By now you likely know the esteemed panel of judges, comprised (alphabetically) of Warren Bloom, Barry Carl, Simon Carrington, Peter Hollens, and Steve Jamison awarded the title to BYU’s Vocal Point, with Oxford University’s Out of the Blue placing second and Univerity of Illinois’ Other Guys coming in third.
Say what you will, debate to your collective hearts’ content, but from my vantage point and to my ear, BYU won the thing hands down, no questions asked – all the more impressive given that the randomly selected performance order had them going on first. You may quibble with the style of music they performed – vocal jazz, though a personal fave of mine, might be considered “old school” or at least atypical for ICCAs – but their performances had everything one should look for in champion: technical and musical precision, choreography, humor, polish, style and flair. At the end of the day it’s about the music and no ensemble sang better that evening that Vocal Point, and that, combined with the fabulous show they put on in just 12 minutes, made them deserving winners.
The chatterati have already noted that perhaps Out of the Blue were surprise runners-up and indeed, my personal voting tally had them swapped with the Other Guys for 2nd and 3rd place. Had the Other Guys skipped their middle song, Coldplay’s “Fix Me”, which was performed quite differently and noticeably better (and more in tune) by USC later in the evening, their 2nd place finish might have been more obvious. Opening with “Sex Bomb” and concluding with a strong solo and plenty of attitude on “Fat Bottomed Girls”, though, they had the audience eating out of the palms of their hands.
The Other Guys took me back to my Glee Club days, but we at Penn should have been so lucky to have their combination of voices and feet. Their cover of The Acoustix “Tonight” was arguably the best sung piece of the entire evening and their Beatles medley of nine songs was priceless in both its musicality and its wonderfully literal-minded choreography.
As for the best of the rest, the judges’ special awards for choreography (also Vocal Point), VP (the inexhaustible Baraka May from USC on “Fix You”), solo (a deserving tie between MIT’s Prathima Nandivada on Alicia Keys’ “If I Ain’t Got You” and FSU’s Christopher Diaz’s gorgeous “Chariot”) and arrangement (McGill’s Andrew Mangal for “Butterfly”) pretty much sum up the highest of the highlights.
If there was a disappointment, it was in the prevalence of poor tuning in the background vocals in many of the groups. Rutgers’ Shockwave is to be commended for making the finals in only their 2nd year, but their energy couldn’t mask intonation issues that one would hope not to see at this level. Dittto for the MIT Chorallaries, representing one of the country’s strongest regions whose “Drift or Die” and “New York, New York” were more attitude than first-rate music-making. FSU’s “All Night Yahtzee” were at the opposite end of the spectrum with virtually no movement and overdone repertoire choices in “Ironic” and a very pitchy “Kiss From a Rose”, while McGill’s Effusion only really hit their stride with their finale “Joyful, Joyful Lord We Adore Thee” from (the movie) Sister Act 2, which followed an exceedingly mellow “Dear Prudence” and “Butterfly”.
One other recurring thought about mic placement kept hitting home: it’s a tricky issue at the ICCAs, and many groups – USC’s Reverse Osmosis in particular, whose formations on “Sugar We’re Going Down”, “I Would Do Anything for Love” and the aforementioned “Fix Me”, were ceaselessly inventive but not always amplification-friendly despite their 18-strong ranks – would have done better to more carefully consider in advance their positioning vis-à-vis the mics and the inherent limitations they would face in using a sound system that needs to accommodate eight different groups.
But all in all, it was an absolutely marvelous evening, once again re-affirming – though it was likely never in doubt – that a cappella continues to thrive on college campuses nationally AND internationally, and the bar is constantly being raised. Just leaves me already incredibly excited for next year. To Don Gooding, Amanda Grish and everyone who puts the ICCAs together – a collective “Cheers!” and a toast to the next decade of ICCAs and beyond!
Elie Landau manages the Broadway production of "SPAMALOT" by day, is a partner in Ergo Entertainment by night, and remains an a cappella geek at all times. He sang with various groups at Penn and has reviewed for RARB since 2000. He can be reached via email at elie@ergoentertainment.com.
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