Acappology, NC State’s original coed a cappella group, held its final concert of the semester Wednesday night to send off its five graduating seniors with an ode to the struggles of being a freshman.
This performance was special, both in style and weight, for the performers.
Titled, “Writing is Hard: Stories Through Song,” the performance was the first time the group incorporated a dimension of acting into the show.
The instrument-less set list was interwoven with a story about a freshman in a creative writing class struggling to come up with a story. In his rush to finish, the plot shifts from a story about a medieval love connection into a science-fiction narrative about a space princess who gets kidnapped during a space rave, then shifts, again, into a story about ghost super fans obsessed with Stevie Wonder.
The story ends when the student decides to drop the class and stick to more practical career choices.
Each new narrative flows into an a cappella rendition of pop hits like Hozier’s “Work Song,” Sam Smith’s “Latch” and Arctic Monkeys’ “Do I Wanna Know?”
“It’s organic, you’re creating sound with other people,” said Shaunak Turaga, a music director for Acappology and a senior studying computer and electrical engineering.
Acappology, established on campus in 1994, has built a reputation for high-intensity performances and is able to sustain itself through fan support and charity work.
For Turaga, it was his last concert with the group after performing with them since fall 2012.
“It’s been an interesting journey for me,” said Turaga, who grew up in a musical family that encouraged him to play the piano and the guitar. He said he was always able to use sound to express himself. “You can do it anywhere, a stairwell, a shower.”
With 14 current members from diverse backgrounds and ages, the group is highly collaborative despite the uncertainty of reloading with new talent every year, Turaga said. The group meets three times a week for two hours, during which they compose and arrange the songs together, figuring out how to achieve the best sound with the range of talent that they have and nail down its choreography, allowing them to form the strong bonds that were on display on this emotional night.
The group has recorded five albums, which are available on Spotify and iTunes, and it has a new one in the works.
For Travarus Littlejohn, a senior studying psychology who was there to see his friend perform, “Writing is Hard” was a new experience for him.
“I had never experienced anything like this, making all the music from their mouths, everything by the people, it’s a new experience for me,” Littlejohn said. “It opened me up to other artists who do this type of thing, I really appreciated the work that goes into it. It’s magical.”
Reflecting on his time in Acappology, Turaga described it as a break from the sometimes stifling environment of a double major in electrical and computer engineering.
“It definitely kept me sane,” Turaga said.
Colorado Pratt, a senior studying psychology and a member of Acappology since the Fall of 2013, singing a solo portion of "Latch" by Sam Smith backed up by the rest of the group who made up the instrumentals. Pratt, in his goodbye performance, was later asked to do an impromptu cover of a Justin Timberlake song.
