Ingeniare is Texas A&M University's first professional chorus made up of engineering students. On this episode of The Study Break, Ingeniare conductor and chemical engineering senior Ritika Bhattacharjee explains the importance of music and how every engineer can learn to sing.
Ingeniare is Texas A&M University's first professional chorus made up of engineering students. On this episode of The Study Break, Ingeniare conductor and chemical engineering senior Ritika Bhattacharjee explains the importance of music and how every engineer can learn to sing.
Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So. I'm trying a new singing segment on the podcast. If you're an engineer who also wants to try something new, there's a perfect organization for you. Ingeniare, the official engineering choir at Texas A&M, is the university's first professional soprano, alto, tenor and bass chorus made up of only engineering students. According to their website, the engineering choir welcomes all skill levels, including those who have never sung in a choir before to those who have competed at the state level. The choir meets once a week for a two hour rehearsal and members come to each rehearsal having learned the music assigned the previous week. I'm Briana Navas and my co-host, Leanne Khashab and I are here today with Ritika Bhattacharjee, to talk about her experience with the engineering choir.
Ritika Bhattacharjee:The engineering choir, Ingeniare, it started as an idea on the back of a tour bus. So me and my friend Joshua Tia were sitting in the back and just talking through things and I said, "Oh, my gosh It would be so cool if we got a choir togethera nd we started conducting a choir." And about like, September, October, we got our first audition email sent out. And there were people, we got initially 100 interested applicants on just the first run. So I knew Oh, my God, this is a thing people really, really want.
Leanne Khashab:That's super cool and it sounds like you hit a nerve with a lot of people that were interested and wanted to find a community like the one you created. So what would you say is the main goal or philosophy of this organization?
Ritika Bhattacharjee:With Ingeniare, we make music accessible. So we teach people how to read sheet music; we share vocal technique. So how do you sing healthfully? Because a lot of times when we imitate what we hear on the radio, it may not be with proper vocal technique and we could end up hurting ourselves when we really just want to sing and sing well, or they want to learn how to sing in a choir because they've never done it before. So people take artistic risks with us. And it's a really safe environment to do that. So we just want to spread our love for music and our joy for both teaching and appreciating vocal technique.
Bri Navas:That's fascinating. Thank you so much for sharing.
Leanne Khashab:Um, we want to know what, what's your favorite part about being in the engineering choir?
Ritika Bhattacharjee:Conducting the engineering choir, I get to set an environment that I often wished I had growing up in different ensembles. So we often talk about our ensembles, our musical ensembles, like they're our family, because they are. And also it brings together people from all walks of life; people you wouldn't normally talk to or gravitate towards you find them in these musical orgs. Because you just have a shared interest and a shared passion. My favorite part of conducting is being able to shape the kind of change I want to see in the world. So my organization is, we really work hard to make it completely discrimination free; it's very equity based. For example, in our, in our choir, we don't have section leaders, which is a little bit different. And that's because we really want everybody to be involved in that music making process. And everybody volunteers, and we recognize that everybody brings something to the table. And so it's a very engagement based program. And I've seen a lot of people flourish through that. And so that's what music does, you can't have a good ensemble, I don't think unless you put that trust in other people. And also, you can only really see people flourish and become more themself and not the image of what everybody else has impressed upon them coming into university. You can only see that when they are comfortable being themselves. So my favorite part is seeing people flourish.
Bri Navas:That's a really great philosophy to have. And it's really nice to know that we have organizations on campus that have values that you've mentioned. So looking at y'all's web page, it seems like you've done performances like finale of the Texas Science and Engineering Fair, eWeek, caroling in downtown Bryan, you have a lot of range in the genres that you mentioned Do you have any fun performance stories or anything that sticks out to you about being in the engineering choir?
Ritika Bhattacharjee:One thing that I remember my first year conducting, everything kind of felt like a whirlwind, like it felt like a hot mess. But it was not because I had a really great officer team. And we had put in a lot of planning on the front end. And so everything just came together beautifully at our fall concert. So it was the concert that we started in 2019. And we also carol in downtown Bryan during December 1 Friday. And it's different from other musical groups, because we're on the streets caroling. And so people bump into us, like children stop and they just point and they get their parents to stop and like film us and take pictures and things like that. So it's spreading joy in a way that doesn't have to be curated. And I think that's so important when you think about performances and the way performance is going to move forward and evolve. You're going to see a shift away from the stage and into pop culture is in modern everyday life. And so I think this is very much a part of that classical music has to follow that trend in order to stay current, relevant and also something that people continue to enjoy for centuries on end.
Bri Navas:So I think most of our listeners would agree that music is a great form of expression and can really help people find an outlet to their emotions. Has this been the case for you or the members in the choir?
Ritika Bhattacharjee:Oh, absolutely. So when I came into college, this is something that I've kind of talked about, and people who know me kind of know about this, but my mom passed away from cancer my senior year of high school. So I remember there's just this void, like this huge emptiness. And there's no way that you can describe it other than it feels like what it would feel like if you were in a vacuum, where there's no sound, no space, just everything devoid of anything. And so that's what it felt like. And the only time that feeling went away was when I was playing piano or when I was singing. And so I naturally threw myself into my musical practice a lot, especially coming into college. But I know that this has been something that's helped a lot of students with their mental health. And as they've been going through their own struggles. Everybody's going through something at any given time, and we just don't talk about it, because it's often not necessarily socially appropriate to bring it up during passing or bring it up when you're in a casual conversation. But you can at rehearsal, because we do block out time for that and we care about each other in that way. That's why it's so important. Music is important, and art is important, just as important as STEM.
Leanne Khashab:And I think it speaks a lot to your character as well, because you took something that's really hard, and you made something really beautiful out of it. So I personally love to sing, but have only ever done so when I'm alone. Would you still recommend someone that has a passion for singing, but has never been part of a choir to still apply themselves?
Ritika Bhattacharjee:Girl, you should join the choir, come to auditions. We're opening them up in the spring.
Leanne Khashab:I don't think you've ever heard me sing.
Ritika Bhattacharjee:No, we genuinely teach everybody to sing. So me and a lot of the members in the choir actually do like voice lesson sessions with each other, and we help each other grow. So definitely audition. It never hurts to audition; we take everybody. We've had people that never knew how to read sheet music that learned through our organization. People that wanted to learn about music theory, but they read just a little bit of sheet music. We've taught them how to understand music theory. We also teach people who come from orchestra and who come from band as well as people who just sing in the shower. And our auditions are completely blind. We do that to ensure equity. And so what that means is, you'll never have to see us and we don't see your name. We'll never know it was you. So there is literally no cost to auditioning.
Bri Navas:Well, I feel like I've learned a lot just about the, I thought it was just a bunch of engineers who got together to sing but it's really great to hear about all of the passion and philosophy that goes into this organization. It gives me a lot more appreciation for it. So I'm interested and curious so like what scheduled events do you guys have planned for the rest of the semester that maybe we could come watch or our listeners could come view?
Ritika Bhattacharjee:So this semester, we already had her holiday concert and caroling in downtown Bryan, so we caroled on First Friday on December 3, and we had our holiday concert on reading day which was December 9, and we had hot chocolate and cookies and it was on the learning stairs so everybody could watch and take a break from studying for finals. But there is a sneak peek we have for you right here about what we'll be performing next semester during E-Week and other events.
Leanne Khashab:Wow, after listening to that now I want to audition. Mi-Mi-Mi-Mi-Mi. Maybe I'll keep practicing before the audition. Thank you so much for joining us today on this Study Break episode. It's always great to hear about the fun extracurriculars about Texas A&M. You can find more information about the engineering choir on their page at engineering.tamu.edu. to see more about the organization and view their upcoming events. Thank you for listening to today's episode.
Hannah Conrad:Thanks for listening to the Texas A&M Engineering SoundBytes podcast. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of The Texas A&M University System. SoundBytes is part of the Texas A&M Podcast Network. To find more official Texas A&M podcasts, go to podcast.tamu.edu.