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AN INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER SERVING THE GW COMMUNITY SINCE 1904

The GW Hatchet

Serving the GW Community since 1904

The GW Hatchet

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SPOTLIGHT: Vocal groups crescendo on campus

The halls are alive with sound of music, with the songs they have sung for a hundred years . . . The campus is alive with the sound of music . . . and will sing once more.

GW has returned to its musically active past after decades of supporting only a few singing ensembles.

In the past year and a half, three new a cappella singing groups have joined the campus’s music community. A cappella groups have no musical accompaniment. Already home to the University Singers and a cappella singing groups the Troubadours and the Pitches, GW now hosts the Hippotones, the Vibes and the Zmirnotes.

Along with GW Unplugged, a new student concert venue that started last fall, these new singing groups help restore GW’s rich musical tradition.

Will Stewart, a 2000 GW graduate, founded both the Hippotones, GW’s all male a cappella group, and GW Unplugged. He began the organizations to fill a need for music on campus, he said.

“When I was a freshman at GW there were only the Troubadours and then the Pitches,” Stewart said. “Other schools had more (a cappella groups) and we had no all-men’s group. Also, there were not many performance opportunities on campus. No organized, formal concert settings.”

GW Unplugged allows GW students to perform in a formal setting in the Hippodrome. Past GW Unplugged events include A Cappellafest, which featured all University a cappella groups, and Divas, which spotlighted three GW female soloists.

The Hippotones have performed many times since their inception, Stewart said. Most recently the group sang at GW’s Inaugural Ball. Stewart said that the eight-member group is progressing very well.

“The guys are getting close, getting to know each other,” Stewart said. “They are getting better as far as music and group dynamics.”

The co-founders of the Vibes started the coed a cappella group last November. Alissa Roeder and Bess Paupeck, seniors who transferred to GW during their sophomore years from smaller universities, said they were surprised by GW’s limited singing options.

Roeder and Paupeck said that while every group is different and has their own personality, they were not trying to create a new type of group when they started the Vibes. They simply wanted to create more opportunities for students to sing.

According to Paupeck, a lot has changed since they first entered GW.

“When we got here a lot of people did not know what a cappella was, and now it is all over the campus,” Paupeck said.

The Zmirnotes, GW’s first Jewish a cappella group, formed last fall.

“We sing some traditional Jewish songs and also translate American songs into Hebrew,” the group’s president, Erin McKinney-Prupis said.

The group started because a cappella groups at GW became more popular and because many other schools have Jewish ensembles, according to McKinney-Prupis. So far this year the Zmirnotes have performed at two Bat Mitzvahs, A Capellafest, and at Hillel.

The expansion of GW’s singing community, as well as the continuation of existing groups, has created a level music activity on campus that has not existed since the 1950s.

GW student choral groups, mainly in the form of glee clubs, date back to the late 1890s, according University archives. Glee clubs began to gain strength during the 1920s and stayed strong through the 1950s. The Glee Club performed at White House parties, Cherry Blossom Festivals and at National Christmas Tree Lightings. Students sang for presidents Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1931 the GW Men’s Glee Club won first place in the National Intercollegiate Glee Club Contest held at Carnegie Hall, according University archives.

The Traveling Troubadours formed in the 1950s, but the group performed with a band unlike today’s Troubadours. Members were chosen from the Glee Club to entertain U.S. military personnel on remote overseas bases. The ensemble performed all over the world, including Greenland, Japan and northern Africa.

During the 1960s and 1970s, the choral program at GW became less active, like many school-sponsored activities of the time, according to Kathy Pickar, director of choral activities for GW.

Pickar reorganized GW’s choral program in the early 1980s, and GW’s only concert choir, the University Singers, began under her direction in 1981.

. The University Singers continue an annual tradition begun by the past University Glee Club close to 60 years ago when they perform Handel’s “Messiah” at their winter concert, said Pickar.

GW’s first a cappella group, the Troubadours, also formed in 1981, taking the name of its predecessor.

Pickar said the Troubadours, the only a cappella group coordinated by the music department, was one of the first coed a cappella groups. Traditionally, a cappella ensembles were elite, all male groups, Pickar said.

The Troubadours give about 20 concerts a semester, including singing at Vice President Gore’s annual Christmas party for the past eight years. Pickar hopes this tradition will continue with the new administration.

The Troubadours remained the only a cappella group on campus until 1997, when the Pitches formed, according to Amy Gabel, the head of publicity for the all-female group.

Like the Vibes, the Hippotones and the Zmirnotes, the Pitches formed to provide more singing opportunities to students, according to Gabel.

The groups sing mostly pop songs, ranging from the Beatles and Dar Williams, Gabel said.

Gabel said she believes one of the biggest draws to a cappella music is to see how each group represents the instruments.

“When we get together it goes very well,” Gabel said. “It is fun to watch.”

Pickar said she has been very pleased by the growth of music on campus.

“The more singing the better,” she said.

Pickar also said that she would like to have all of the music groups under the auspices of the music department. This would provide the groups with rehearsal space, which is difficult to find according to the groups’ leaders. They would also receive some financial support and a faculty coach. According to Pickar, the department cannot afford it.

She said that she would like to see all of the a cappella groups participate in the University Singers and create a unified concert choir. Members of the University Singers audition at the beginning of the semester and can receive one credit for the program, Pickar said

All of the music groups will perform this semester. The University Singers host a spring concert April 21.

All of the a cappella groups will perform together April 17 for A-cappella Mania, a GW Unplugged event. On Feb. 13 GW Unplugged will feature student artists singing love songs for their Valentine’s Day event, “Sweet Serenades.”

The recent addition of three new music groups to GW’s existing music community, along with the creation of GW Unplugged has greatly affected GW’s music world.

“Now there is music on campus,” Stewart said.

Years from now performers from one of GW’s groups may win a Grammy and say, “It all started back in college,” Stewart said. “You never know who is going to be a superstar.”

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