Monday 07-08-2017 - 13:48

 

Bristol SU has a number of societies who have been accredited with gold status on the Balloon Accreditation Scheme. We caught up with A Cappella to find out a bit more about their society.

What you do?

Voted Bristol SU’s Best Society 2017, the University of Bristol A Cappella Society gives anyone the chance to get involved in a cappella.

This is the real-life Pitch Perfect, with 8 groups to be a part of! Whether you want to have some weekly fun in one of our large non auditioned groups, or join one of our amazing competitive auditioned groups, A Cappella offers endless opportunities to sing. We even have a beatboxing group, Brizzlebox!

All the groups rehearse and perform regularly as part of our large termly concerts, busking around the city, or performing at private gigs. But it’s not just about the singing. We have socials every two weeks, ranging from bar crawls, to film nights, to the legendary A Cappella Scavenger Hunt, not to mention the annual A Cappella Ball. We’re definitely an extremely active society.

Where you do it?

All our groups rehearse weekly in the SU. Seeing each other every week creates a lovely community spirit throughout the society! As well as that, we perform all over Bristol and beyond! The Bristol Suspensions have just returned from their tour of the East Coast of the United States, and our non auditioned groups have just had a hit week of shows at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The UK A Cappella scene is really an amazing thing to be part of, with events across the country that we always get involved in!

What have you achieved and how have you met the standards of the Gold award?

From ‘The Bristol Suspensions’ appearing on 'Pitch Battle' on BBC 1, to being named ‘Best Society’ at the Union Awards in June, the past year has been amazing for us and our groups! We collaborated with other A Cappella groups from across the country hosting ‘The Tectonics’ (ICCA World Champions 2016) in October and putting on a joint concert in the Bristol SU bar. We ran two taster sessions during the year with hundreds of people attending. Be sure to check out our 'Give It A Go' session this year! Our groups also raised money and awareness through performing. For example, ‘Pitch Fight’ performed at ‘Reclaim The Night’, standing in opposition to gender-based violence.

As such an active society we do countless things for the union, university and wider society.

Anything different you're planning for next year?

We’ve already got so much planned for next year! We’re planning a ‘South West A Cappella Showcase’ at the Winston Theatre at the end of October bringing together a cappella groups from across the country! For ‘International Women’s Day’ we’re planning a collaborative concert with female a cappella groups from across the country. With countless other concerts in the pipeline and some amazing socials lined up, it’s going to be another great year!

 

 

You can see the Suspensions in action on their YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC64I7Ne7m-ddyCvNxcdfwKw