A Cappella

audiobliss

Well, I certainly had a great time last night! The ICCA semifinals were held at Wake Forest here last night, and a friend and I went to check it out.

If you're at all like me, you have NO CLUE what ICCA stands for; I didn't before last night. ICCA is the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella. So, a realm in which college a cappella groups can compete. I'm not sure exactly how big or popular it is, but the competitions are regional, with the finals being held in New York. Last night the 2008 semifinals were held here at Wake Forest.

Six different groups from colleges on the East coast competed, and I was really impressed with the overall quality of the whole performance.

I've always liked a cappella music, but never been an avid fan actively pursuing the genre. I was first introduced to the style through a Christian music group entitled Acappella and loved their music. So, I figured I'd enjoy the show last night - and I did!

The six competing groups were All-Night Yahtzee from Florida State University, DoubleTake from College of William and Mary, Faux Paz from University of Maryland, Spartones from University of North Carolina-Greensboro, The Madison Project from James Madison University, and No Southern Accent from University of Florida.

I've never been much of the artsy type, going to concerts, theaters, plays, musicals, etc. However, a few years ago I went to see a few Shakespeare plays and really enjoyed the experience. I'd put last night in the same category. Outside my realm of regular activities, but I'd LOVE for it to become more commonplace. It was awesome to hear so many great songs, interpreted and arranged by the groups.

The solo's and choreography were good, too. I hadn't anticipated there being much of the latter. But with most of the groups it was actually a large part of their performance. And with one group it seemed they focused on it a bit more than they did the singing!

I came away from the event with two CD's from different groups, and certainly wouldn't mind having a few more!


Anybody here enjoy a cappella music? I really like the harmony of a lot of voices coming together. I admit a lot of times it can get too busy and be annoying, but done right, it's awesome. And then the creative bass and 'vocal percussion' is usually quite interesting, as well.

Here are the MySpace pages for the 6 groups that performed so you can hear some of their songs:

The Madison Project
Faux Paz
All-Night Yahtzee
Spartones
DoubleTake
No Southern Accent

All-Night Yahtzee won the semifinals and so are going on to the finals in New York. It was pretty cool, because the whole row in front of us was full of parents from Florida State watching their children perform, and then they ended up winning. They were really good.

Actually, they were all really good, except for No Southern Accent. Of course I was prejudiced against them because of their title, but, I really didn't like their song selection. I'm sure they did them justice, but I just didn't like the songs.

George Grand

The Persuasions. A 5 man group when I saw them at Carnegie Hall in 1971. They warmed up for The Mothers and we did not boo them off the stage, in fact, we called them back for a bunch of encores. I believe they are still together but one recently died. I have a couple of their cd's and always liked the one they released (on vinyl) right after I saw them. Streetcorner Symphony.

audiobliss

Awesome, thanks for the info. I'll see if they have any videos on youtube.