IU’s all-male a cappella group, Another Round, will perform its 30th annual winter show Friday beginning at 8 p.m. at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater.
Another Round is a long-standing student group at IU. When it was formed in 1996 it was called Straight No Chaser, which is now a separate touring group. To avoid confusion, the student group decided to change its name to Another Round a little over 10 years ago. With Another Round’s upcoming show falling one day after Straight No Chaser’s Holiday Road Tour show at the IU Auditorium, the student group hopes to continue Straight No Chaser’s legacy at IU.
Fridays show will include performances with 12 of the 13 members of the group, with one member absent due to a conflicting performance. It will feature a variety of traditional holiday songs, including “The 12 Days of Christmas,” originally performed by Straight No Chaser, and more unique performances with choreography. The group will incorporate songs they have performed before, but there will also be many new aspects to this year's show.
“It’s going to be full of surprises and things that we’ve never done before,” junior and assistant music director Jonah Broscow said. “I think if you’re a returner, you are going to see a lot of new elements performance-wise and I think that if you’ve never seen us or if you’ve just seen our videos, we are bringing that energy, that kind of ‘Pitch Perfect' youthful energy to the stage and it’s going to be a fun show.”
As an independent major in songwriting and performance, Broscow said he was most looking forward to performing a Hannukah song he wrote for the group. They performed his song for the first time at last year’s holiday show, and he said he loved writing and performing it.
Broscow isn’t the only one who works closely with the music-making process, however. The group doesn’t buy any songs, so some members help arrange the music they perform.
“Basically we, you know, we’ll pick songs we want to do, and we assign around four people in the group who I would say are kind of the main four arrangers. I do a lot of arranging myself and I really enjoy it,” Broscow said. “But basically, you take a song, and you figure out how to make it into a cappella.”
The group began preparing for the show in September by selecting songs and creating the set list. It’s typically performed in late November, but members decided to push it back to make it fit more of a winter aesthetic.
“We do a lot of other things, but kind of our main goal for the whole semester is to have a great show at the end for either the winter or spring show each year,” Jamie Davis, sophomore and assistant business director for the group, said. “So, we are spending our rehearsal time learning music, we’re learning choreography, we’re doing all this stuff, so it’s like a three-month long process, but it’s super fun and we get to call it our own.”
This semester especially, they have had a lot of other gigs leading up to their winter show after going viral on social media in mid-September. After the initial success, they decided to make it a competition in order to get more exposure on social media. Whoever’s TikTok of the group performing got the most views would get four free tickets to the show. Winners will be announced Wednesday.
With its newfound virality, the group has noticed a lot more engagement from students. Davis said they typically sell around 250 to 300 tickets to their winter show, but hope to reach closer to 400 this year due to the exposure online.
“I mean that’s really what we’ve been trying to do with getting people to post about it and kind of build just a lot of hype around the show,” Davis said. “We’ve been tracking ticket sales. They’re doing a lot better than usual so we’re super excited about that but we also, I mean, the goal every year is for it to be sold out.”
One of Another Round’s primary goals is to increase attendance at longer performances. While the group has many gigs singing for people’s birthdays, at dorms or at people’s apartments, these short performances don’t always show all its vocalists have to offer performance-wise.
“We do really put in a lot of work and a lot of time and effort into making the show what it is,” Gavin Rivera, a junior on the social media team, said. “I think it’s just really cool to see students going and supporting other students and I also think it’s just something that, you know, it’s not traditional. You don’t go and see a cappella every day, so I think it’s a really unique experience for people to come and watch.”
