The Foggos

In the beginning of the year, some of my friends and I could not join the school's official a capella group due to scheduling conflicts. So one night, we decided that we should just start our own. What started out as a fun activity for us, however, became much more serious after performing at a school open mic.

After so many of our peers encouraged us to perform more often, we wondered whether or not we should extend our audience to the community of Abu Dhabi. Of course, because all of us were freshmen, we had no idea how to connect to the world outside the "Saadiyat bubble."

Fortunately, off campus opportunities for performances emerged, so we took our chances as soon as we could. We created an official name for the group called "The Foggos" (how we came up with that is a long story indeed), and last weekend, we had our first debut performance in the city of Abu Dhabi!

On Friday night, we volunteered at a Christmas market event hosted by Feline Friends, an organization that helps street cats found in Abu Dhabi. We performed three pieces: "For the Longest Time", "Don't Worry, Be Happy", and "Stand By Me". On Saturday night, we performed at Al Gusto, an Italian restaurant at the Etihad Towers, for an hour. In addition to these three songs, we sang five more songs as solos and duets.

Although my entire weekend was consumed by late night performances and all day practices, it was by far one of the highlights of my experience at NYUAD. What made me so excited about it is that we as freshmen were able to create something that we wanted to do by ourselves. That feeling of accomplishment is indescribable.

Stay tuned for more updates on The Foggos! Perhaps we will continue next semester. With thanks to Aygul and Emma T. for capturing this wonderful experience, here is a slideshow of some photos taken at the events: