CASA is run by a very dedicated team of a cappella enthusiasts:

Julia Hoffman 
President
Director of CARAwards

Dr. Julia Hoffman started her a cappella career as a member, and later director, of the Stanford Harmonics. She served as the West Region Producer for the International Championship of Collegiate A cappella (ICCA) for two years and has sat on CASA's Board of Directors for six years. During this time, she has also served as the Director of the Contemporary A Cappella Recording Awards (CARAs).

Julia has coordinated the A Cappella Community Awards (ACAs), produced the Sing! compilation, judged numerous collegiate and professional a cappella shows including the semi-finals and finals of the ICCA, taught classes and workshops to a cappella singers and enthusiasts of all types, and been featured on Best of College A Cappella (BOCA) albums as both a singer and an arranger.

 Deke Sharon
Founder
Vice President
Contemporary A cappella League Executive Director

Deke Sharon has been singing a cappella since the age of five and spent his formative years with one foot in traditional choral idioms (church choir, San Francisco Boys' Chorus, madrigal groups, barbershop quartets) and the other in rock bands. The two came together during his tenure as music director of the Tufts Beelzebubs, and he formed CASA in hopes of creating a community of like-minded acappellaheads.

Often called the "father of contemporary a cappella", Deke has played a prominent and influential role in the formation of CASA's many outreach programs. Most recently, he founded the Contemporary A Cappella League (CAL), a national network of a cappella groups for post-collegiate and adult singers.

Deke founded and has been singing in the vocal rock band The House Jacks since 1991. The group has produced seven full-length albums and completed multiple world tours. He most recently worked behind the scenes on NBC's a cappella competition reality show, The Sing Off".

Steve Ryan
Treasurer

Steve Ryan got his first taste of the a cappella experience as a performer with the Georgia Tech Sympathetic Vibrations, starting in 2004.  By the time Georgia Tech was finished with him, he had started (and eventually finished) the group's second CD project, and founded a new multi-cultural vocal group dedicated to a fusion of various global musical styles.  Steve continues to work closely with a cappella groups in the Metro-Atlanta area and around the southeast as a studio engineer, live sound engineer, and general consultant.

In 2008, Steve started volunteering with the SoJam production team to make the event bigger and better than ever, and is excited about working directly with CASA to promote the performance and appreciation of contemporary a cappella.  He'll be acting as the Treasurer and continuing to work on the SoJam Festival each year.

Stefanie Chase
Secretary

Stefanie has had extensive involvement in the vocal music world.  She began singing as a baby, to alert her family to remove her from her crib (hey, it beats crying and screaming) and joined the Cherub Choir at church at age four, and continued singing throughout her youth.  She graduated from Carthage College where she sang in both the women's choir and the Carthage Choir, supposedly the second oldest touring choir in the United States. While at Carthage, she minored in Vocal Music Performance and was active in the music fraternity, Lambda Kappa.

Stefanie loves to sing but equally enjoys working behind the scenes to produce and promote great shows.  She booked many a cappella acts to perform at her college and, since graduating, has publicized, promoted and helped numerous a cappella acts (Sean Altman, The Bobs, Da Vinci's Notebook, Minimum Wage, Kid Beyond, and Duwende, to name a few) book shows in the NYC area.  She served previously as CASA's Co-Ambassador Coordinator, and Membership Director, has been a CARA judge for the last 3 years, and has coordinated the merchandise sales at both SoJam and the East Coast Summit.

Stefanie loves turkey bacon, despises mushrooms and the song "Celebration" by Kool & The Gang, and currently resides in Northern Virginia, where she spends her days working with IP attorneys in DC.

Amanda Aldag 
Director of Integrated Technologies

Born and raised in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Amanda started her a cappella career as musical director of Special K at Hamilton College. After graduation she moved to rural Japan for 4 years where she founded, trained and performed with an international a cappella group called the Amigos. Since moving the the DC area in 2005, Amanda has founded and performs with Euphonism (CAL) and Snowday, a group that primarily provides a cappella educational programs in the Mid-Atlantic. She has served as a CARA nominator and written numerous arrangments for groups around the world.

Joe Antonioli
Director of Integrated Technologies

Joe Antonioli started performing a cappella in 1992 with the University of Vermont Top Cats. After college, he started two summer high school groups, Vermont's Own Class Act, and Vermont Velvet. He is one of the founders of Random Association, and is currently performing with Root7.

