KEEPINTOUCH
DIRECTING&ARRANGING
Zoe Renelda is a vastly experienced Music Director and Arranger. She has created arrangements for collegiate all-female, all-male, and co-ed acapella groups, as well as high school all-female and co-ed acapella ensembles. Zoe Renelda's arrangements cover a wide range of genres, including jazz, pop, R&B, country, religious, musical theater, and Christmas classics. For arranging rates, please click here.
NOTE-ORIETY
There are superlatives aplenty on the album. The fantastic singing enhances great arrangements . . . Bang Bang is probably the best track on the album, with everything coalescing into a great product. My sentimental favorite is Not Ready to Make Nice . . . And the duo of Zoe-Elizabeth McCray and Michelle Magee on both Stay/What Now and the first sections of Pretty Hurts are the epitome of that ugly singing commitment.
This album is worth buying for Bang Bang alone . . . I encourage the group to consider why some tracks here work better than others. Arrangements are part of it - group director Zoe McCray arranged Bang Bang, Pretty Hurts, and co-arranged Stay/What Now, while A Little Party Never Killed Nobody was provided by Shams Ahmed - but there's also a sense of ownership and intention to these songs.
PRETTYHURTS
The harmonies on Pretty Hurts are outstanding; the combination of Zoe-Elizabeth McCray, Michelle Magee, and Rachel Belleman is gorgeous. There are times when these three truly sound like one voice together.
Not only is their rendition beautifully sung and arranged, their accompanying video is a powerful look at society's quest for perfection.
In a gorgeous, aesthetically-pleasing video by James Madison University's a cappella group Note-Oriety, the all-female singers perform a stunning rendition of Beyonce's emotional song.
During her time at James Madison University, Zoe Renelda was the JMU Note-Oriety Music Director, arranging over a dozen of the acapella group's songs.
In 2016, her arrangement of Bang Bang on JMU Note-Oriety's self-titled album won "Collegiate Female Song of the Year" at the National Acapella CARA Awards in Boston, MA. Zoe was named runner-up for "Arranger of the Year" for this arrangement. She was featured on the Recorded Acapella Review Board website for her arrangements:
a concert by Sopranessence
December 9th at 3:00 PM
The United Baptist Church
Annadale, Virginia
December 17th at 3:00 PM
Cherrydale United Methodist Church
Arlington, Virginia