The Exchange | |
---|---|
Background information | |
Origin | Rochester, New York, United States |
Genres | A cappella, Pop |
Years active | 2012–present |
Members | Aaron Sperber Alfredo Austin Christopher Diaz Jamal Moore Richard Steighner |
Website | exchangevocal |
The Exchange is an a cappella band from the United States [1] [2] founded in 2012 by Rochester, NY native Aaron Sperber. The group consists of Aaron Sperber, Alfredo Austin, Christopher Diaz, Jamal Moore, and Richard Steighner. [3] The band was a finalist on Season 5 of NBC's musical reality television show "The Sing-Off" [4] and also performed as the Backstreet Boys' opening act during the 2014 “In a World Like This” European tour. [5] [6]
Sperber, Moore, and Steighner were also each contestants on Season 3 of "The Sing-Off". Sperber and Moore competed with the University of Rochester YellowJackets while Steighner was a member of Denver, Colorado based group Urban Method. [7] [8] [9] [10] Diaz served in a coaching role on the show. [11] [12] [13]
After an initial series of performances in 2012, in January 2013 The Exchange released their first album. Titled ‘Get Ready’, the album is entirely a cappella and primarily a cover album, featuring 9 cover tracks and 1 original track by member Christopher Diaz. Following the release of ‘Get Ready’, the group embarked on an international tour that included performances in the United Kingdom, Australia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20]
In February 2014, The Exchange released their first all original album titled “The Good Fight”. [21] The Good Fight was the second album released by The Exchange. The album marked The Exchange's departure from purely a cappella music to music featuring vocals over tracked instruments. The EP features 6 original songs. Days after the release of “The Good Fight” album, The Exchange served as the opening act for the European leg of the Backstreet Boys In a World Like This Tour . [22] [23]
In December 2014 The Exchange appeared on Season 5 of NBC's “The Sing-Off”. The band finished as finalists behind the Vanderbilt Melodores. [24] Following their appearance on NBC's “The Sing-Off”, the band partook in The Sing-Off Live Tour. [25] [26] [27] Joining The Exchange on the tour was Voice Play of The Sing-Off (season 4) and Street Corner Symphony of The Sing-Off (season 2). [28] [29] The tour was also featured on a live stream concert hosted by Yahoo! Live. [30]
Released March 1, 2015, Pursuit is The Exchange's third album. Pursuit is entirely a cappella, featuring 6 covers and 1 original song written by band members Alfredo Austin and Jamal Moore.
Track Number | Track Name | Track Length | Written By |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Domino | 4:39 | Claude Kelly, Henry Walter, Jessica Cornish, Lukasz Gottwald, Max Martin |
2 | Lonely Boy | 4:04 | Dan Auerbach, Patrick Carney, Brian Burton |
3 | Payphone | 3:58 | Adam Levine, Ammar Malik, Benny Blanco, Robopop, Shellback, Wiz Khalifa |
4 | Home | 3:06 | Drew Pearson, Greg Holden |
5 | I Feel Good | 2:45 | James Brown |
6 | Where Have You Been | 4:10 | Calvin Harris, Ester Dean, Geoff Mack, Henry Walter, Lukasz Gottwald |
7 | Take Me Away | 3:06 | Science, Ne-Yo |
8 | Sexy, Free & Single | 3:45 | Yoo Young-jin, Daniel Klein, Thomas Sardorf, Lasse Lindorff |
9 | See You Soon | 3:43 | Christopher Diaz |
10 | Can't Hold Us | 4:34 | Ben Haggerty, Ryan Lewis, Ray Dalton |
Track Number | Track Name | Track Length | Written By |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Déjà Vu | 3:21 | Alfredo Austin, Jamal Moore, Tat Tong |
2 | Get Up and Go | 4:02 | Richard Steighner, Christopher Diaz, Tat Tong |
3 | Kerosene | 3:24 | Matthew Lukasiewicz, Aaron Sperber, Tat Tong |
4 | Back Where We Began | 3:42 | Alfredo Austin, Tat Tong |
5 | Gone | 3:10 | Alfredo Austin, Jamal Moore, Tat Tong |
6 | The Good Fight | 4:19 | Christopher Diaz, Tat Tong |
The "party remix" version of Kerosene, Track 3 from the group's second EP release The Good Fight, was produced by The Exchange and Rick Markowitz, and mixed by Paul Kaleka. This version of the track is a more upbeat take on the song.
