A cappella music is a performance by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. The term a cappella was originally intended to differentiate between Renaissance polyphony and Baroque concertato musical styles. In the 19th century, a renewed interest in Renaissance polyphony coupled with an ignorance of the fact that vocal parts were often doubled by instrumentalists led to the term coming to mean unaccompanied vocal music. The term is also used, albeit rarely, as a synonym for alla breve.
Brown University is a private Ivy League research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution.
Penn Masala is an American a cappella group. It is the world's first and premier South Asian a cappella group. Formed in 1996 by students at the University of Pennsylvania, Penn Masala's music has been influenced by the Eastern and Western cultures that represent the group's membership. The group was featured on the soundtrack of American Desi, and has released eleven full-length albums: Awaaz, 11 PM, Soundcheck, The Brown Album, Pehchaan, On Detours, Panoramic, Kaavish, Resonance,Yuva, Musafir, an EP titled Vol. 1 and the compilation album Out of Stock. The group has performed at the White House, the Indian Filmfare Awards, and for prominent leaders including Ban Ki-moon and Mukesh Ambani. The group also had a cameo role in Pitch Perfect 2, released in May 2015.
"Jabberwocky" is an 1872 nonsense poem by Lewis Carroll, about an encounter between a young boy and a monster called the Jabberwock.
Collegiate a cappella ensembles are college-affiliated singing groups, primarily in the United States, and, increasingly, the United Kingdom and Ireland, that perform entirely without musical instruments. The groups are typically composed of, operated by, and directed by students. In the context of collegiate a cappella, the term a cappella typically also refers to the music genre performed by pop-centric student singing groups. Consequently, an ensemble that sings unaccompanied classical music may not be considered an a cappella group, even though technically it is performing a cappella.
Gaudete is a sacred Christmas carol, thought to have been composed in the 16th century. It was published in Piae Cantiones, a collection of Finnish/Swedish sacred songs published in 1581. No music is given for the verses, but the standard tune comes from older liturgical books.
Sean Altman is an American musician and songwriter. He is a founder and former lead singer (tenor) of the a capella musical group Rockapella and a pioneer of the modern a cappella movement. He was a member of Rockapella from its inception in 1986 until he left the group in 1997 to launch a solo career.
Pembroke College in Brown University was the coordinate women's college for Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. It was founded in 1891 and merged into Brown in 1971.
Deborah Ruth "Deb" Talan is an American singer-songwriter. She is best known for being part of the folk-pop duo The Weepies.
The traditions and student activities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology encompass hundreds of student activities, organizations, and athletics that contribute to MIT's distinct culture.
The Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women was established in 1981 at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, as an interdisciplinary research center on gender. In addition to research, the Center is home to the undergraduate Gender and Sexuality Studies concentration and archives that preserve the history of women at Brown and the intellectual history of feminist theory. The Center's director is Suzanne Stewart-Steinberg, professor of comparative literature, who succeeded anthropologist Kay Warren in July 2014.
The Bear Necessities are an award-winning, TTBB a cappella group from Brown University. They were established in 1992 making them the youngest of the three TTBB a cappella groups at Brown. The Bears have released 5 albums, and are currently in the process of recording their 6th. They are best known for wearing suspenders and former member Masi Oka, one of the best known alumnus of a college a cappella group and actor in the television series Heroes. Also known as “The Bears,” the group performs at Brown, across the country and internationally. Their repertoire ranges from R&B to jazz to classic rock to pop to Disney songs. Founded as an alternative a cappella ensemble, the group has a tradition of highly-theatrical, interactive performance and is known for a fun, down-to-earth atmosphere in both rehearsal and concert. This is evident in the final track of each of their albums, titled “Bear-a-oke,” a karaoke version of one of the album’s songs designed to invite the listener to sing along. The group’s alumni song is Streets of Philadelphia by Bruce Springsteen.
The Brown Derbies is an a cappella group at Brown University. They were founded by Darryl Shrock in 1982 and have released fourteen albums. They sing a variety of different genres, ranging from Rock, to Pop, to R&B and are known in the a cappella community for their unique use of syllables in the background vocals. They have toured throughout the United States and internationally, with recent performances in Beijing, China, Shanghai, China, and New Orleans, Louisiana. In 1997, the group performed for President Bill Clinton at the White House. In November 2007, they were featured on the CBS Early Show in a segment about the rising popularity of a cappella groups on college campuses, and in July 2011 they were featured on the Gospel Music Channel reality show America Sings. In January 2012, they performed in the London A Cappella Festival.
The Academical Village People (AVP) is an a cappella group at the University of Virginia founded in 1993 by a group of people who vowed to "never take themselves too seriously." They set themselves apart from other groups by being able to keep professional while maintaining their lax attitude, wild antics while performing, and their less traditional uniform of a garage mechanic style shirt. The name "Academical Village People" comes from Thomas Jefferson's Academical Village at the university in Charlottesville, Virginia. As of 2017, AVP, as it is often called for short, has released thirteen studio albums, including a greatest hits album, DECADEmical: Best of 1993-2003, of its first ten years in existence. The group has recorded many notable performances such as opening for Dana Carvey and Girl Talk, performing for Reba McEntire at the White House, concerts at the Kennedy Center, and performances in such countries as England, Spain, and Scotland.
Barnaby Conrad Keeney was president of Brown University from 1955 to 1966 where he was known and loved by the student body for openness and his dry wit. As he once observed, "One of the joys of the life of an educator, particularly a president, is the amount of free advice he gets." Keeney then served as president of Claremont Graduate University from 1971 to 1976.
Brownbrokers is a student-run theater group at Brown University. Together with Brown's Theatre Arts and Performance Studies faculty, Brownbrokers develops and produces a full-length, student-written musical every other year. Founded in 1935, it is one of the oldest undergraduate producing bodies devoted to new student-written musical theatre, both comedic and dramatic, in the United States. The group is run by The Brownbrokers Board, an organization of self-elected students from the Brown student body. In addition to the biennial full-scale production, Brownbrokers produces smaller events such as the annual miniMUSICAL Festival and staged readings of the musicals in consideration for production the following year.
The Jabberwocks is the oldest a cappella group at Brown University.
Six13 is a New York-based Jewish all-male a cappella singing group. Formed in 2003, the six-voice group is known for parodying contemporary pop songs by adding Jewish themes and lyrics. It also sings cover versions of pop hits and Yiddish and Israeli classics, and produces original compositions based on traditional Jewish prayers. Relying solely on vocals, the group achieves the effects of guitar, bass, drums, and electronic music through beatboxing and multiple layering of vocal tracks on its music videos. The group performs regularly for universities, synagogues, public and private groups, and in music festivals. It has released seven albums and won numerous awards.
