Acorn

Issue date: 4/11/08 Section: Arts and Leisure

Media Credit: Katie Chambers MadAve sings at ICCA Mid-Atlantic Region Semifinals.

It doesn't matter whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game. Although Drew University men's a cappella group 36 Madison Avenue did not win any awards at the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella Mid-Atlantic Region semifinals on Saturday, they were happy to have made it that far.

"I think it shows what hard work can do," MadAve baritone Graig Churchill ('10) said. "We've been pushing since the beginning of the semester for this, and it's taken its toll on all of us. There were definitely points where people in the group were tired of singing the same three songs over and over again, but it's paid off."

At the semifinals, MadAve performed the same set that nabbed second place in the quarterfinals at Syracuse University Feb. 9.

They opened with Rufus Wainwright's "Instant Pleasure," featuring soloists Tom Sharp ('10) and Churchill. They followed with Citizen Cope's "Son's Gonna Rise", featuring MadAve President Ross Michaels ('08) and the Phil Collins medley of "Strangers Like Me" and "Take Me Home" featuring Alex Engquist ('10).

Churchill said that the biggest challenge for the 10-man group was the size and scope of the Nicholas Music Center on Rutgers' Douglass College campus, where they performed.

"I thought that we did a great job, but the venue that we sang in was not something that we were used to," Churchill said. "We are very comfortable here at Drew and performing in smaller spaces, but there is something about bigger spaces that isn't conducive to our sound. A lot of the bigger groups perform in similar settings throughout the year, and I believe they were better prepared for it than we were."

Michaels believed MadAve's size might have been a disadvantage. "We were the smallest group and the smallest school," Michaels said. "There is a tendency to look more at bigger groups that produce a bigger sound, and judges gravitate toward that."

Michaels said that the second smallest school, Ithaca College, was the winner. According to ithaca.edu, the school has a population of approximately 6,000 students and its own School of Music.

"The group that won definitely deserved it," Michaels said. "They start working on their set for the ICCA's in mid-October and we didn't start until the beginning of February. We don't like to focus on just that."

Continued...

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