In 2002, with Marisa Debowsky and Philippe Charles, Joe started the Vermont A Cappella Summit. This event is currently hosted at Middlebury College, where Joe teaches and supports media technologies. Joe joined CASA in 1996 as the Vermont Ambassador, and since then has taken on many roles, including a term as President.  He is currently sitting on the Board as the Director of Integrated Technologies.

Shane Ardell
Shane began arranging music at an early age and ventured into arranging a cappella music at the age of 16.  She started her contemporary a cappella career at Georgia Tech as a performer, arranger, and eventual president of the all female group, Nothin' but Treble.  While still in college, she also began singing in a rock/gospel semi-professional group, Breakdown, in Atlanta.

Shane continues to arrange and coach groups as well as judge for the ICCAs.  She also helps to maintain acaspot.com, an online a cappella group management tool that stemmed out of Georgia Tech. An engineer at heart, Shane spends her days as a marketing consultant and project manager for a web application design and development firm.

Alli Brooks
SoJam Executive Director

Alli Brooks is a recent graduate of Florida State University and a former member of three-time ICCA South Champion group, All-Night Yahtzee. She served as the group's business manager from 2006-2008, during which time the group was named First Runner-Up at the ICCA finals in New York City.

In 2008 Alli was named Creative Director for the Alliance for A Cappella Initiatives (AACI). She has served as the Executive Producer for SoJam A Cappella Festival for the past two years, and was elected to the CASA Board of Directors in 2009. She also works as a commission artist and, someday, might even have a real website to back that up. In her spare time, Alli enjoys telling jokes. She probably knows more jokes than anyone you know.

Chris Crawford
Director of Marketing

Chris Crawford entered the a cappella world in 2007 when he founded Acquire A Cappella at UC Santa Cruz. In addition to the musical direction of the group, he created a business team of non-singers called the “Street Team,” that runs all events, marketing, and communications.

Crawford obtained his business training from 4 years of interning in the Public Relations and iTunes Promotions departments of Apple, Inc. While a double major in music and business, he was the Apple campus rep and a peer advisor for all the student organizations. Musical training was received from the Grace Cathedral Choir of Men and Boys and the Pacific Boychoir Academy with whom he has toured internationally.

In 2009, Crawford founded A Cappella Records (ACR), the first all-digital a cappella record label. Now it’s easy for a cappella groups to digitally distribute their music internationally with complete legal protection.

Christopher Diaz
Public Relations Director

Christopher Diaz, a graduate of the Florida State University, spent three years as the music director of FSU's All-Night Yahtzee. During that time, he led the group to three consecutive appearances at the ICCA Finals as the South Region Champions, culminating in a second place finish at the 2008 finals. While directing Yahtzee, he co-produced two albums, Minor Adjustments (which won an AcaTunes award in 2007) and 17, and was nominated for the Best Mixed Collegiate Arrangement CARA in 2008 for "Missing the War". Christopher also served as the president of the FSU University Singers and vice president of the Student Opera Organization and performed in numerous FSU and community opera and theater productions.

In 2008, Christopher began working with the Alliance for A Cappella Initiatives as the Scholastic Coordinator and has served as the Competition Director, as well as a clinician, coach, and producer at SoJam 2008 and 2009. In 2009, he joined CASA as the Ambassador Program Director and co-founded Mouth Off, a weekly podcast dedicated to contemporary a cappella music with Dave Brown. He currently lives in Charleston, South Carolina where he works as an actor and teacher with Charleston Stage Company. He is a CARA nominator/judge, ICCA judge/producer, and freelance arranger, clinician, and soloist who loves Velveeta Shells & Cheese perhaps too much and hates most of Alli Brooks' jokes.

Matt Emery
Membership Director

Matt started singing as a small child shortly after he learned to talk.  He did not participate in a formal group, however, until his matriculation to Duke University, where he joined both Rhythm & Blue and the University's Chorale. It was during Matt's time as musical director of RnB (2005-2007) that the group attained its first exposure on the national level, garnering four CARA nominations (with two Runner-Up awards) and three compilation appearances, including back-to-back BOCA nods in 2007 and 2008. He has arranged over twenty-five songs for the group, including several since his graduation in 2007.

Matt served as CASA's Public Relations Director last year and has been instrumental in both the production of two Sing albums and the success of SoJam 2008 and 2009. In fact, he spends so much of his spare time working to promote CASA and its programs that he has yet to get involved in a singing group after graduating from college. Ah, irony.

You can follow Matt on Twitter or Facebook, shoot him an email, or check out the CASA Twitter (@ACappellaNow), which he updates regularly with the latest in a cappella news, musings, and events.

