The crowd hushes to an overwhelming silence. The performers warm
up their vocal cords while the background music “¦ wait, there
is no background music.
While most artists use the accompaniment of instrumental music
during performances, a capella groups base their performance solely
on the human voice and the sounds it can make. UCLA’s a
capella groups range from the religious Rejoice Christian A Capella
to the all male barbershop quartet Acapella Fellas. Two of the
biggest groups are Awaken A Capella and Random Voices, which have
been making melodious music since 1992 and 1999, respectively.
“A capella groups, such as Awaken, were started because of
people’s love of music and their ability to capitalize on the
power of the human voice,” said Brittany Longdon, president
of Awaken and third-year theater student.
Both groups were started by vivacious music fanatics.
Awaken’s founders Olimpio Wen, Joyce Lo and Keith Ogden, for
example, discovered their immense love of music while singing in
the laundry rooms of Sproul. Molly Jones founder of Random Voices,
decided to capitalize on the fact more women wanted to sing than
men and created this group to meet the demand.
“Molly founded Random Voices in 1999 with eight girls and
was basically an outlet for the women treble voices of UCLA.
It’s a nurturing environment that lets us unleash our singing
vigor,” said Valerie Madamba, current president of Random
Voices and fourth-year communication studies student.
While all the singing sensations joined because of their vocal
talents and pure love for music, they also aim to entertain their
audience and hope to move the audience by showing them a different
side of music.
“These groups truly capture the essence of singing when
words aren’t enough,” said Olivia McManus a second-year
musical theater student. “They’re able to relate to the
audience with their music and move them.”
Though many members of the groups were blessed with heavenly
voices, the talents are polished with tedious practices and
rehearsals.
“We’re totally committed to what we apply ourselves
to,” Madamba said. “We rehearse two to three times a
week, and though they’re tough rehearsals, we have an amazing
time at them because we all enjoy singing and being together
““ it’s like our own little community.”
Though the groups were founded at different times, there is a
sense of camaraderie between them. In fact, when Random Voices
founded the all-California a capella festival, Awaken members acted
as the masters of ceremonies.
“Last year we decided to found a day where all a capella
groups around California could hang out and get to know each
other,” Madamba said. “We had groups from all
universities in California including UCSD and Stanford come down
and meet other groups, and then had an evening
performance.”
Both singing ensembles are equally made up of a diverse group of
people. From biology students and theater students to economics and
engineering students, they reflect the diversity of the UCLA
community.
The diversity among the group’s members can also be
reflected in the types of music they sing.
“We sing songs from basically all genres of music,”
Longdon said. “In our performances we’ve done
R & B, jazz as well as oldies and pop. We try to make it as
diverse as possible.”
Random Voices also has a varied musical taste, according to
Madamba. While the members have recently focused on pop, singing
songs from Michael and Janet Jackson’s albums, they are
trying to “jazz up” their performances this year.
This year both groups are looking for new recruits for their
singing ensembles. Awaken will be having sign-ups during week one,
Monday through Wednesday, tryouts Wednesday and Thursday, and
callbacks Friday. Random Voices will be having sign-ups during week
one and tryouts week two.
“These groups are just singing communities made up of
eclectic people who love music, love to sing and want to share that
with everyone,” Longdon said. “They’re supportive
ensembles that just want to make music.”
For more information about Awaken, contact Brittany Longdon at
Singinmnky@aol.com and for Random Voices, contact Valerie Madamba
at MSKY@ucla.edu.