Everybody’s favorite alliterative rhyme is back. Spring
Sing has returned in all its vernal glory. It’s time to cheer
on the student performers and giggle at the “celebrity”
judges.
Touted as “UCLA’s oldest and greatest musical
tradition,” Spring Sing has gone from inter-fraternity
singing contests in the 1940s to this year’s 16-act battle
royale. The acts are divided into four categories: solo/duet, band,
a capella/ensemble, and production. “Ignite the Mic”
will take place at the Los Angeles Tennis Center this Friday at 8
p.m.
“Obviously Spring Sing is a tradition, but definitely
every year we want to improve and innovate,” Spring Sing
Executive Director Vi Hua said. “At the beginning of the
year, I kept telling everyone that this is going to be the best
Spring Sing ever. But as the year grew on, I just wanted to make
this Spring Sing not necessarily better, but different. I think the
diversity in our acts serves that.”
A third-year communication studies student, Hua and the Spring
Sing committee had close to 80 student groups audition for the
show. Minor tinkering was needed as the field was whittled down to
the Sweet Sixteen.
“This year (the format) kind of changed because usually we
don’t have ensemble, which is a category we combined with a
capella this year,” Hua said. “The group Namaste
didn’t really fit exactly into the band category ““ it
was more of an ensemble. But we didn’t have other ensembles
that we felt were worthy enough to create a whole separate category
for, so we combined it with a capella.”
Namaste will be competing against Awaken A Capella and Envision
Vocals, a gospel chorus that had doubts about making it this
far.
“We’ve never been in Spring Sing, so we didn’t
know for sure what kind of music they were expecting,”
fourth-year physiological science student Alayna Scruggs said.
“We, being gospel, didn’t know for sure if they were
going to be open to that.”
“We always want to be more diverse,” Hua said.
“We wanted to include a lot of different types of
music.”
Garage rock trio Paramount, however, had no doubts about its
greatness or its chances against Calcutta, Funkland Security and
Rodeo Hardline in the band category.
“We’re the best band in the world,”
second-year civil engineering student Anthony DeFrenza said.
“We haven’t seen any of the other bands, but we know
we’ll win.”
Participants in the solo/duet category demonstrated a little
more modesty. Fourth-year political science and French student,
Christine Khalili-Borna hopes she does not “screw up”
in front of the thousands in attendance. On the other hand, Ed
Rhee, a fourth-year undeclared student, is excited just to make the
cut.
“I tried out last year and didn’t make it,”
Rhee said. “Going into this year, I was kind of nervous about
it. I didn’t really think I had a chance. When I saw my name
on the piece of paper with all the acts on it, I was pretty stoked.
Sure, I would like to win, but people who won last year are back so
it’s pretty stiff competition. Most of all I just want to
have fun.”
“Fun” seems to be the word on everyone’s lips.
Three fraternity-sorority collaborations will vie for this
year’s best production, but having the opportunity to dance
and sing show tunes is already boatloads of fun for Shayna Arnold
of Chi Omega.
“We just want to have fun and show our school
spirit,” Arnold, a third-year American literature and culture
student said. “We worked really hard, so it would be
wonderful if we could actually win the competition. However, I
think that winning at this point would just be icing on the
cake.”
The Spring Sing committee almost lost out on its icing on the
cake. The planning process hit a few snags while securing a George
and Ira Gershwin award recipient until multi-Grammy award winner
k.d. lang was recently secured for the honor.
“GIG was a little bit difficult because we would get
someone and it would fall through,” Hua said. “Then
we’d have to scramble again. It was like a roller coaster for
us. They would say yes and then something would come up. As a
committee, we worked really well together, and we overcame a lot of
issues. It was a lot of fun.”