Photo: Karley Cohen
Once again, the non-profit organization that brought our group together staged another great educational and performance opportunity for a cappella singers in the greater Philadelphia area. The A Cappella Project – Philadelphia held their second annual A Cappella Summer Clinic and Showcase on July 28, 2012 at Lower Merion High School in Ardmore, PA.
The featured clinicians were Amy Engelhardt (formerly of The Bobs) and Jeff Thacher (currently with Rockapella). After an hour Q&A session with all the singers present, Shawn Pearce from Value Vocals A Cappella Arrangments led singers in an hour rehearsal of two of his arrangements for a pick-up a cappella group of about 50 singers comprised of all the groups in attendance plus a half-dozen community members at large.
After a short break, five local a cappella groups took the stage in a live coaching session with the aca pros. In addition to Project-Philly’s three summer mixed groups, a local sextet called the City Line Singers got valuable input and entertained the audience that evening with a unique blend of song choices bouncing with equal aplomb from Flo Rida to Weird Al to a touching lullabye for a child.
For our on-stage session, we sang two arrangements that we were looking for some specific feedback on, and we got exactly what we were looking for. Our arrangement of Heart’s “Alone” is a great vehicle for our ladies to shine, but we still haven’t found the right sound for the background parts. Amy and Jeff’s commentary definitely confirmed our suspicions that this chart needs some more tweaking from a structural standpoint. We also performed Amy’s arrangement of The Police’s “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic”. We got the feedback we were looking for on Jamie’s vocal percussion, getting permission from the clinicians to make it even more in the stylings of Stewart Copeland, and even worked out a texture change with accompanying blocking that could make the bridge be something that really makes the arrangement our own and not just a straight cover.
For the evening Showcase Concert, the Project groups each gave us a sneak peak of what is to come in two weeks for their biggest event of the year – the 7th Annual A Cappella Benefit Concert. City Line entertained, and we sang a 20-minute set containing our three songs from our set at VoCALnation plus two others. The concert ended with the combined singers of the pick-up group, featuring our own Jamie Howe on perc, Joe Gooch on the bass mic, and Tom stepping to the mic for a vocal guitar solo on the Black Crowe’s “Hard to Handle”.
Another great bonus to the day was getting to meet individual singers from other groups who were unable to bring their entire groups with them. We met a couple from The A Cappella Showcase Chorus from Maryland and two members of Jersey Transit. Business cards were exchanged, and future collaborations may be in the works.
Project-Philly posted an album of great pics on their Facebook page here. Also, Lower Merion High School’s A Cappella club recorded a video of us closing out our set with our rendition of “Beautiful” which you can check out here.
Next on our plate: preparing for our first-ever headliner show on August 15th!
