Last week, on April 18, Wolfgang A Cappella hosted their spring concert, Lost in Space, in Stewart Theatre with a guest performance by UNC-Chapel Hill a cappella group, The Tarpeggios. Wolfgang A Cappella is a student run co-ed a cappella group at NC State.
The group began the concert by performing an a cappella cover of “Star Wars (Main Title)” over the iconic opening crawl introducing the performance. The Wolfgang members take the stage wearing space-themed shirts to fit the Lost in Space theme. The members of Wolfgang then invite the audience to “sit back, relax and get lost in space.”
Wolfgang A Cappella performed their International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella (ICCA) set including staples such as “Feel Something” and “Rise Up.” “Feel Something” featured a guest appearance by Wolfgang alumnus Matt Wyant to perform a surprise solo for the last time.
The Tarpeggios, a co-ed a cappella group from UNC-CH, performed as guests. Jeremy Kelly, a fourth-year studying Spanish and business administration with a concentration in marketing and the president and vocal percussionist of Wolfgang A Cappella, explained how the guest performance came about.
“We were performing a gig in Troy, North Carolina, for a local church and they brought us in along with Grains of Time and The Tarpeggios to be the performing groups,” Kelly said. “We really liked them and we had never met them before, so we were like, ‘This might be a fat chance, but would you be available for a Thursday concert in four days to be our guest group?’ And they agreed so they made the drive and got to perform with us.”
After a brief intermission, the second act began with the group doing a skit where they asked their newest members, who they refer to as their “Wolfpups,” various space-themed questions. This included Amory Lawson, a third-year studying political science and alto for the group, asked Matt Slaughter, a first-year studying engineering, what he would say if he were the first person to land on the moon to which he replied, “OMG, I’m on the moon.”
For the song lineup of the second act, Wolfgang pulled out their alumni song, “The Offbeat of Avenues.” Five Wolfgang alumni came up on stage to help perform the song, which is performed at every Wolfgang concert.
Wolfgang performed a farewell song to their graduating members. The group performed a cover of “525,600 Minutes,” titled “168,700 Minutes,” to their graduating fourth-year members: Katie Hazel, a mezzo-soprano studying psychology; Kristen Lovell, a mezzo-soprano studying biomedical engineering; Sierra LaPlante, a mezzo-soprano studying social work and Spanish and Chris Benfante, a baritone studying computer science and economics. The song was written by the group to represent the amount of time that they have spent rehearsing together.
“Usually senior songs either don’t happen or they’re put together at the last minute,” LaPlante said. “I thought I was going to make it through the whole show without crying, but knowing that they wrote that and that we didn’t know they were doing it, I completely lost it. It was so amazing to just look at my friends who are my family and just have one more moment with them.”
Kelly explained that he was concerned about the senior song.
“We hadn’t really rehearsed it that much because we thought about the idea about a week or two ago and rehearsed it maybe twice,” Kelly said. “I think it meant a lot to the seniors and it ended up being really cute and everyone liked it.”
The show ended with a surprise encore of the song “S.L.U.T.” (Sweet Little Unforgettable Thing) and a standing ovation.
LaPlante mentioned that they put on a great show for her last performance with the group.
“Because it was my last show, I want to be biased, but I think the show went really well especially considering half of us were sick,” LaPlante said. “We put our all into it and we do every time. I’m so proud of this group of people because they’re always going all out.”
Senior mezzo-soprano Sierra LaPlante of Wolfgang A Cappella performs “Rise Up” on April 18, 2019 at Stewart Theatre.
