Mendham High School is a very lucky place because many of our students are extremely talented when it comes to the arts. Everyone in Mendham has a special talent, but today we are going to focus on the singers of the school. The choir program at our school is a very good program. If you have seen the performance they do called “The Messiah”, you were able to see the talent in their voices. Today we are focusing on a very special singer, Elizabeth “Libby” Drew, a junior in our school.

Libby’s inspiration comes from her piano teacher, who got her involved in music and a girl who sang at her church. Libby heard this girl’s voice and thought that she had a beautiful voice. The girl inspired her because after listening to her, Libby thought “I knew I wanted to be able to sing like her.” Libby likes to listen to any type of music but when it comes to performances, she replies that she likes to sing “show tunes and songs from Broadway shows” because as she explains: “I find it so fun to put yourself into another person’s character and try to be that person, to live as someone other than yourself with a completely different story from yours, even if it’s just for three and a half minutes.” Libby has been in choir since elementary school and now in high school, she is part of the advanced choir. Libby has never done any solo in school because she is shy about singing by herself, but she did once at a recital with her voice teacher. Libby also loves to sing at home, “I drive my family crazy with how much I sing. When I’m home alone I just belt out as loud as I can, and there’s no one to tell me to be quiet.” says Libby. She is not only in choir, but she has been part of the cast in the past musical Chicago. She was also in the ensemble for Seussical and was also part of the stage crew for Sweeney Todd and Eurydice, showing how much she enjoys working for the musicals, either by being part of the stage crew, ensemble, or being part of the cast. She remembers what once Mr. Braccino said to the cast of Seussical and this impacted her so much that she still remembers it to this day. “the beauty of theater is that sometimes, the world isn’t such a nice place, but we, as performers, can provide an escape from the bad parts of life, even just for a few hours”.

Libby does not know yet what she wants to do in the future in regards to music, however, she has time to figure that out. She knows that she wants to follow a music path and dreams of making music her career. Libby still has a year ahead of her in her high school career, stay tuned and pay attention because she might feature again in another musical! Not only that, but perhaps in the near future, you will hear her once again in the radio featuring in a song that she wrote.

(Picture credits to Lily Juhasz)