Valentine’s Day is a day to express love towards others. The orchestra board and other musically inclined students help their fellow students express that through serenading their loved ones.

Each year, students can buy one another serenades to raise money for the school’s orchestra department. The groups who serenade the lucky students must audition twice to be accepted to participate in the serenades. The accepted groups will then perform Feb. 11. This tradition has been adored by students for years.

Serenades, or a song dedicated to someone, have been present in history ever since music was created. Serenades became particularly popular in medieval times when men tried to “woo” the women they loved. Often the men would sing through the woman’s window accompanied by a flute or guitar. This was even displayed in the famous play “Romeo and Juliet.” This act of love has kept its popularity today with all of the love songs prevalent in our generation’s media. The Teen Dreamboats hope to accomplish this through their performances to spread joy to everyone.

The Teen Dreamboats is a serenade group whose members consist of juniors Grace Baldwin, Simon Leppicello, Matt Brown, Sara Swartz, Ellie McGinley and senior Alaina Friedrich. They’re performing “Hey Juliet” and “Accidentally in Love”.

Traditionally, Valentine’s Day is a day to show admiration for a special someone. Although that truth remains, Valentine’s Day is now becoming a day to appreciate any loved one. Now, people use Valentine’s Day as a day to display their appreciation and love that they have towards the people closest to them.

“Valentine’s Day is about telling and/or showing the people closest to you how much they really mean to you. Whether it be your best friend or the person you’re dating, everyone should know that they’re appreciated,” said Swartz.

The Teen Dreamboats hope to help students show their admiration through giving their loved ones serenades.

Leppicello stated, “Valentine’s Day is a way to acknowledge what everyone feels every day. That day, people are able to show their love to people without being in fear of getting made fun of or other things. I hope to show people that they’re loved and cared about.”

The members of The Teen Dreamboats are more than happy to perform for others. Many of this year’s participants were inspired by seeing the serenades from previous years.

“I love music and after seeing the serenade groups last year, I couldn’t wait to be a part of it. Getting to play music is great, and making someone’s day a little brighter is greater than anything,” said Baldwin.

It may be difficult to understand the process behind the product of the performance. However, the serenade groups have been working hard to continue this school tradition, and to make sure their performance is a success.

McGinley said, “Our process started with just brainstorming ideas of songs. After about 50 suggestions we narrowed it it down to two songs, ‘Hey Juliet’ by LMNT and ‘Accidentally in Love’ by The Counting Crows. We all learned the songs on our own and eventually came together and split up solos harmonies, etc. Were grateful that we have Grace Baldwin in our group because she’s a great guitar player who really helps make the song come to life. Once we had the music down, we then added movement and fun facial expressions to add other elements to our performance.”

Often people get wrapped up in the same Valentine’s Day tradition of buying a card and some chocolate for others. However, serenades fix that. Not many people can say that they were serenaded in their life, making serenades a unique and fun way of expressing love towards others.

“Serenades differ from the average gift of chocolate and flowers because serenades are more personal and thoughtful. So, I think serenades make great Valentine’s Day gifts,” said McGinley.

The Teen Dreamboat’s goal is to simply bring happiness to students, and to make people feel special. So, the student’s reaction is enough of a reward to them.

McGinley said, “I really hope we  can make everyone laugh and smile about our performance and it wouldn’t be a high school serenade if we didn’t make the person sitting in the chair blush a little.”