Ut Prosim through a cappella

During a typical evening rehearsal, a practice room at Squires Student Center is filled with harmonies as members of the Soulstice A Cappella group blend voices into layered sound. For Sabrina Suarez, those rehearsals are a space for bringing together her love for performing arts and building community. 

Suarez is a junior English major on the pre-law track with minors in philosophy and environmental policy and planning. Her love for reading, research and, especially, writing drew Suarez to the Department of English. She tried many other complements to her major when she first joined the Hokie Nation, such as music, political science, and environmental science.

“But English just never went away,” Suarez said.

Her academic path eventually centered on her passions for writing and law. She felt the skills gained through an English degree would build a strong foundation for any career path.

“If you learn to read and you learn to write, you learn how to understand the world, and I feel like that would give me a good foundation, especially for law school where you need to really understand how certain words can change the entire meaning of something,” Suarez said.

Suarez did not expect those same skills to also shape her leadership in Soulstice A Cappella at Virginia Tech. Her command of language and writing that she developed in her English classes now guides how she communicates with her fellow singers and builds partnerships with local patrons to help support the group.

“I want everybody to have their say, and everybody to have fun,” she said. “So, I think being able to organize information and speak and write in ways that are getting the message across in the exact way that I want it to be portrayed is a skill that I’ve really picked up from [English], and that’s been really useful in leadership.”

Suarez serves as vice president of Soulstice, where she puts her talents into practice by supporting the executive board, managing the group’s finances, and organizing fundraisers across Virginia Tech’s campus.

Suarez’s leadership responsibilities have grown even more this year. With the group’s president studying abroad this semester, Suarez has stepped in to help with administrative duties, such as coordinating the group’s upcoming events alongside the music director.

She also facilitates outreach with businesses in Blacksburg and Christiansburg to support the group's performances and recording projects. Her outreach efforts involve walking into local spots with a simple pitch: Support Soulstice’s concert raffles, and the group will promote the business.

“It generates business for [them], and it's really good for us since we're raising money,” Suarez said.

And Suarez’s work has paid off. Thanks to her fundraising efforts and careful financial planning, Soulstice is preparing to record a new album, with an especially long track list.

“At the end of last semester, we started deciding what songs we’re recording, and after looking at our bank account, I thought we could afford six or seven songs on this album…maybe eight or nine.” Suarez said. “Our last album had five songs on it, and it has been a couple years. Knowing that the fundraisers that we’ve been doing and all the financial decisions added up to the point where we could record 12 songs in two years, at minimum, is insane.”

For Suarez, this realization was proof that her service behind the scenes was making an enduring impact.

Recording music gives the members something lasting to carry with them beyond their time in Soulstice.

“We can sing all the time at Virginia Tech, and we can sing all the time in Blacksburg,” Suarez said, “but we’re able to put it on a platform where it's going to be alive forever, and anybody in the world can listen to that. In 10 years, I can go back and say, ‘I was on that album.’”

Singing has been a cornerstone in Suarez’s life since before her arrival at Virginia Tech in 2023. Now, paired with the communication and organizational skills she has gained as an English major, it has become more than a creative outlet. It’s become a way for her to give back and create a welcoming space where members feel at home both on and off the stage.

“Within Soulstice pretty much all the girls will tell you that Virginia Tech doesn't feel like home until you're in Soulstice rehearsal,” Suarez said. “I always walk out smiling at the end of day.” 

Written by Isabelle Boyd, a student majoring in professional and technical writing and psychology.