NYC A Cappella

Tomorrow night (Saturday, April 18th) I’ll be at the Varsity Vocals FINALS for the ICCAs and the ICHSAs. That’s the International Championship of Collegiate/High School A Cappella. It’s always an amazing show, there are always gatherings of a cappella die-hards like myself, and this year I’m involved in two new ways:

1) An NYC A Cappella customized arrangement is being given away to a group! Not sure yet if it’s a first place or second place group or if it’s high school or college.

2) My a cappella group, Treble, is singing in the Grand Foyer before the doors open at 6PM. If you’re not coming to the show but still have an itch to hear some a cappella, our show is free in the lobby and open to the public!!! Entrance to Alice Tully Hall is at West 65th Street and Broadway.

Hope to see you there!

Instead of focusing on the freezing winter blahs we’ve had in NYC, I’m working on my winter ‘la’s’ and up to my eyeballs in arranging! Unfortunately I have a terrible web hosting service and will be switching soon to a new one, so I apologize if the site’s been down a few times.

Still working on a new site redesign, but in the meantime a few songs I’ve arranged recently include “Everything I’m Not” by The Veronicas and a new Motown medley.

Coming soon, a contest where a group will win a FREE NYC A Cappella arrangement!

Hi everyone - it’s been quite a while and a busy few months for me.  I just wanted to wish everyone a wonderful holiday season this year.  Though I’m always busy arranging with every free moment I can find, I also sing in an a cappella group in NYC called Treble.  To see me as a performer instead of the arranger (you know and love), here’s a YouTube video of me singing “Every Little Thing” by The Police. Not my arrangement, though I am doing other arrangements for the group.

In 2009 I’ll have a bit of a redesign for my site, a few announcements and hopefully more clients joining the roster! I’ve welcomed back lots of previous clients and a few new ones and hope to have an exhaustive list posted soon!

My daughter turned 1, and on top of chasing her all over our home, I’ve had lots of arranging. New clients include Vocalise from Ohio, and I’ve had a handful of old clients come back for more music. My new favorite song that I’m arranging is “Pumpkin Soup” by Kate Nash. It’s catchy, screams “arrange me, please!” and even though it has nothing to do with pumpkins, it’s so apropos for the fall.

Almost Had It All - $0.99

After a year’s worth of work, spending my own dough and what little time I have, I have finished the first song I’ve ever arranged and produced on my own.  Over the years I’ve served as producer for a few semi-professional CDs and collegiate CDs, groups that I belonged to, but I decided to do a one-off project that has been my labor of love where I had creative control over the whole process. Yippee!  

The song is “Almost Had It All” by Dana Glover. The blow-your-mind talented Cara DiNorcia is singing lead, accompanied by myself, Randi Culang, Yeraz Markarian, Dana Wise and Sara Yood.  We recorded the song at J. Armen Studios in NYC and it was mixed and mastered at Pinewood Productions.

Click here for a sample of Almost Had It All

If you like it, please support the little engine that could: me, and **download the full song. This is the first song I’ve ever done without an official group, and I’m grinning from ear to ear in the hopes that you like it as much as I do.  Click the “Buy Now” button below where you can purchase the song using a credit card or Paypal account.

**Please don’t send the file to your friends, as it’s stealing/piracy/illegal/however you want to slice it!

Yesterday (August 6th), my computer was running slowly and I had to reboot it, a common occurrence.  My computer decided to hang on a grey little Apple icon, seemingly harmless, but 24 hours later after a call with Apple Care and a visit to a data recovery center, my entire hard drive is gone.  I will know in about a week if my files are recoverable, but now I wait.  And wait.  Fortunately I have some data backed up on an external hard drive.  Unfortunately, I had not backed up many arrangements from the past year.  

For those of you I’ve been e-mailing with this past week (Casey, Jamie, etc), please e-mail me again when you get a chance and re-forward your request to me.  With the hard drive crash I don’t have any e-mails from before TODAY, and I don’t have your e-mail addresses!  I may have some of the arrangements you’ve requested on the server which could be good news.

For everyone else, please hang tight.  I’ll know in a week what was salvaged, if anything, and if it’s a total loss, I might be contacting some old clients to send PDFs and files of my arrangements back to me so I can painstakingly rebuild my work.  Let’s hope it’s good news next week!

I’m really excited to announce that one of my arrangements (Runaway, as performed by Jamiroquai) has made it onto a fantastic a cappella compilation called Voices Only.  The performance is by none other than the UMass Dynamics.  This is so exciting for me, as reaching the audiences on these compilations is something I’ve never done.  There are three big compilation projects each year in the world of a cappella and this is one of them. Congratulations to the UMass Dynamics for their first appearance on a compilation as well.

Hello all - I’ve had some serious technical difficulties with my site over the last week, and no thanks to my hosting company, I’ve finally resolved these problems!  Therefore, many of you may have wanted to enter my contest to WIN A FREE CD but the post disappeared over the last week!  

I’m extending the contest deadline to Monday, May 12th (a little over a week from now).  Here are the original details:

The UMass Dynamics, have just released their sophomore effort, Love Games. Yours truly created 7 of the arrangements on the album and am literally bouncing off the walls with excitement to have everyone hear them. The Dynamics were gracious enough to let me add the sound clips to my page, and you should definitely pick up a copy of their album here. Please let me know what you think of the arrangements; here are some samples.

Send me feedback with “Dynamics” in the subject line to info @ nycacappella dot com. The contest ends April 30th!   MAY 12th!!!

Hi everyone - it’s finally gorgeous spring weather here in NYC, and I’m so glad to have some new music clips for you to listen to. One of my most dedicated clients, The UMass Dynamics, have just released their sophomore effort, Love Games. Yours truly created 7 of the arrangements on the album and am literally bouncing off the walls with excitement to have everyone hear them. The Dynamics were gracious enough to let me add the sound clips to my page, and you should definitely pick up a copy of their album here. Please let me know what you think of the arrangements; here are some samples.

I Want You Back
Your Ex-Lover Is Dead
Runaway
Everybody
Save The Last Dance
Because
You Get What You Give

AND - as a contest; a randomly selected person who e-mails me after listening to the arrangements with feedback about any/all of the songs (positive feedback and criticisms both welcome!) will win a FREE copy of their CD! Your odds are pretty good; I don’t have thousands of subscribers to this site.

Send me feedback with “Dynamics” in the subject line to info @ nycacappella dot com. The contest ends April 30th!