Ariel Glassman
Director of Fundraising

Ariel is a lifelong musician and an a cappella singer and fan for the last nine years. She began singing with the Stanford Harmonics in college from 2001-2004, and then with Boston pop/rock vocal band Downtown Crossing for three years and  Seattle-based alternative/electronic-influenced vocal band Elegant Catastrophe Singers for two years. Ariel is a 4-time ICCA judge, a 6-time CARA nominator and 4-time CARA judge, and has been featured as a solo vocalist in the SING series. As a board member, Ariel lends CASA her expertise in fundraising and nonprofit management. In her non-a cappella life, she is the director of development at On the Boards, a nonprofit contemporary performing arts organization in Seattle.

Bill Hare
Director of CASA Archives

Bill Hare has been a full-time recording engineer/producer for 25 years, and has specialized in contemporary a cappella production since 1989. Over the last twenty years, Bill has recorded and/or mixed acclaimed albums for some of the best contemporary a cappella groups around the globe, including England's Flying Pickets, Swingle Singers and Voces8, Denmark's Basix, Norway's Apes & Babes, Italy's Cluster, The Ghost Files, and Maybe6ix, as well as working with many top American acts including +4dB, Duwende, Hookslide, Moosebutter, and The House Jacks.

Collegiate A Cappella clients include The Beelzebubs, Divisi, and about 70 others. Bill is the world’s most awarded individual contemporary a cappella producer, including over 45 appearances on BOCA, over 100 CARA nominations, over 30 albums in the RARB "Picks of the Year" lists, and 11 "DeeBee" awards since 1987 in the Vocal Jazz category from Downbeat Magazine.

For more information, visit Bill’s website – www.dyz.com.

Mark Hines

Mark Hines caught the a cappella bug in 1998 when he joined the NCSU Grains of Time. Since then, he has produced numerous award-winning albums, judged a handful of ICCA events, taken part in the SING series selection process, performed on the SoJam stage, and even served as Executive Producer of SoJam (the first to have the title), among other notable achievements.

TeKay (Thomas) King
Director of the Ambassador Program

TeKay was one of the first ambassadors for CASA back in the early '90s. He's a member of Contemporary A Capella League group DeltaCappella and served as a CAL-rep for SoJam. He's been a RARB reviewer for several years and is one of the sing series producers. Previously, he served on the Board of Directors for the Alliance of A Cappella Initiatives as a jack-of-all-trades and the Executive Producer of the Sing series of recordings. He was the Associate Editor of the Contemporary A Cappella News magazine for more than a decade and was the South Regional Producer of the ICCA from 1998-2004.

Amy Malkoff
Director of Web Content

Involved in a cappella since college (Kenyon College), Amy Malkoff is a founding member and bandleader of the award-winning pop-funk vocal band All About Buford, and she has appeared on stage and in the studio with such luminaries as Wayne Brady, Jonatha Brooke, The Persuasions, Ellis Paul, Vance Gilbert, GrooveLily, Patty Griffin, and Dar Williams. She has a degree in music from Kenyon College, with music studies at Youngstown State University and masters-level coursework at the New England Conservatory of Music.

Amy is a Certified Adjudicator and Producer for the International Championships of Collegiate and High School A Cappella,  and was the launching editor-in-chief of CASA's website.  She is as a writer and designer (www.amymalkoff.com), as well as a solo singer/songwriter. Amy's music has appeared on both the Rounder Records and Hear Music/Starbucks labels (www.amymalkoff.com/harmony).

Ross Morey
Volunteer Director

Ross Morey began singing with the Ragazzi Boys Chorus when he was six years old, and he hasn't stopped since.

Ross is the founding Executive Director of the Los Angeles A Cappella Festival (LA/AF) and founder of Bruin Harmony, UCLA’s all-male a cappella group.  Since its inception, Bruin Harmony has performed in venues across California and won awards, including the UCLA Prytanean Alumnae Award for Best A Cappella Group in 2007.

Currently, Ross is the Vice President of Communications at A Cappella Records, the first all-digital record label for a cappella music.

Amanda Roeder
Since 2002, Amanda Roeder has served as the Director of Choral Music at Marblehead High School in Marblehead, MA. There she directs two choirs and a growing a cappella program which includes the award-winning Jewel Tones and Luminescence, the Grizzly Freakin’ Man Singers, and a faculty group.  As a festival adjudicator, freelance flutist, and district board member of the Massachusetts Music Educators’ Association, Amanda has a passion for collaboration with like-minded colleagues – but her heart and home are in Marblehead, where she believes that the chorus room is a place for everyone.

