If you want to see some of the best college a cappella singers in the world, look no further than College Park, Maryland.
The University of Maryland’s DaCadence A Cappella group will compete in the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella (ICCA) Finals this Saturday in New York City after winning the Mid-Atlantic Semifinals.
It’s their second straight trip to the big dance, best known for its portrayal in the “Pitch Perfect” movies, as the Top 10 international college a-cappella teams battle in a sing-off. The finals will be held at The Town Hall venue at 123 West 43rd Street, between Broadway and Sixth Avenue near Times Square in Midtown Manhattan.
“We have two more rehearsals, then Friday morning the team will take a bus up to New York City,” Christina Williams, the team president, told WTOP. “We’ve already got hotels to stay in New York. We’re gonna spend the first night exploring, we’re a group of friends, so we’re really excited to just hang out and goof off in the city, but then the next day is when we’re really going to lock in. We’ll be in the competition from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. It’s a long day.”
The 10-minute set list includes “Dance the Night Away” by Dua Lipa, “Misunderstood” by Banks and “First Light” by Hozier, all connected by a choir song called “Partita Allemande” by Caroline Shaw and a Roomful of Teeth.
“(A cappella is) making music without any instruments,” Choreographer Nicholas Orellana said. “Anything you hear in an EDM song, we have a beat boxer that does it, we have sopranos that make violin noises.”
Williams and Orellana lead a team of Tania Ghandour, Matthew Humphries, James Woodward, Sara Saidel, Kian Mostoufi, Vanshika Shah, Brigid Sax, Anish Bandaru, Jason Wang, Kasey Donaldson, Willa Foster, Sai Mandhan, Farrah Panzarella and Josh Qiu. They hail from Maryland, New York, Boston and other hometowns.
“I think we are the youngest co-ed a cappella team on the Maryland campus,” Williams said. “It was founded in 2010, I think it was just a group of people who wanted to sing together. That’s kind of what it still is, just a group of friends who enjoy making music together. … None of us in the group are actually music majors. All of us are various (disciplines), a lot of STEM kids, we’ve got comp-sci. Personally I’m an art and business major, I’m a double major.”
Orellana, who’s a marketing and analytics major, says the key is to juggle classwork and singing practice.
“It’s definitely a lot,” Orellana said. “It’s a pretty big time commitment. For example, for semifinals we dedicate our entire spring break just for rehearsals, just for prioritizing the set, so it just goes to show how much work it takes.”
The team has launched a GoFundMe campaign to help cover travel expenses, including food, gas, and housing. Any surplus funds will support the group’s future endeavors, including music videos, albums and merchandise.
“It’s a competition, yes, but we’re really going to have fun as a group,” Williams said. “We joined the group in the first place to make music together. When I joined, we weren’t even a competing team, we just decided in more recent years to compete, but we really just want to put something that we’re proud of on that stage and portray a message to the audience. Every audience we get to perform in front of is a gift.”
If you’d like to see them perform their acclaimed set locally, they will be performing it soon on campus at the Hoff Theater in the Stamp Student Union on May 9 at 7 p.m.
“As a senior, this is my last year in the group, so getting to connect with all of my best friends on a New York City Broadway stage is just indescribable,” Williams said. “Even if we don’t place, that literally doesn’t matter to me at all. I’m just so excited to perform this set, we’ve been working all semester on this, so it’s crazy that we’ve made it this far again.”
Listen to our full conversation here.
