On February 14, Deerfield teachers, students, and faculty children performed in the annual winter Koch Friday Concert (KFC), which took place in the Koch Starfield. This year’s winter KFC, which coincided with Valentine’s Day, featured unique song choices and unexpected performances. One notable song included the Chinese III class’ rendition of “The Moon Represents My Heart,” a Chinese love song. Jennifer Luiru ’25, a member of Chinese III, said that her class chose this song to fit the theme of Valentine’s Day. To prepare for the performance, she said, “We utilized this app called Roxxem. It allowed us to learn way more lyrics and piece them together in a way which allowed for a learning experience.”
Fourteen years ago, Former Art Teacher David Dickinson and Former French Teacher Claudia Lyons organized the first Koch Friday Concert (KFC). Language Teacher Cheri Calcaterra volunteered to take over as KFC’s faculty advisor after both teachers’ retirements eight years ago. According to Ms. Calcaterra, audience enthusiasm for the tradition helps KFC represent “music, love, community, friendship, and support.” When the tradition began, the concerts typically featured around twenty acts and about eighteen students, which totaled to less than two hours of total runtime. However, spectators still attended the concerts to support their friends and the other members of the community. Due to its popularity and turnout, the initial winter KFC developed into an outdoor spring KFC in the Hess Lawn. Ms. Calcaterra stated, “This winter, KFC is the best turn-out I’ve ever seen [for winter KFCs]. We pretty much never fill the third floor, and we filled that.”
Luiru echoed Ms. Calcaterra’s statements regarding the community-building nature of KFC. She also believes that KFC fosters internal connections between performers. Her class had a meaningful experience bonding over “the joint embarrassment, which we all roll with.” Luiru was shocked about the number of people who watched and enjoyed her class’s performance. She further supports how KFC brings “some talent, some humor, and you get a variety of different languages presented at once. What enhances the whole experience is how much people enjoy our performance. I just like singing, singing with my class, and delivering a really silly love song to the whole school.”
Over the years, Calcaterra has noted that “each performance gets tighter” and “kids really work hard to perform a solid act.” In earlier events, kids would laugh and casually forget lines, which has happened less in recent performances. This winter’s KFC featured around thirty performances, which ran over two hours.
Although Luiru’s class originally performed for extra credit, later performances were organized voluntarily for pure entertainment. “We don’t know if that extra credit was ever given for our first KFC performance,” she said. “For the second [performance], I don’t think there was an extra credit involved. We did this out of the enjoyment of our class.”
While KFC usually does not take impromptu acts, they have a few exceptions. Ms. Calcaterra said, “If someone has signed up and they’re not there, and the next act isn’t ready yet, we’ll send someone in. That could be [Math Teacher Marc] Dancer or Vivian [Wan ’25] or Andy [Chen ’25].”
Another facet of KFC that excites Ms. Calcaterra is “seeing the stuff that I don’t anticipate.” For example, “The Dancing Boys” was also a unique performance spectacle at KFC because dance was not a traditional part of the event.
Looking toward future KFC events, Ms. Calcaterra would love to see “[more] faculty turn up with their kids. There are a great number that come, but I’d love to see more.” KFC tends to be more child-friendly than the typical structured music concert at Deerfield, which can be late at night. Ms. Calcaterra explains, “Kids at KFC just seems natural, like part of the family.” Finally, Ms. Calcaterra hopes that the audience takes away “a warm feeling, an admiration for their friends who are up there.”
