After a shot in the dark decision to enter into Varsity Vocals’ ICHSA, Unstrumental, one of Calabasas’s two A Capella groups, has made it to the ICHSA finals in New York City. The competition is set for April 25th against many accomplished singing groups from throughout the country. The program, which is co-led by Michael Siegel and Alana Weiss, boasts many awards and has several notable alumni, such as Julia Lester and Cooper Koch.
“They had to go through quarter finals, which is around eight groups, and semi finals, which is nine groups, to get to finals,” said Siegel.
At finals, Unstrumental will be performing three songs. “Animal”, the soloist being Emerson Wimmer, “Bite Back”, written by former CHS student Eliza Pryor and soloed by freshman Scarlett Tochett, and “Maneater”, soloed by Tom Suckow and Lucy Bollier.
The group has dedicated themselves to getting their performances as clean as possible, constantly meeting up to work on choreography and vocal arrangements, even during their own free time.
“When it got to breaks they started meeting at each other’s houses and they would rehearse that way,” said Siegel.
Due to this dedication, the group was fairly confident in being successful at the initial competitions. There was still surprise and excitement when they found out that they would be going to finals, but since they have not competed in ICHSA in around 10 years, some had doubts.
“Quarterfinals we were kind of expecting it, just because we know a lot of the groups. Semifinals are the top three groups from each quarter final competition. We thought we would get first or second, but we weren’t planning on finals, and then we got first,” said Siegel.
Additionally, Unstrumental originally never intended to go to finals due to it overlapping with DTASC, the theater festival that happens twice a year, but after seeing the success of the season they wanted to follow it through and give it their all at finals.
“For Unstrumental to be first place at this competition would be a really big deal because this competition is an internationally recognized event and is very competitive, and I think winning it would bring a lot of prestige to our music program,” said student leader of Unstrumental, Sophia Cooper.
This is the first year since around 2019 Unstrumental has had vocal percussionists (VP) as directors. Both directors, Sophia Cooper and Riley Eichberg, are VPs, and they believe it may have contributed to their success this year.
“You start listening differently as a vocal percussionist, and I think that’s helped us a lot with dynamics because that’s something you focus on a lot when you’re doing progression because you have to keep the tempo but also try to think about how to build the song,” said Cooper.
The group has set themselves apart from the other competition, and it will be interesting to see how they perform at finals in New York.
“It’s our connection with each other. Every single time we get something back from the judges, it always says how they can tell we really like performing together. We really have worked hard to create good relationships with each other,” said Claire Guillory, a member of Unstrumental.
