A whiff of something good’s about to blow through Queenstown.
The United States’ oldest and most famous college a cappella singing group, The Whiffenpoofs are back for more show-stoppers at Lombardi Restaurant, Hotel St Moritz this Friday and Saturday night.
Each year ivy league university Yale selects 14 senior students with the best voices to be in The Whiffenpoofs, or ‘Whiffs’, for an extensive world tour.
Members can only be a Whiff for one year and take a sabbatical from studies between junior and senior years to fully commit to the tour.
Founded in 1909, The Whiffs began as a senior quartet that met weekly at the venerable Mory’s Temple Bar next to the university’s New Haven campus.
The name comes from a popular play in the late 1800s which featured a mythical dragonfish called the Whiffenpoof, who would jump out of the water and squawk when baited with food and drink.
Fitting, because the group started out singing for its supper at Mory’s, a tradition that carries on to this day with the group performing at the restaurant every Monday night when not on tour.
The student-run and funded group has gone on to become one of Yale’s most celebrated institutions and counts legendary US song writer and composer Cole Porter in its alumni.
The Queenstown shows — their only New Zealand gigs — are the final leg of a three-and-a-half month trot around the globe that has seen the Whiffs play more than 200 concerts across six continents.
The group is a resort regular, bringing a mix of old Yale tunes, jazz standards and other hits from across the decades to Hotel St Moritz every year since 2002, apart from the Covid lockdowns in 2020 and ’21.
Class of 2023 Whiff Adrian Kyle Venzon tells Mountain Scene he and his fellow singers can’t wait to see the Basin’s ‘‘beautiful sights’’ and get amongst some skydiving and bungy jumping while here.
The 21-year-old bass from Las Vegas will get back to his English and education studies degree when he returns to Yale after the Queenstown shows.
‘‘We’ve been looking forward to coming to NZ all year.
‘‘It marks the end of our world tour and the end of our Whiffenpoofs journey as a whole, so it’ll be a bitter-sweet experience for sure.
‘‘We hope to go out with a bang.’’
Just what bangers they will be going out with is not certain at this stage with each setlist not decided until an hour before a show.
But Venzen says audiences can bank on one or two of their staples: Midnight Train to Georgia, Operator, House of the Rising Sun or Got to Get You Into My Life to get a run.
Hotel St Moritz GM Jo Finnigan says the Whiffs are a ‘‘special highlight’’ of the venue’s calendar.
‘‘Because each cohort is a set of new fresh faced Yale undergrads, their enthusiasm for Queenstown is always infectious — even though they’re a familiar fixture at St Moritz.’’
All proceeds raised from ticket sales will be donated to Wakatipu High School Foundation to support their 2023 programmes.
The Whiffenpoofs after-dinner supper and song from 9pm at Lombardi Restaurant, Hotel St Moritz August 10 and 11, bookings via stmoritz.co.nz
