The winners of the 2023 National Harmony Sweepstakes took the stage in Doudna following some feature performances from Charleston High School and EIU.
The concert was held Saturday night in the Doudna Fine Arts Center as Charleston residents and Eastern students purchased their tickets from the box office.
As the show started, EIU students Ethan Vice and Mitch Cox were the mini hosts, introducing each group along alongside their own, named Blue Fusion.
The first group that got on stage was the Power Cords from Charleston High School.
As they sung “Don’t Start Now” by famous singer Dua Lipa, flashing lights from the stage caught the audience’s eyes, getting more intrigued by the performance. Every member of the group wore a variety of colors.
Secondly another group from Charleston High School comes on stage known as the Maximum Forte. They are wearing black, red, and white for their performance. They start of slow with “Running up That Hill” by Kate Bush and then pumping it up to “Greedy” by Ariana Grande.
And finally, the last feature was an EIU a cappella group named Blue Fusion. This blue group took the stage by singing “No Good at Goodbyes” by Leon and kick it up a notch with “Born This Way” by Lady Gaga.
All performers had a standing ovation from the audience.
And then came the main performers of the night: Radius.
According to its website, Radius is a Chicago-based A cappella group made up of five members.
As the performers took the stage, the audience immediately cheered when they began to sing.
Gabe Schoneman, the yellow-clad member of Radius, brought the audience in.
“In honor of Pentatonix’s famous evolution song, we’d like to do an evolution of Justin Bieber song. I want to hear everyone sing,” he said.
From “Only Girl,” to “Baby,” to “Sorry” and “Peaches,” the audience sang along with Radius. After the performance they decided to engage with the audience again by making three large groups. Each group is singing a different part of songs, more specifically “Higher Love” by Steve Winwood.
Radius is made up of Schoneman, Lucas Faria de Sá Tucker, Ben Boutell, Sam Baker and Michael St. Peter. They started making music together in 2020, according to Radius’ website.
St. Peter was surprised by the audience’s energy.
“This is the most hyped audience I’ve performed for, let’s keep this going,” he said during the performance.
The group of five performed many genres from regular pop, Motown, 80s pop and even Disney.
Radius ended with was “Sweet Caroline” by Neil Diamond. The crowd went wild, jumping out of their seats to sing and dance along. The show may have been over, but Radius went out with a bang.
Following the show, the audience had time to meet with Radius’ members for signatures at their booth outside of the auditorium.
Doudna’s next Premier event is Grupo Bella on Oct. 26.
Koria Downs can be reached at at 581-2812 or at kdowns@eiu.edu.
