When I joined my a cappella group as a freshman, I never imagined we'd be performing at the quarter-finals for the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella (ICCA). But there we were, singing and dancing in front of a sold out auditorium at another university.
At first, I was skeptical about competing. A cappella had always been my stress relief. No matter how stressful classes were, I knew I could go to rehearsal two nights a week and everything would be OK. When my group decided to compete this year, a cappella went from being my stress relief to being the cause of most of my stress. In the weeks leading up to the ICCAs, I struggled to balance my classes and two jobs with extensive rehearsals for our choreographed setlist. "This will all be over in two weeks," I told myself. But then, two weeks had gone by. Suddenly, it was the Saturday of ICCAs, and I didn't want it to end.
The ICCAs are nothing like Pitch Perfect. Maybe they're even better. Instead of the competitive, anxiety-inducing environment I had expected, there was an atmosphere of positivity. We were all here because we just really love music. The groups in our section of the quarter-finals were welcoming and eager to mingle with other a cappella groups. The host school decorated classrooms for each a cappella group, provided bottles of sparkling apple cider, and they even went around to each classroom throughout the day with a therapy dog. I felt like I was part of an a cappella community, and I didn't want to be anywhere else.
I should have been nervous about performing because I am definitely a firm believer that if you're not nervous, you'll mess up. But the mere fact that I was at the ICCAs was so exciting, I was filled with energy the whole time. The order of the show was picked randomly, and my group ended up being picked fourth. After we performed the four songs in our set, I couldn't believe it had ended so quickly. Two weeks of seeing my a cappella family every night of the week for almost three hours had just ended. I knew the following Monday, we'd have to go back to reality, resuming our normal routines of work, going to classes in different majors and catching up with our friends outside of a cappella.
My group didn't place on Saturday night, but another group from our school (yeah, there were three groups from Rider University) took third place and received an award for best choreography. I didn't care about rankings. I was having the time of my life, and I was just happy that I had found a place in the world of collegiate a cappella.
