A Cappella Ensemble Hosts Fall Auditions at CMU

Students singing music scales echoed down a hallway in Central Michigan University’s Music Building Tuesday night as hopefuls prepared to audition for Central Harmony, CMU’s only coed a cappella group.

“Right now we have about nine solid people coming back from last year,” said Thomas Young, Central Harmony president. “We’re looking to add three or four more people who blend well with the rest of our group.”

Aja Alim-Young, a sophomore from Grand Ledge, came prepared to sing “Godspeed” by the Dixie Chicks as her audition song.

“I’ve been singing all my life and was really involved in theater when I was in high school, so it just fits,” Alim-Young said.

The ensemble was started in 2005 by three music majors who wanted to add a coed group to Central Michigan, said Chris Mueller, a Granville senior who has been with the group since its inception. The all-male ensemble, Fish & Chips, and the all-female group, On the Rox, were already well established at the time.

“In the beginning it was primarily made up of music majors, but now there are only two music majors left. It’s open to anyone who simply enjoys singing,” said Mueller, an English and Speech major.

The two music majors include, Young and Dominic Calzetta, the ensemble’s music director. Calzetta, a Saint Clair Shores senior, runs the rehearsals and puts together the choral arrangements. He said there is typically a back-and-forth struggle when deciding what songs the group will sing.

“It's a good mix between picking what is popular at the time and will be popular with the audience,” Calzetta said. “But then I have to also decide what is going to be singable for an a cappella group.”

In the past three years the group sang songs like “That Thing” by Lauryn Hill, “Accidentally in Love” by the Counting Crows and “Moondance” by Van Morrison.

This semester Calzetta hopes to be performing songs such as “I Kissed a Girl” by Katy Perry and “Love Song” by 311.

At the end of each semester the group invites a few a cappella ensembles from other schools to sing with them at a performance that showcases the songs they practiced for the semester, Young said.

“This year we want to do a spring break tour and sing at different schools and music festivals around country,” Young said.

Calzetta said he keeps in contact with other ensembles in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in order to make the tours possible.