Wavelength A Capella reaches semifinals
March 11, 2020
Formed this past year at Tulane, Wavelength A Capella is made up of 13 diverse students with a passion for singing and competition.
The group was originally formed by senior Derby Belser with help from seniors Lexi Frame and Cassidy Oberlietner.
“I’ve known Derby since we were freshmen, and we have just been in the a capella community together and her group actually went to the ICCA [International Championship of Collegiate A Capella] the year before,” Oberlietner said. “The issue was that there were people in each group that wanted to go to the ICCA’s but not everybody in one group wanted to go and you need complete dedication to go. So, Derby had the idea to start this group of people who really wanted to commit, and she approached me and one of our friends Lexi at first with this idea and we both thought it was a great idea.”
Each member of the a capella team has a different role in the group. Frederick Bell is the group’s beatboxer while Talon Deerborn’s role is singing wherever is needed along with being the choreographer with multiple other members. Oberlietner is a soprano along with being in charge of Public Relations and event coordination, and Nick Salcieo is a treble and travel coordinator for the group.
This new, upcoming group made it to the ICCA semi-finals this year and was pleased with their performances at both the quarterfinals and semi-finals. The quarterfinals took place in Tampa, Florida, while the semi-finals were held in Durham, North Carolina.
“From here, we hope to go on tour — which means touring our city but also touring other cities as well.” Oberlietner said.
Wavelength A Capella’s goal is to represent New Orleans music. Through unique choreography and singing techniques, they hope to depict all of the culture that New Orleans has to offer on the a capella stage.
“What our objective was was to represent the city of New Orleans and the state of Louisiana, through our music and the stories that we were telling, and I think that was definitely shown by our performance,” Bell said. “So regardless of whatever score we received, it’s the journey.”
Lexi • Mar 15, 2020 at 4:53 pm
Hello,
As a member of the organization, I’m really disappointed with how this article was written. Not only does it not represent our org the way we presented it to you during the interviews, it shows a complete disregard to our members and the actual commentary they had on the experience in favor for a more pleasant narrative. The fact that you paid far less attention to the words of the students of color present than the white students interviewed is really upsetting, especially given the discrimination we faced during competition season that you chose not to discuss in the article. To top ALL of this off, you somehow managed to spell 3 out of 4 names wrong for the people you interviewed in person, even after having them spell it out loud for you. This article feels lazy and dismissive in how it was written and it is really disheartening to read that given all the challenges we’ve had to overcome thus far.
Thanks and please email me for a rewrite or – dare I say – someone else to write the article who will care enough to actually tell our story.
Sincerely, Lexi Frame