After hearing nine performances, judges awarded sophomore elementary education major Daniel Monroe and sophomore biblical studies major Connor Pfaff the $500 first place prize for their acoustic duet. Junior music in worship major Chloe Rogers and junior music education major Bryan Botka claimed second place, winning $300, while junior kinesiology major David Dionson received $100 for placing third.
TOP THREE
Monroe and Pfaff’s act has been a long time in the making. It started as an improvised song created spontaneously with a few of the duo’s friends, but it slowly evolved into a more intricate and detailed musical masterpiece. The song references their friend Noah Chow’s calves.
“I’m kinda surprised, also just very happy. We’re gonna [celebrate by] spending some quality time with Noah Chow. We couldn’t have done it without Noah,” Pfaff said.
The second place team, Chopsticks, wowed the audience with a piano duet that involved the use of physical chopsticks. The team put a peppy spin on the popular song “Chopsticks,” and used it as a tool to jump in and out of other melodies. After the act was over, they felt confident about their performance, but emphasized the importance of having fun.
“It’s a very different venue from our normal performances,” Botka said. “I really liked this performance because in the practice room, it’s just us and the music, so we can be critical, but when we’re here, we hear people responding and that’s really fun.”
Dionson featured magic tricks in his performance, winning third place after producing a card from his mouth and revealing the name of a major which a volunteer had chosen randomly. Despite forgetting one magic trick in his act and feeling somewhat nervous before arriving to the stage, he enjoyed the performance.
“It was honestly not as bad as I thought it would be. You’re always super nervous leading up to this, because you know you’ve put in so much work and effort into it. You’re always thinking ‘I don’t want things to go wrong.’ But you get out there, you do your first trick and normally things go well. At the end of the day, I had fun. I think I forgot one trick, but it is what it is,” Dionson said.
CHANGES
The location of the event moved from McNally Field to Metzger Lawn this year to make it easier to find and more central on campus, according to Student Programming and Activities event coordinator and junior nursing major Ijah Lockett.
The number of performances the audience could choose to vote for also decreased from five to three, though last year’s Punk N’ Pie elected six performances for the audience vote. While coordinators originally planned to have the judges select their top five choices, they wanted to avoid overworking event services and changed the number of performances the judges selected.
“Normally we would have the top five―this time that was our plan―but for the sake of it being easier on event services… we dropped it to three,” Lockett said.
In the end, all nine acts put up a good fight for first place. The competitors, however, were adamant about the importance of having fun while competing.
“We’re really here just to bring joy to people and glorify God through music,” Rogers said. “When people were excited or laughing or cheering that’s not for our glory, but for God’s glory.”
