If you’d like a chance to get to know the people living in our house (that being the CASA board, ambassadors, volunteers, and many of the people involved in the a cappella community) in person, there’s no better time or place than the East Coast A Cappella Summit, happening this year in New York State (Oswego) on March 17-19. There’s going to be great music, great workshops, and a great time all around. Keep an eye on this web site for more information in the coming weeks.
We’re hoping not only to increase our staff, but also our membership, by ramping up the benefits to CASA members. We have a few more discounts to offer our Patron members ($100 a year): 5% off services with vocomotion.com, 5% off services with diovoce.com, 5% off services with liquid5th.com, and $10 off a weekend pass to SoJam (coming Fall 2006). Those discounts alone can save you hundreds of dollars, and of course that’s just the beginning. Peep the membership pages for more info.
I’ve got my hands full with my various Presidential duties (attending head-of-state weddings, getting a haircut as the CASA jumbo jet blocks air traffic), so I’ve handed off responsibility for the arranging column to the lovely and talented Julie Moffitt. Julie’s one of the most prolific arranger on staff at the Ultimate A Cappella Arranging Service, and you might have heard her sing, arrange, and compose the first original song ever included on BOCA: “Drive Me Crazy” (track 3 on BOCA 2002). She’s also an accomplished singer-songwriter and author. Her first column of many will be up here soon.
If you haven’t taken the time to fill out your complete profile here on casa.org, I suggest you do! Freddie’s added a couple new fields (e.g. skype name), and the more info you list, the better you feel, so why not have beans for every meal? Sorry. Got a 5 year old at home.
Also, make sure to include a photo in your profile, as it’ll automatically add you to the CASA facebook, and have you appear at the bottom of pages on casa.org. One of our core missions is to build community, and those lovely mugs I see every day reinforce what a wonderful, diverse international community we are.
One last thought: I’m at Colorado College this week, working with the Back Row, a young group hard at work to create a great debut album. It’s invigorating to see such focus and devotion from a group, especially their founders Ian Goldstein and Ford Kerr. These guys wake up at 6am to edit last night’s solo tracks, discuss the appropriateness of technology and noticeable effects over breakfast, rally with their group to run over a section at 10am while writing a new bridge to one of their arrangements, and so on until 2 in the morning, only to repeat it the next day.
It’s this same energy that drives contemporary a cappella at all levels. None of us are getting rich or famous. We make music because we love it, and we find something special in using our voices in harmony with others. If you happen to have some of this energy and need somewhere to focus it, please read paragraph three above again. We’d love to have you help build our house.
Click on the wrench in the upper left-hand corner to see what else you can do.