Two of Cornell’s a cappella groups, the Class Notes and Last Call, competed in the International Competition of Collegiate A Cappella after a competitive screening process of sending in tapes. The tapes were used to determine which 108 groups from all around the continent would compete in the competition.
The competition is run by Varsity Vocals, the company that annually releases the Best of College A Cappella CD. The price of entering the contest was $75.
With three quarter-final competitions per region, six groups all together were present at the contest, including Syracuse University, University of Buffalo and New York University (NYU). The two groups competed in the mid-Atlantic region competition.
Cornell’s veterans of the competition, Last Call, made it to the semi-finals last year.
“It’s really good getting back to semi-finals since last year,” said Eduardo Porto Carreiro ’02, senior member of the group. “We took the competition a bit lighter this year and that made for a lot more fun.”
This year, the Class Notes took first place at their regional competition, qualifying for the semi-finals this upcoming weekend, along with Last Call, who took second place.
“After taking the top spots there was so much Cornell pride that we all broke out into the alma mater,” said Francis Kim ’03.
Winning came as a surprise for members of the Class Notes.
“Its kind of funny, the group that places first gets to sing an encore at the end of the night and when one of our members asked what we were going to sing, we all kind of laughed and didn’t even give it another thought,” Kim said.”There was just chaos on stage. We all agree that we have never been more surprised in our lives.”
The winning encore was performed by Lindsey Geddes ’04 with the song, “Tonight and the Rest of my Life.”
“We went into the competition for the experience and for fun; we weren’t expecting to win,” said Geddes. “We got this far by having a good mix of musicality and performance.”
The Class Notes’ winning quarter-finals song, “Only You,” was performed by Luis Rivera ’04.
The Class Notes along with Last Call are preparing for the semi-finals, which will take place next weekend at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania.
“I don’t think we are too nervous because I didn’t expect to get this far; it would be great to go to the finals in NYC though, and with dedicated rehearsing and a lot of finger crossing who knows we might actually advance,” Kim said.
The finals will be held in Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall in New York City, and the winning group will receive a monetary prize as well as be featured in the Best of College A Cappella CD.
Archived article by Veronika Belenkaya