Track Number | Track Name | Track Length | Written By |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Sing | 2:47 | Ed Sheeran, Pharrell Williams |
2 | Gone | 3:29 | Alfredo Austin, Jamal Moore, Tat Tong |
3 | Love Runs Out | 3:09 | Ryan Tedder, Brent Kutzle, Drew Brown, Zach Filkins, Eddie Fisher |
4 | Feelings | 3:08 | Adam Levine, Shellback, Oscar Görres |
5 | G.D.F.R. | 3:12 | Tramar Dillard, Dominic Woods, Lucas Rego, Mike Caren |
6 | Uma Thurman | 3:13 | Patrick Stump, Pete Wentz, Joe Trohman, Andy Hurley, Liam O'Donnell, Jarrel Young, Waqaas Hashmi |
7 | Uptown Funk | 3:21 | Jeff Bhasker, Philip Lawrence, Bruno Mars, Mark Ronson |
Alexander James McLean is an American singer, dancer, and a founding member of the pop vocal group Backstreet Boys.
Nickolas Gene Carter is an American singer and a member of the vocal group Backstreet Boys. As of 2015, Carter has released three solo albums, Now or Never, I'm Taking Off and All American, during breaks between Backstreet Boys schedules, and a collaboration with Jordan Knight titled Nick & Knight. He has made occasional television appearances and starred in his own reality shows, House of Carters and I (Heart) Nick Carter.
Deke Sharon is an American singer, arranger, composer, director, producer, pioneer, and teacher of a cappella music, and is one of the leaders and promoters of the contemporary a cappella community. He has been referred to as "the father of contemporary a cappella" by some authors, and "the godfather of a cappella" by others.
Backstreet Boys are an American boy band consisting of Nick Carter, Howie Dorough, AJ McLean, and cousins Brian Littrell and Kevin Richardson. They were formed in 1993 in Orlando, Florida.
The Tufts Beelzebubs, frequently referred to as "The Bubs", is a male a cappella group of students from Tufts University that performs a mix of pop, rock, R&B, and other types of music while spreading their motto of "Fun through Song." Founded in 1962, they have toured in Europe, Asia, South America, and North America, and they competed on NBC's The Sing-Off in December 2009, finishing in second place.
The Sing-Off was an American television singing competition featuring a cappella groups. It debuted on NBC on December 14, 2009, and was produced by Sony Pictures Television and Outlaw Productions, with Mark Burnett's One Three Media being added for the fourth season. A fifth season aired as a holiday special in December 2014.
BYU Noteworthy is a nine-member, female Brigham Young University (BYU) a cappella group, based in Provo, Utah, United States. They won 1st place at the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella (ICCA) in 2007 and appeared on the first season of NBC's a cappella competition reality show The Sing-Off in 2009. Esther Yoder formed the group in 2003, aided by members of BYU's Vocal Point. Noteworthy began operating under the direction of the Performing Arts Management (PAM) at BYU in 2014. One of their most popular music videos is a cover of Amazing Grace, which won the Contemporary A Cappella Society (CARA) award for Best Religious Video and has garnered millions of views on YouTube since its release. Noteworthy has released six albums since its formation in 2003. In 2018, Noteworthy performed "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" for a Mormon Message for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The Other Guys (TOG) are an all-male a cappella ensemble from the University of St Andrews, Scotland and reigning Scottish champions after winning the Scottish A Cappella Championships (SACC) for two consecutive years in 2022 and 2023. The group was founded in 2004 and has been one of the groups responsible for the rise of collegiate a cappella in Scotland.
Arora, stylized in allcaps with the first R backwards, and formerly called Sonos, is a vocal band based in Los Angeles. Sonos originally grew out of a 2006 recording project and began performing and touring in 2008. The group's repertoire centers on vocal covers sung a cappella with the use of effects pedals. Sonos competed in the third season of The Sing-Off on NBC and was eliminated on the fourth episode. The group changed their name to Arora in 2013 in preparation for the release of their third album, "Bioluminescence."
