Brianna Cox ‘20
Ever since the first rehearsal of O-Week, I was acutely aware of the fact that I’m a senior. Time had really flown since joining the Chorus the fall of my freshman year, and it had seemed like all of a sudden, 2020 was the oldest class and the Glorus now included members who were three (!!) years younger than us. With all the stress of figuring out what I’m doing next year, I kind of resented being a senior, and wished for my younger days at Cornell when my biggest worry was just upcoming prelims.
However, all of that changed over Homecoming Weekend. In the days leading up to Saturday, I saw on social media that many of my good friends from the classes of 2017, 2018, and 2019 were coming back, and I realized that being a senior was such a unique position to be in. I knew people from the classes of 2017-19 from when I was a freshman, but as a senior, I now know the classes of 2021-23, too! It dawned on me how exciting it was to know six generations of the Glorus, appropriate to the theme of this year’s homecoming concert: Generations. It warmed my heart that I had gotten to know so many amazing people over the course of my four years at Cornell, and I had a great time catching up with the young alums at the tailgate.
The concert that night was an even more powerful experience. After pinning on a white boutonniere for the first time, I watched the Glee Club open the concert, sitting in the balcony with the rest of the Chorus. I was happy to hear Patrick Braga ‘17’s piece, having known Patrick and having sung some of his compositions my freshman year, when he was a senior.
While walking down from the balcony to line up for the Chorus’s set, it dawned on me that this year was the first truly joint homecoming, a huge change from my freshman year. Not only was it a positive step for our ensembles’ parity, but our new members were performing an entire set at Bailey less than two months into their time in the Chorus. I remembered how nervous I was freshman year during Homecoming, to just sing one short piece from the balcony, with the Glee Club covering the rest of the concert.
Singing Armottoman Osa as part of the joint set was my favorite part of the night. When Robert explained to the audience that Armottoman had been a hit on the joint 2016 tour to Guatemala and Mexico, I saw my 2017-2019 friends in the audience grinning and looking at each other. I remembered being a freshman and hearing all about that tour, since 2020 was the newb class that joined in the fall following Guatemex. We sang Armottoman and Bogoro at every Chariot, and many members of 2020 like me learned those pieces by rote, whereas younger classes of the current Glorus learned it in a rehearsal setting. It warmed my heart that Robert was bringing those old pieces back for the Glorus’s next joint tour this January to the Pacific Northwest.
As we sang through the last “hai jaa jaa jaa’s” of Armottoman, I felt proud to be a part of the next generation of Glorus members to take that piece on tour. Being a senior finally felt like a positive thing because my fellow ZOZOs and I would get to be the leaders on this tour and have one of our last hurrahs together.
Homecoming really felt like home came back to me because the Glorus members who had made Cornell feel like home for me way back freshman year had come back as young alums. On the other hand, my young alum friends told me at the tailgate how weird it was to be back. They had made homes elsewhere in their post-grad lives, from New York City to DC to Phoenix. But Cornell was still home, even if it had changed in the time they were away. It made me remember that I, too, will soon become a young alum. That was an incredibly weird realization to come to, but at the same time, it made me smile. Cornell is home for countless numbers of students and alums, and within Cornell are smaller homes like the Glorus. The rest of senior year is going to rush by, and while I want to enjoy it, I am already looking forward to coming back home.