An on-campus acapella group got new leadership and a new name.
OCUpella restructured and rebranded, changing their name from OCUpella to “Tonal Eclipse.”
Until last year, most of the events the group performed at were on campus. Jeffrey Laughrun, music theater senior and music director of Tonal Eclipse, and Joshua Kelley, music theater junior and managing director, said they plan for the group to have more paid gigs this year as well as participate in competitions.
“People at other gigs and even here had trouble pronouncing the name OCUpella,” Laughrun said. “Also, we’re looking at going competitive this year. We just wanted to get a little more organized. We were pretty loosely organized last semester, and we wanted to make it more of a priority for the people in the group to be in the group.”
The group previously had 15 members. Laughrun said that was a problem because they were too large to participate in competitions as a small ensemble and too small to participate as a large ensemble. This year Tonal Eclipse will have 13 members, three for each voice part and a beatboxer.
“We will be submitting a video audition to the International Collegiate Championships of Acapella,” Kelley said. “If we got accepted to that, which it’s a pretty good chance that we would, we would be going to the central regional championships to hopefully compete to go to quarterfinals.”
The group performed off campus last year at local events such as Comic Con and Live! On the Plaza. Kelley said they hope to have more bookings off campus and bring in more money than they have previously.
“We do want to be working really quickly this year,” Kelley said. “Getting songs down week after week, building a good set and finding the songs that work best for us and making those competition worthy, adding choreography and adding lots of texture and dynamic.”
Other than Kelley and Laughrun, all 11 spots for Tonal Eclipse are open. Auditions will be 2-4 p.m. Sept. 1 and 2 in Wimberly Hall in Wanda L. Bass Music Center and are open to students of any major.
“You need to prepare a 30 to 60 second cut of a song that makes your voice sound great,” Laughrun said. “You’ve got to sing it at us acapella. There will also be a little bit of sight reading just to get some information on that, and we’ll have a selection from an acapella arrangement that everyone will learn, and we can figure out things with blend and balance.”
For more information, students may contact Laughrun at jdlaughrun@my.okcu.edu or Kelley at jnkelley@my.okcu.edu.
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