Peter James Hollens is an American singer/songwriter, producer and entrepreneur. He has been involved with a cappella music since 1999 when he and Leo da Silva founded the University of Oregon's a cappella group, On The Rocks, known as the first official collegiate a cappella group in Oregon. He regularly releases new music videos to his YouTube channel. With over 5 million followers and 2.8 million subscribers, his content has received over a billion total views since 2011.
Pentatonix is an American a cappella group from Arlington, Texas, consisting of vocalists Scott Hoying, Mitch Grassi, Kirstin Maldonado, Matt Sallee, and Kevin Olusola. Characterized by their pop-style arrangements with vocal harmonies, basslines, riffing, percussion, and beatboxing, they produce cover versions of modern pop works or Christmas songs, sometimes in the form of medleys, along with original material. Pentatonix was formed in 2011 and subsequently won the third season of NBC's The Sing-Off, receiving $200,000 and a recording contract with Sony Music. When Sony's Epic Records dropped the group after The Sing-Off, the group formed its YouTube channel, distributing its music through Madison Gate Records, a label owned by Sony Pictures. Their YouTube channel currently has 20 million subscribers and 6 billion views. The group's video tribute to Daft Punk has over 365 million views as of December 29, 2022.
The Dartmouth Aires is an Ivy League a cappella group from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. The group rose to fame in the third season of the NBC musical competition The Sing-Off, placing runner-up behind international a cappella sensation Pentatonix.
The University of Rochester YellowJackets (YellowJackets) are an all-male collegiate a cappella group based in Rochester, New York. As the University of Rochester's oldest a cappella group, The YellowJackets frequently perform for campus functions in addition to their performance schedule around Rochester and the northeastern part of the United States. The group's members are students from the University's River Campus and Eastman School of Music. On September 19, 2011 the group made their national primetime television debut to an audience of 5.3 million viewers as contestants on Season 3 of NBC's "The Sing-Off", ultimately finishing in 7th place (out of 16 finalist groups.) The group celebrated their 60th anniversary in October 2016 during the University of Rochester's annual Meliora Weekend celebration.
MICappella is a Singaporean a cappella group. They made their debut after competing in the Chinese edition of The Sing-Off, where they won second place.
Kevin Oluwole Olusola, also known as K.O., is an American singer-songwriter, beatboxer, and cellist. Olusola is best known as the beatboxer of the a cappella group Pentatonix. After the group won NBC's The Sing-Off in 2011, they released eleven albums, which have sold over 2 million records, and have amassed more than two billion views on their YouTube channel.
Mitchell Coby Michael Grassi is an American singer, musician and songwriter from Arlington, Texas. Known for his high tenor voice, Grassi came to international attention as the founder and performer of two groups—the quintet a cappella collective Pentatonix and the duo Superfruit with Scott Hoying. As of June 2021, Pentatonix has released eleven albums and two EPs, have had four songs in the Billboard Hot 100, and won three Grammy awards as "the first a cappella group to achieve mainstream success in the modern market". As of February 2019, Superfruit's YouTube channel has over 2.5 million subscribers and has accumulated over 392 million views.
The In a World Like This Tour was the ninth concert tour by American boy band, the Backstreet Boys. Supporting their eighth studio album, In a World Like This (2013), the tour consisted of over 150 shows in Asia, North America and Europe. It is the band's first tour featuring all five original members as a quintet in seven years, as band member Kevin Richardson left the band in June 2006, and rejoined in 2012. It has become one of the biggest tours in the group's tenure.
Home Free is an American country a cappella group of five vocalists: Austin Brown, Rob Lundquist, Adam Rupp, Tim Foust, and Adam Chance. Starting as a show group, they toured with approximately 200 shows a year across the United States. The group won the fourth season of The Sing-Off on NBC in 2013. They sang an arrangement of Hunter Hayes' "I Want Crazy" as their final competitive song, earning the group $100,000 and a recording contract with Sony.
Scott Richard Hoying is an American singer, musician and songwriter who came to international attention as the baritone of the a cappella group Pentatonix and one-half of the music duo Superfruit. As of June 2021, Pentatonix has released eleven albums and two EPs, have had four songs in the Billboard Hot 100, and won three Grammy awards as "the first a cappella group to achieve mainstream success in the modern market". As of November 2021, Superfruit's YouTube channel has over 2.4 million subscribers, and over 444 million views.