All kinds of love were in the air — romantic, platonic, harmonic, melodic — as varsity choir students got ready for their yearly Singing Valentines event.

The Singing Valentines has been a Bellaire tradition for over two decades and has continued with the arrival of choir director Amy Solberg Odiase.

“This is my 21st year at Bellaire,” Odiase said. “Singing Valentines has been a varsity choir project since before I was the director here. We have generally maintained the same traditions for Valentines — the only major change has been a few of the song choices. For example, we added more current and popular songs, such as ’The Glue Song’ and ‘Beautiful Girl.’”

Senior Juliette Nahman is particularly excited about the addition of “The Glue Song” by beabadoobee. This is her second year in choir and her first-ever time performing in the Singing Valentines event, as only members of the varsity choir are able to participate.

“I think that Singing Valentines makes me feel a bit embarrassed, but I also think it’s really cute and festive,” Nahman said. “We’re all wearing pink and red, and the harmonies are really pretty.”

According to Nahman, the rehearsal schedule is “intense,” but “very well structured.” Given that choir has multiple projects occurring simultaneously, students balance practice for multiple events using designated days in their rehearsal schedule.

“We have a day for Singing Valentines rehearsal, but we’re also doing UIL (Universal Interscholastic League),” Nahman said. “Wednesdays are split days, and then we have two-hour rehearsals after school on Mondays, when we also learn the dances. Monday night rehearsals are not great, because they’re really long, but chill, and everyone keeps civilized and happy during them. I will say, though, that these rehearsal processes are more strict than theatre.”

The Singing Valentines set list features 12 songs (“My Guy,” “L-O-V-E,” “I’m Yours,” “You’re the One that I Want,” “The Glue Song,” “Count on Me,” “My Girl,” “Longest Time,” “Beautiful Girl,” “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” “Sh-Boom (Life Could be a Dream)” and “Isn’t She Lovely”). Some songs are new, while many others are much older, like “You’re the One That I Want” from the musical “Grease” and “Isn’t She Lovely” by Stevie Wonder, both of which were written in the ‘70s.

In choir, there are special pre-performance rituals to help relieve nerves and establish a sense of unity and groundedness that the choir as a whole partakes in, as well as rituals Nahman prefers to conduct individually.

“We do devotions before concerts — a couple people give speeches, and it’s really sad and sappy,” Nahman said. “People are always crying — mostly senior officers and Ms. Odiase. We always get lemon drops before going on, too. But for me personally, it’s really not that nerve-racking.”

With a very large choir and a much larger student body, Choir President Carlos Mata says organizing the singers into classes and groups to perform is not an easy task. Mata assists with leading and conducting during Valentine’s rehearsals each Friday.

“Even though we’re a full tenor-bass choir, we split into two groups since there’s a lot of Valentines we’re expecting. ” Mata said. “We sing through all the songs, then redo it and redo it again to make sure we got everything down, everything sounds connected and no one is overpowering anybody else.”

The day before Singing Valentines are distributed, choir officers organize forms and prepare schedules to simplify the process.

“Any form we have, every online form, everything — we’re going to put it all together in one sheet, then we’ll divide and conquer to set up the groups, how many songs you’re singing for each period, what songs, what classes,” Mata said. “We try and organize it so we can have classes near each other to make it easier.”

On the day of, students spend the day moving throughout the school so each Valentine makes it to its recipient.

“On performance day, I stay in the choir room in case an issue arises while the groups are performing around the school,” Odiase said. “The students have a list of who they are singing to, created from a spreadsheet of the approximately 150 in-person Valentines sold. They sing 10 to 12 in-person Valentines each period, as well as an additional 200 phone Valentines spread out over the course of the day. Each group has their own list, primarily divided by area of the school.”

With House Bill 1481 in effect as of July 31, 2025, choir leaders have been “forced” to find new solutions to follow through with Singing Valentines over the phone. Eventually, a compromise was reached with Bellaire’s faculty.

“We did talk to Mr. Niggli about it,” Mata said, “He’s going to let us borrow some of the Bellaire High School landlines, so we’ll be calling them through the landlines.”

As Singing Valentines is such a large tradition, the choir puts an “incredible” amount of effort into marketing and advertising it in order to begin promptly in February.

“Starting February, we’re going to be marketing on Main Street,” Mata said. “When it becomes the week of, we usually go around and sing little snippets of the songs, then say ‘Buy Singing Valentines if you want to get one before they sell out!’”

Singing Valentines can be purchased through in-person flyers or the Bellaire Choir Instagram and will be distributed on Feb. 12.