By Chelsea Zhao
Rockapella, an a capella music group founded in 1986 in New York City, visited Dominican University Friday evening as they performed original takes on holiday songs.
The group first achieved television fame when they performed for PBS’s Where in the World is Carmen Santiago. Since then, Rockapella has toured globally and performed in contemporary styles of classics, all of which the audience had the pleasure to listen to Friday night at the Lund Auditorium.
Rockapella Group is made of five members: Jeff Thacher, the vocal percussionist; Scott Leonard, high tenor singer and group leader; Calvin Jones, tenor singer; Bryant Vance, the bass singer; Jose Rosario, tenor singer and the group’s newest member.
The five cheerful vocalists lit up the stage with holiday classics such as Winter Wonderland, Merry Christmas, and All I want for Christmas Is You. They sang humorous pieces, such as Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer and You are a Mean One, Mr. Grinch, as well. The most notable moments were when Thacher did a solo vocal percussionist performance and when a girl from the audience collaborated to sing Santa Claus is Coming to Town.
Other than the familiar classic songs, Rockapella also mixed in songs from their past global tour in Japan. They also dedicated one song for Kwanzaa. For this show particularly, Rockapella had a different intro video, two new songs, and sold their new album Christmas Live at the lobby of the Lund Auditorium.
Leonard attributed the group’s originality and popularity to the backups and arrangement of the group. He said Rockapella has not only drums, bass, and melody, as in a regular band, but also unconventional backups.
“So, it [Rockapella backups] is not just ooh-la-shooby-doo kind of generic backups,” said Leonard. “It’s gotta be a lot of counterpoint and make it interesting in sound, kind of like a big band or a rock band. I think it’s a little bit different approach than most a cappella, than most choruses, like choral a cappella.
“They [Rockapella] are so creative,” said Margaret Manoni, a member of the audience and also an alumna of DU. “It’s not just singing. Their singing alone is beautiful, but they make the noise to fit the music.”
“It’s very impressive seeing it live,” said Patty Fugate, an audience member. “It’s very different from listening to it. It’s just amazing what they can do. I think in a concert, totally a cappella, just broad voice — it’s a difficult thing to do with such close harmonies, but it’s an excellent performance.” She plans to gift a Rockapella album to her daughter’s music teacher.
From the lively performance to a packed audience, it is important to recall Rockapella’s humble beginnings. “When we started, there weren’t many a cappella groups even in America,” said Leonard. “I mean the Ivy League schools each had a group but now, every middle school in Thailand and everywhere else has a group. Everybody knows a cappella, so we’ve really seen it grow from nothing to this.”
