Even more than a dozen rows of chairs wasn’t enough for the crowd in Woulfe Alumni Hall May 15 during St. Thomas women’s a capella group Cadezna’s first concert.

Some Cadenza singers were surprised by the number of people who attended the concert, which marked the end of Cadenza’s first semester as an official St. Thomas club.

“The turnout was literally insane,” sophomore singer Quinlan Keller said. “I walked in…and I was like, ‘these are too many chairs,’ and then we had to pull in more chairs.”

Cadenza founder and president Hannah Tilstra said she was surprised but pleased at the success the group has enjoyed. Earlier this semester, Cadenza released its first music video.

“We have beyond exceeded my expectations,” she said. “What we’ve done this year has been crazy.”

Tilstra said she feels the group has benefited from the success of the Summit Singers, St. Thomas’ men’s a capella group, which, along with the seminarian band Big Spence and the Gents, opened the concert.

“The Summit Singers have been a club for so long now that we can piggyback on all their success and say, ‘this has been working for them and this hasn’t, and this is how we get better during rehearsal, and this is what events we want to do,’” Tilstra said.

Cadenza, which is made of 13 women ranging from freshman to seniors, performed a variety of covers, including songs by Taylor Swift and Beyoncé.

Several singers performed duets and solos, as well as the full-group songs. The enthusiastic audience punctuated the solos and exciting musical moments with cheering and applause.

“I thought the girls killed it tonight. They were super confident,” junior Matt Wilson said. “I really like the Summit Singers, and it’s good to a have female a capella group too. I thought all of them sounded like soloists up there. It was really good.”

Tilstra said she is looking forward to Cadenza’s future. Now that the group has a semester’s experience, members are working on developing their sound and finding where they fit in the music world.

“We’ve grown so much this year, but we have so much growing left to do, and I think that this concert is a great way for us to use it as a stepping stone when we go into next semester,” Tilstra said. “We can just take everyone by storm and just be like, ‘hey, we’re doing this, and it’s going to be better than ever every time we do it.’”

Lauren Schaffran can be reached at scha7492@stthomas.edu.