Dave Sperandio
Director of Festivals and Events

Dave Sperandio, or "Dio" as he is sometimes called, has been working with a cappella music for 18 years as a performer, producer, and engineer, with work appearing on scores of CDs for clients from around the globe. After  founding the a cappella production company diovoce in 2000, Dave founded the not for profit Alliance for A Cappella Initiatives (AACI) in 2003 and created both the SoJam A Cappella Festival and the Sing! vocal compilation CD as the organization's first endeavors. He has performed with numerous ensembles, directed the UNC Clef Hangers, and has toured and recorded with Vocal Tonic, Transit, and Almost Recess. 

In 2006 Dave partnered with several fellow producers to form VocalSource, which represents the largest and most comprehensive network of vocal music studios in the world.

In 2008 Dave merged the AACI with CASA and joined CASA's Board as Director of Events as well as Secretary, managing SoJam, ECS, and a growing network of CASA festivals and events around the world.

In 2009 the SoJam festival had it's most successful year to-date, and Dave and his team forged partnerships between CASA and several other vocal-centric events, inlcuding the Los Angeles A Cappella Festival.  Dave is excited to continue to help the development and growth of a cappella music through events like SoJam, LAAF, and others, and is pursuing plans to team CASA with even more events in 2010.

Ben Stevens
Director of CASAcademy and the Essential Listening program
SoJam Educational Officer

Since 2003 Ben has been Coordinator of the Recorded A Cappella Review Board (RARB), where he reviewed from 1997-2003. He is a Certified Adjudicator for the International Championships of Collegiate and High School A Cappella and nominates and judges for the Contemporary A Cappella Recording Awards (CARAs).

Ben has performed with groups in Portland, OR (Seven Deadly Sins, Reed College); Chicago (Harmony 8 / Ransom Notes, University of Chicago); and Boulder, CO (Extreme Measures, CU-Boulder), and regularly offers
workshops on vocal percussion (most recently at the sixth annual SoJam!). At Bard College, where he is Assistant Professor of Classical Studies, he advises a student group, the Orcapelicans.

Prior to Bard, Ben taught at the University of Chicago, the George Washington University, the Catholic University of America, and the University of Colorado-Boulder, where he continues to teach each summer. His academic interests include ancient languages and comparative literature; linguistics and semiotics; science fiction and
graphic literature; and Roman history.

Chris Tess
Tunes To Teens Director

Chris Tess has been on the CASA Board of Directors since 2003, when he created Tunes To Teens, a CASA program that sends donated a cappella CDs to junior high and high school choruses. He also created the
A Cappella Originals Podcast / mp3 Library and the CASA Videos page.

Chris received his undergraduate education at Washington University in St. Louis, where he sang with the Pikers, as well as several other vocal ensembles. He also created and directed the Notochords at St. Louis U. School of Medicine, and sang in and wrote for MACH 1. More recently, Chris sang in Redline, a CASA League group. In 1993 he co-founded the Recorded A Cappella Review Board (RARB) and headed that up until 2004. He has served on multiple occasions as a judge for the CARAs and the NCCAs/ICCAs.

In his spare time, Chris is a doctor.

Austin Willacy 
Austin is a veteran member of the vocal rock band The House Jacks with whom he has produced seven full-length albums and completed multiple world tours. For the past 12 years, Austin has directed ‘Til Dawn, Youth in Arts’ award-winning teen a cappella group. He was just awarded an Avanti Award, with an attached 3-year grant, to help him continue his work in teen a cappella.
 
Austin is also a touring singer/songwriter with 4 CDs to his credit.  His music has been featured on “The Sing Off”, “Road Rules” and on three feature film soundtracks. He’s appeared in Rolling Stone and has performed with icons such as Bonnie Raitt, Ray Charles and James Brown and rising stars like Jem, Vienna Teng, Rachael Yamagata and Amos Lee.
 
Austin has contributed dozens of vocals to the Guitar Hero & Karaoke Revolution video game series (including Queen, Jay-Z, Billy Joel, Boy George, Stevie Wonder, The Bee Gees, Maroon 5, Michael Jackson and more!).
 
Austin Willacy started singing his senior year of high school. After one year in his high school chorus (and getting a taste of a cappella through singing “Vive L’Amour" in a barbershop octet) he went to college and immediately joined the Dartmouth Aires.