This year’s Spring Sing will feature the Dartmouth Brovertones, one of Dartmouth’s three all-male a cappella groups, as its headliners and hosts. The Spring Sing, an annual a cappella show whose hosting rights rotate between all of the College’s a cappella groups, will likely feature the group’s longest set until its next turn for hosting duties. Fall Fling and Winter WhingDing, the other two major a cappella shows on campus, operate in the same way, so that each group is able to host one of these major shows approximately every two to three years.
The Brovertones’ musical director, Graham Rigby ’17, was a freshman the last time the Brovertones hosted during the Fall Fling of 2013.
“This is the second time I’ve done it, and I think I’m lucky to have done it twice,” Rigby said. “It only happens once to many people. It’s a chance to have a big show that you can turn out a lot of people in a really nice space to perform.”
Because a cappella shows on campus tend to be held in fraternities, Spring Sing, which is held in Spaulding Auditorium in the Hopkins Center, offers the Brovertones a rare opportunity to perform on a stage of that size.
“It’s really kind of a legitimacy,” the Brovertones’ media manager, Jared Solomon ’19, said. “It’s helped out by the school, and they get to provide a lot of resources and equipment that we normally don’t have access to.”
With a larger venue and access to equipment, the group increased the number of songs in its set list, which will hopefully attract a larger audience.
The Brovertones’ set list will consist of songs across a variety of genres, including arrangements of music by artists such as the Beach Boys and Chris Stapleton.
“We have a lot of modern contemporary pop music, we have country music, we have hip-hop, R&B elements, we have some more classic rock or older songs as well,” the Brovertones’ recording manager, Ryan Divers ’18, said. “It’s a really interesting spread or cross-section across all types of things we can do.”
Divers added that part of the personality of the Brovertones is their desire and ability to sing an eclectic collection of music, and this variety will certainly be showcased during Spring Sing.
Although there will be no new arrangements being debuted, the Brovertones collectively chose the songs that they will showcase, and the show will feature pieces arranged by a number of Brovertones as well as songs that have not been performed in some time.
“It’s sort of an anthology of stuff we’ve been doing, in some sense — the fact that there’s not any strictly new music,” Rigby said. “It’s a good cross-section of the variety of music we’ve been doing for the past few years, kind of the cream of the crop.”
During the show, the Brovertones will be joined by Fusion, one of Dartmouth’s student dance ensembles, and DStyle, a Dartmouth freestyle rap group. As the host, the Brovertones decided to invite those two groups to join because they wanted to bring more variety to the show and to involve other parts of the campus arts community.
“We thought that’ll make a more entertaining performance for the audience to have that variety of different skills and abilities to showcase,” Divers said.
Additionally, Anup Chamrajnagar ’18 is a member of both the Brovertones and DStyle, providing a link between the two groups. He will be performing with both groups during the show.
Solomon explained that he hopes the audience will leave the show with a better appreciation for all of the variety and genres of Dartmouth a cappella.
“If the audience leaves happy, and they’re entertained the whole time, I think we’ve done our job,” Divers said.
Spring Sing is this Saturday, April 22 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $3 for students and $10 for community members.
