In a recent conversation with my Asian Students Association (ASA) big, Lue Lin, he casually mentioned that he’s a part of an on-campus acapella group. It was very interesting to hear about, especially since the movie “Pitch Perfect” was such a fundamental part of my childhood. So when he inevitably invited me to attend the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella (ICCA) Quarterfinals to watch his
group compete, I was intrigued enough to walk to the
Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall & Museum on a busy, rainy, Saturday evening.
What I saw on Feb. 8 absolutely, without any dramatization, surprised me to my core and altered my brain chemistry. The beautiful musical compositions and ingenious choreography created performances that made me tear up. What was supposed to be an hour respite from homework turned into a three-hour watch, as each group that performed seemed to continuously reinvent songs that I thought I had known like the back of my hand. One of Carnegie Mellon’s groups, the Treblemakers, won third place among 10 extremely talented groups from all over the Northeast. I sat down for a post-competition interview with Lu to talk about how this niche yet beautiful art is orchestrated.
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Aimee Wang: First, congratulations are in order! How did you feel winning third place?
Lue Lin: I feel mixed. I’m happy that we won third — but also a little disappointed. Last year, we won third place as well, and we knew we had to put in a lot more work to get farther. There are definitely things we can do better next year. I’m sad the seniors are leaving and we won’t get to go to Buffalo together, but this definitely won’t be the end of our season! I’m excited to spend more time with everyone when we go to Boston for Boston Sings.
AW: I’m glad this is not the end of the journey! As for the actual performance, how does the choreography work? The cohesiveness and timing were beautiful.
LL: Well, first, we learn the music, and we have a choreographer. Ours is Cordy [Cordelia Pride] — love her! Other members helped, but we couldn’t have done it without her. We chose our songs over the summer, and she’s been working all semester to do the choreography. It was definitely difficult because we had a few members drop out, and we had to change a lot of things at the last minute. She definitely busted out the big guns for the amazing work she did in spite of that.
AW: I can imagine! All of that seemed so seamless that I couldn’t even tell you were missing people. Speaking of the music, how does the music arrangement work?
LL: We choose the songs as a group! First, we all put our ideas into a Spotify playlist and we listen to all of the songs and choose collectively. We have a music director and an assistant director, Trey [DuBose] and Chase [Crandall], who arrange the songs, and then we use software and piano to figure out our script music, which we learn until the competition! At the beginning of the year, we had rehearsals twice a week, and after fall break, we started preparing for ICCAs, where we had three practices a week. Sometimes, we practice apart depending on what we need to work on, and then we practice together when we approach February.
AW: That’s genuinely so cool. I can’t imagine how much work you had to put in to put on such a stunning performance. As for the Treblemakers specifically, how close are you with your
acapella group?
LL: It depends on the year, but I still always feel close to my group! Last year, I was really sad when the seniors left. After classes, sometimes we would study together, or take sneaky snipes of each other on campus. (“Treble spotted!” he called it, capturing such an endearing aspect of their team bond.)
AW: Alright, final question. What are the hopes for next year?
LL: I’m excited! I think we definitely learned a lot, and I can’t wait to meet the new members and continue making good experiences. I think everyone is getting more and more competitive and better, and it really just drives us to do better and work harder. I think we’re on the right track.
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After hearing from Lu, I felt even more emotional about the competition, knowing it was the cumulation of months of extraneous work. I would 100 percent recommend going to next year’s quarterfinals to see the beautiful performances put on by local collegiate groups, as words cannot do justice to the sounds I heard last Saturday.
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