Two years ago, four Mountain View-Los Altos students found one another by way of a shared love for singing. Today, they’ve made a name for themselves: the Sopranotes, a quartet of inseparable friends.

“We’re a barbershop quartet that puts a jazzy spin on an older art form,” founder junior Mira Sumant said. “As students from Mountain View and Los Altos who love singing and making music together, we want to share that with as many people as possible.”

The idea took root at the end of Mira’s freshman year, when she fell in love with a singing style.

“I became obsessed with Barbershop videos on YouTube,” Mira recalled. “The Barbershop Harmony Society, the Newfangled Four – it was a rabbit hole.” 

Barbershop, which consists of a four-part a capella, is historically male-dominated. But when Mira stumbled upon GQ, a female quartet group, her perspective on it changed. 

“Seeing GQ, I knew that’s what I wanted to create,” Mira said. “It made me feel that if these women can get into a genre that’s so defined by men, then maybe, as a teenage girl, I can too.”

Building the quartet, Mira wanted two things in members: strong musicianship and kindness as people. She needed to look no further than friends from various points in her life, whose values she was familiar with and were just as passionate as singing about. Mira sings lead, LAHS junior Caila Kim sings baritone, Mountain View High School (MVHS) junior Kaela Nguyen sings bass, and Foothill Middle College junior Elaine Choi sings tenor. 

Musically, being in a quartet is demanding. Whereas voices in a choir can lean on one another to blend and tune, singers in a quartet don’t have that luxury. 

“I’ve grown as a musician,” Caila said. “It gets me out of my comfort zone a lot, because this is very much not the style that I usually sing in, nor is it the setting.”

Beyond individual strides in musicianship, their team dynamic has played a major role in their success. The first song they ever sang, for example, was extremely challenging — they hadn’t realized the extent of its difficulty until they picked it up (there were alleged tears involved in the process).

“It was a large hump,” Kaela said. “But the shared suffering was needed because it made us all bond, both as musicians but also friends.”

Their challenges didn’t end there, but they made it work. Through every nerve-wracking performance and last-minute emergency, its silver lining twinkled.

“It’s an emotional journey,” Elaine said. “A big part of it is going through it together. At our first barbershop convention, we were frozen. And now, we’ve come so far regulating that fear with each other.”

Through difficulties they’ve faced, the Sopranotes have become closer musical peers and friends. This trait is perhaps their biggest advantage, lending itself to almost every situation the group encounters. 

For example, quartet music requires careful deliberation for phrasing, dynamics, and tempo. However, the direction each member wants to take the qualities in isn’t always the same.

“Sometimes we have different ideas and it’s hard to come to an agreement on who’s right,” Mira said. “But at the same time, being friends means that it’s never a deal breaker. We’ll always try to figure out a way to compromise.”

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Aimee Ge

Audiences of all ages are captured by their performance. At Party in the Park, their song “Blue Skies” draws in a crowd of both children and adults.

“The Sopranotes always listen to everyone’s point of view and try everybody’s idea out. I’ve never seen any egos get in the way,” Sopranotes instructor Judaline Swinkels said. “There’s just such a great energy between the members, which is so vital for any kind of an ensemble.”

The Soprantotes are a barbershop quartet founded out of love for the art, yet as time has and will continue to prove, continued out of the love for one another.

“A lot of the best-sounding choirs are the ones that have the closest people,” Caila said. “You can feel the connection on stage. There’s something about being moved by the music together that makes it worth it every time.” To learn more about the Sopranotes, check out their Instagram @thesopranotes. Watch their next live performance at the Matchbox Open Mic on Saturday, September 14, from 6:00-8:00 p.m. at Red Rock Coffee.