A Las Cruces musician got the chance to participate in an international competition in New York City. Amalia Zeitlin competed in the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella with her Boston University A Cappella group The BosTones.
Over 450 A Cappella groups competed for the chance to be one of 10 to perform at the finals the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella or ICCA’s. Las Cruces singer Amalia Zeitlin, a member of the BosTones, says hours of practice go into preparation for competition.
“So, the first thing we did was to pick the songs,” Zeitlin said. “So, we have what’s called a pitching session, where we all get together and we suggest a few songs, and then we talk about it together and narrow it down, usually these sessions last up to three or four hours. Finally, we get a cohesive set of four songs. After that, our musical directors will arrange it to A Cappella style. And then the choreography team, which I actually was on, will come up with choreography for the group.”
Zeitlin says she likes to sing A Cappella gives her the opportunity to participate in different types of music.
“In high school I was a pretty serious singer ad I ended up choosing Violin as my major,” Zeitlin said. “But, singing was like something I was really passionate in, and when I got to college I noticed that A Cappella in a really cool way kind of brought choir into the mainstream, which I thought was really cool. It was doing modern songs, and performing for an audience that maybe hadn’t really listened to choir performance before. I like the way it combines different musical worlds.”
Zeitlin says A Cappella has risen in popularity due to the success of movies like Pitch Perfect and groups like Pentatonix.
“I tell people this a lot,” Zeitlin says. “But, I say A Cappella hasn’t been this big since the Renaissance era. Because it honestly hasn’t. It’s a pretty knew phenomenon. The ICCA competition hasn’t been around for more than 15-20 years, I’m not sure exactly, but it’s relatively new. And in that time it’s grown, every single year it get more competitive. As more and more groups sort of up the level.”
In addition to winning the Semi-Final Competition, Zeitlin also won the prize for outstanding soloist.
