With the holiday season upon us, Columbia students find themselves facing serious decisions—what to do over Christmas break, which finals to study for, what type of alcohol to add to their eggnog, and of course, which of the increasingly frequent a cappella concerts to attend.
Columbia’s campus is home to several active a cappella groups—with only so much time to avoid those end-of-term papers, it is almost impossible to attend every concert. But it is a common campus misconception that if you’ve seen one a cappella group on campus, you’ve seen them all.
Anne Epstein, BC ’09, of Nonsequitur, a coed a cappella group that prides itself on its dedication to the music, described the group’s greatest trait as being able to “take a certain song and push it into something new.” Nonseq, as it is called by more dedicated fans, always offers a broad range of songs and adds a new life to the music whether it is through the incredible talent of their group members, the fresh arrangements of well-known tunes, or attempts to “imitate Britney Spears’ choreography.” “We’re not really trying to fool anybody, we know that a cappella isn’t particularly cool,” Epstein explained, but that doesn’t stop them from “trying to do everything we can to make them [our audiences] happy.”
Notes and Keys, another coed a cappella group, reaches out to audiences in a different way. “We try to make a cappella acceptable for those who are not in the performing arts fold,” explained Alexandra Voute, CC ’09 and president of Notes and Keys, also accepting the fact that a cappella concerts aren’t necessarily the coolest events on campus. “We like to have themes for our concerts to make it more fun for people who aren’t necessarily into a cappella.” Notes and Keys is also rather well-rehearsed. They perform at least once a week either on campus or downtown for professional gigs. “We try to have fun, obviously that’s the whole point, but we are pretty focused,” said Voute. The group does have a certain professional dedication, but as Voute observed, “we really love each other, which makes things pretty easy most of the
time.”
The Kingsmen, the only all-male group on campus, definitely focuses more on personality than the other groups and exhibits its enthusiasm at concerts. “To be perfectly honest,” Jack Cantrell, CC ’09 said, “I don’t think we really compare ourselves to other [a cappella} groups just because we are totally different ... We are known for drinking Rolling Rocks while we perform,” he continued. “Our humor is often irreverent and intended to shock a little bit.” Even the posters for the group’s concerts are meant to stand out more than the publicity for other groups. “We put up obnoxious, fluorescent-colored posters that have jokes on them,” Cantrell said. “We recycle a lot of the same jokes on our posters, but we try to come up with a lot of relevant material each semester that pokes fun at things that have happened on campus, in pop culture, or in politics.”
The Kingsmen also strive to make the concert performances more fun than other groups. Whatever “eases the mood and lets everyone have a good time,” he explained. “The original Kingsmen songs we perform cover everything from college binge drinking to sex. At the end of the day, they all have punch lines that people can enjoy.”
The Kingsmen try to add irreverent comedy to their concerts, but they are also the oldest traditional a cappella group on campus—yet they “do a lot more traditional doo-wop music.” Describing what makes their concerts special, Cantrell cited the importance of having “a good time on stage and to joke around a good bit, because at the end of the day, that’s what’s going to encourage the audience to have a good time.”
Metrotones, Columbia’s all-female a cappella group, is performing in their final concert of the semester this Saturday, Dec. 6 at 5 P.M. in Lerner 555. The Kingsmen will be performing Saturday at 9 P.M. in Rennert Hall in the basement of the Hillel building. Nonsequitur’s winter concert is Sunday at 8 P.M. in Earl Hall.
And no matter which concerts you choose to attend in the upcoming week, remember—Bailey’s is always delicious in eggnog.
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