set. After doing the set ourselves so many times it becomes like second nature, so it is fun to show someone else for the first time.”

This year, E Major performed two songs in the concert – “Let Down” by Radiohead and “Somebody to Love” by Queen.  Originally, the set ended with the calmer song, “Let Down”, but it was eventually changed.

Riquelme stated, “After getting feedback from other teachers at Acafest, we decided to switch the order of our set so that instead of opening with ‘Somebody to Love’ and ending with ‘Let Down,’ we closed with ‘Somebody to Love.’ For an event like Acafest, where getting the crowd energized is important, I think ending on a bigger, more exciting song definitely helped. At the same time, though, making such a major change at the last minute made me really nervous on stage.”

She also added, “Honestly, I don’t think we gave our best performance at the concert. During the sound check, when we performed ‘Let Down,’ I thought we sounded much stronger. Before the concert, we had spent time practicing just the vocals and were sounding really solid as a group. That’s why it’s disappointing knowing we didn’t fully show what we were capable of that night.”

On the other hand, Woodward said, “I am proud of us! A cappella is difficult but we worked our hardest and I am proud of how far we came! I think the audience loved us, it is always good to hear the cheers from the audience after putting on a show that you worked so hard for!”

Either way, E Major put their best foot forward and was loved by the audience!  Acafest will likely stay a tradition for the group, and we all look forward to next year’s!