Previous to the COVID-19 outbreak, Hillsborough High School hosted three Coffee Houses a year. Coffee House is a celebration of the arts and talent of Hillsborough High School students. TRI-M, a musical leadership group here at HHS, and the National Arts Honors Society (NAHS) members work together to design, decorate, and manage this evening event.

When Coffee House would take place only students and staff were allowed admission. This event really brought HHS peers together to appreciate the talent of their fellow students. With many different groups wanting to play music or do slam poetry at Coffee House, anyone who wanted to perform had to audition for it with the TRI-M leaders. How Coffee House was run is that one NAHS member would present a piece of their artwork to the crowd followed by a musical/poetic performance. This cycle continued until all NAHS members had presented their artwork and all musical groups had performed.

This year’s performances looked a little different amidst the pandemic. First, NAHS and TRI-M hosted their Coffee Houses separately. On Feb. 19th, NAHS members presented their artwork to staff in the art department as well as other students through a google meet. Only lasting about 30 minutes, HHS faculty members, Art Department staff, and NAHS leaders were beyond impressed with the artwork shown by NAHS members. So impressed, Supervisor of Visual/Performing arts, Christopher Ireland, hung up copies of some of the students’ artwork in his board office, including a drawing of my own.

Later in the year, TRI-M hosted their part of the Coffee House on Friday, April 23 via Youtube live. With 460 views, the virtual Coffee House was certainly a hit this time around.

“We really weren’t sure if we could do this Coffee House, but through the hard work of Tri-M, the talent of so many amazing performers, and the magic of iMovie, we were able to pull it off as amazing as ever,” TRI-M vice president Shaan Desai said.

With the tremendous effort put forth by NAHS and TRI-M, the first two virtual Coffee Houses were a success. Hopefully, with the weather warming up, TRI-M and NAHS are planning to collaborate for an outdoor Coffee House either in late May or early June.