Pitt a capella groups reflect on past year, discuss new season

Anna Ligorio

Senior Staff Writer e 2012 lm “Pitch Perfect” introduced viewers to many things — the infamous Cup Song, Anna Kendrick and most notably, cutthroat college a capella competitions. But how much of this a capella depiction from the movie is accurate, and how much is just ction?

According to Irene Cho, president of the Songburghs, a co-ed a cappella group at Pitt, some parts of the movie are very accurate.

“So you know how, in Pitch Perfect, they do the ICCA’s, the competition where they all compete and like they do medleys and like choreo?” Cho said. “We do the same thing.”

Along with the Songburghs, Pitt has many other a cappella groups. Some of these groups include Sounds Like Treble, a women’s group; e Pitt Pendulums, Pitt’s oldest group; Pittch Please, a men’s group; Pitches & Tones, C Flat Run and Pitt Avaaz.

Krittika Banerji, a junior at Pitt and member of Pitt Avaaz, a co-ed South Asian a cappella group, said her group usually performs a fusion of western and South Asian music.

“For most of our live performances, we do a mashup of like an Indian song and like a Western song,” she said. “It’s a pretty cool mashup, so we kind of do a mixture of both.”

Anya Lee, a rising senior and president of the co-ed Pitches and Tones, said when it comes time to audition for a group, newcomers should look through each a capella group's Instagram and YouTube accounts to get a better grip on what style of music they make.

“I know each group likes to dabble in lots of di erent genres of music, but each group See A capella on page 56 The Songburghs, a co-ed a cappella group at Pitt.

Image courtesy of Irene Cho