{"id":2256,"date":"2019-12-09T17:34:17","date_gmt":"2019-12-09T17:34:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/?p=2256"},"modified":"2019-12-11T21:32:14","modified_gmt":"2019-12-11T21:32:14","slug":"buttondowns-return-to-their-roots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/2019\/12\/09\/buttondowns-return-to-their-roots\/","title":{"rendered":"Buttondowns Return to their Roots"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>By&nbsp;Brian&nbsp;Li&nbsp;(IV)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\tOn November 22nd, the Buttondowns raced down from the top of Hauser Auditorium to begin their annual Buttondowns assembly. This year, the all-boys a capella group is headed by president James Wang (VI), vice-president Charlie Malone (VI), and secretary John Roberston (VI).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\tAs is tradition, the assembly began with the highly anticipated Buttondowns movie. Directed by Wang, this year\u2019s movie was largely influenced by the 2010-2011 movie. He described it as a movie that was \u201cso low budget and horrible production-wise, but very funny.\u201d Wang further elaborated on his plan for the movie. \u201cI wanted to bring the Buttondowns movie back to what it was, just something more casual\u2026 a simple concept for every Buttondown.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\tAfter the movie ended, the Buttondowns, dressed in their signature white buttondown shirts, khakis, and no shoes, ran down to the stage to begin their performance. The first song was Stephen Bishop\u2019s \u201cOn And On,\u201d with soloists Alex Kaplan (V) and Vared Shmuler (III). Wang defended its role as an opening number, saying that, \u201cIt\u2019s the song that we\u2019ve practiced the most. It\u2019s one of our strongest songs but also one that not a lot of people know.\u201d Furthermore, \u201cOn And On\u201d incorporated choreography to the crowd\u2019s delight. The Buttondowns constantly moved across the stage, forming lines and semicircles that kept the soloists at the center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\tDirectly following \u201cOn And On,\u201d Nolan Baynes (V) and Justin Li (V) paired up as soloists for \u201cSlide\u201d by Calvin Harris, Frank Ocean, and Migos. Shmuler added to the performance by singing the high-pitched verses at the beginning of the song, receiving great appreciation from the audience. Once again, the group deviated from their traditional semicircle formation in favor of having the members sit down on the floor to give off a more candid and relaxed demeanor.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\tRam Doraswamy (IV), John Robertson, and Alex Kaplan starred in the Guardians of the Galaxy medley, a combination of three songs from the Guardians of the Galaxy movies. Comprised of Blue Swede\u2019s \u201cHooked on a Feeling,\u201d The Five Stairsteps\u2019 \u201cO-o-h Child,\u201d and Redbone\u2019s \u201cCome and Get Your Love,\u201d the medley not only transitioned between the three songs throughout, but included physical transitions with the Buttondowns. Each song featured different configurations and actions, providing viewers with a clear sense of when the songs switched between each other.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\tThe next song was \u201cSlow Dancing In a Burning Room\u201d by John Mayer and was sung by soloists Henry Wood (V), Ore Shote (V), and Charlie Malone with the Buttondowns in a straight line facing the audience.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\tLastly, Baynes and Wang capped off an unforgettable performance with Post Malone and Swae Lee\u2019s \u201cSunflower.\u201d As his final solo and song in front of the entire high school, Wang remarked positively on his experience with \u201cSunflower.\u201d \u201cI loved [Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse] so Sunflower was a great song to end on\u2026 I really enjoyed singing something that puts me in a different mood and takes me to different places.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\tWhat was unique about this year\u2019s assembly was the presence of choreography. Compared to previous years where the group stood in a static semicircle, the Buttondowns enthralled the crowd with their movement, adding another dimension to the performance. When asked about his overall experience in the Buttondowns, Wang said that, \u201cIt\u2019s been interesting. Freshmen year was amazing but for the last two years, we got lost in the movie so much that we kind of forgot about the singing. After last year, I decided that we\u2019re going to focus on the singing because it\u2019s a Buttondowns assembly and that\u2019s the core of the group.\u201d Wang was thankful for Dr. Moore for his unwavering support and advice and also thanked the rest of the seniors, Malone, Robertson, Yu, Dispenza, and Bugliari. He was especially grateful for Malone who arranged all of the songs and did \u201cso much work behind the scenes. He deserves as much credit as me and without him, I don\u2019t think the concert would even be close to how it sounds right now.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p> The assembly was hugely appreciated by the Upper School as evidenced by the thunderous applause and cheering throughout the entire event. James ended by saying, \u201cI\u2019ve tried to bring the Buttondowns back to their roots and I sincerely appreciate everybody that\u2019s been there for me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By&nbsp;Brian&nbsp;Li&nbsp;(IV) On November 22nd, the Buttondowns raced down from the top of Hauser Auditorium to begin their annual Buttondowns assembly. This year, the all-boys a capella group is headed by president James Wang (VI), vice-president Charlie Malone (VI), and secretary John Roberston (VI). As is tradition, the assembly began with the highly anticipated Buttondowns movie. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":2371,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[67],"class_list":["post-2256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-school-news","tag-buttondowns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2256"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2372,"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2256\/revisions\/2372"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}