A capella singing sweeps nation

NEW YORK, April 30 (UPI) -- The popularity of a cappella singing groups on American college campuses is a growing phenomenon celebrated annually by the International Championship of Collegiate a Capella.

The finals in the competition were held last weekend at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall with six groups performing -- representing Cornell University, Skidmore College, the universities of Michigan, Maryland, and Oregon, and Boston University. Michigan's Compulsive Lyres won and performed on NBC-TV's "Today Show" on Monday.

It may all have started at Yale University with the Whiffenpoofs, those songsters out on a spree determined to keep alive a centuries-old tradition of singing without instrumental accompaniment. A cappella is an Italian phrase which means "in the manner of the chapel," describing a type of unaccompanied choral singing dating back to medieval times.

Rooted in sacred music, a cappella is still used for gospel singing but has moved for the most part into the realm of popular secular music -- pop, doo-wop, rock, folk, and rhythm and blues. The style is that of close harmony, all voices equal, as performed by such popular professional groups as Boyz 2 Men and 'NSync.

Some campuses have more than one group, sometimes as many as a dozen (Yale, Cornell, and Pennsylvania and Michigan universities). Some groups are all-male and some all-female, but most have singers of both sexes. Groups hold auditions once a year and select several new members, much as fraternities and sororities hold rush weeks to find new members, and the simile doesn't end there.

A cappella groups seem to have taken the place of Greek letter societies on some campuses, with members that hang out together and plan their social lives around chorus activities. George D. Kuh, director of the National Survey of Student Engagement, thinks a cappella appeals to youth because it is self-organized and not an official college extracurricular activity.

"There has been a definite decrease in participation in formal extracurricular activities, such as student government, on campuses all over the country and an increase in self-organized activities, like a cappella groups," Kuh, a professor at Indiana University, said in an interview.

There is no reliable figure for the number of campus a cappella groups active at this time, but Varsity Vocals, which organizes the international a cappella competition, knows of 873 such groups. There are nearly 100 Christian and Jewish collegiate groups and at least one Hindu group, at the University of Pennsylvania.

Graduate school and professional school groups often bear names that reflect their interests. The Fletcher School of Diplomacy at Tufts has a group titled "Ambassachords." Harvard Law School has Scales of Justice, and Yale Law School has Habeas Chorus. Some wear formal attire or matching attire when performing. Others dress informally, sometimes even barefoot.

Groups generally are small, usually no more than 20. The Dynamics at Skidmore is typical, with 17 members who give rock style performances, moving in rhythm to the music as the spirit moves them and dressed in the latest with-it fashions. The group's repertory includes Sting's "When We Dance," the Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby," and The Jackson Five's "I Want You Back."

Since Skidmore in Saratoga, N.Y., does not have Greek letter societies or even a football team, the Dynamics and three other a cappella groups on campus are very important to the life and the school spirit of the college, the kind that pays off later in alumni loyalty.

No wonder that such groups are welcomed and encouraged by college administrators to the extent that there are four times as many a cappella choral organizations on campuses today as there were in 1980.