Weekender: Enchanted a capella group defies the odds

Imagine starting a business in a field that's already crowded with well-known names. You lack the name recognition of the other brands, which makes it hard to attract new recruits. You can’t match the institutional resources of your competitors. And on top of all that, you have virtually no experience in the industry. It would be fair to assume most people would immediately write you off.

But that is essentially the gamble that the founders of the fledgling a capella group Enchanted took when they formed the ensemble in the fall of 2013. And despite the long odds, the group has managed to rapidly establish itself as a force to be reckoned with on the Tufts a capella scene, with a core of devoted members working tirelessly to build the group from the ground up.

Getting to where they are today wasn’t easy, according to Orlando Economos, who co-founded Enchanted along with juniors Praz Perkasa and Edward Fultz. The co-founders were disappointed by the limited offerings of the Tufts a capella scene, and tried to find a persuasive rationale to justify starting an entirely new group on campus. They ultimately presented their reasoning to the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Judiciary in order to become recognized as a student group.

“When I walked in to the [Judiciary Committee] meeting, there was a great deal of skepticism in the room. Why do we need a ninth a cappella group? What makes us different?” Economos, a junior, said. “The answer was that music was a way for us to bond and cherish childhood.”

Once Enchanted had been given the green light, however, the founders faced another challenge: how to assemble a troupe with the semester already in full swing. Here again, they were able to turn an apparent liability into an asset.

“I think that by holding auditions mid-semester, we benefited from the availability of people in the same boat as us," Economos said. "They wanted to sing, but they had either been rejected, or felt that there wasn’t a group out there for them.”

Clearly, this was a sizable enough contingent of students — 32 people auditioned for 13 spots, an impressive turnout for a group in its infancy.

Enchanted also benefited from the esoteric appeal of what has become its defining trait: a musical repertoire comprised exclusively of Disney-themed songs. As the years go on, this has upped their profile at Tufts, to the point where they are now mentioned frequently on admissions tours as an example of Tufts' culture of quirk, according to Economos.

“In a totally unexpected way, we’ve become the poster-children for quirkiness and the ability of students to pursue whatever they want outside of the classroom,” he said.

Still, poster-children status aside, the club’s members stress that Enchanted is much more than just a Disney-themed a capella group.

“Enchanted was founded on the platform of being a nostalgia-themed, family-themed group more than anything else," sophomore Alex Cohen, president of Enchanted this year, said.

Rachel Sheldon, music director for the group, agreed with Cohen's assessment.

“People associate our music with the Disney movies they watched as kids, and it kind of takes them back to that carefree time of their lives," Sheldon, a junior, said.

This holds doubly true for the group's members whose love of Disney music, and the deep nostalgia it evokes is palpable. The group votes on its set list for each of the shows it puts on in the winter and the spring.

“Not once has a Disney song played and every member of Enchanted didn't shout ‘I love that song!’ and immediately start singing along,” Cohen said. 

But as anyone involved in the world of a capella knows, the road between singing along to a song you like with friends and presenting a finished product to an audience is arduous and demanding. The formidable task of channeling everyone's raw enthusiasm into a well-arranged set mostly falls to juniors Isaac Brown and Merilla Michael, who were initially the group's only arrangers.Economos credits Brown and Michael with piquing a wider interest in a capella arrangement among the other members of Enchanted.

"Not only did they arrange our first few songs, but they inspired others to try their hand at composition, and now half the group arranges their own music," Economos said.

Now the pool of potential arrangers in the group grown, and the type of arrangements they rehearse has expanded to include more difficult compositions.

"We shake things up a bit by trying to mash up Disney songs with more modern stuff," Brown, who has stayed on as one of the group's primary arrangers, said.

The pieces all seem to be falling into place for Enchanted. Since none of its members are graduating this year, the group has an exciting opportunity to build on the successes they've enjoyed so far. Cohen believes that confidence has been crucial to the group's rise.

"Over time we've developed confidence in ourselves as individual singers, we've developed confidence in ourselves as a group and we've developed a sense of confidence in Enchanted in people outside of the group," she said.

Sheldon, who is responsible for running the group's rehearsals, agreed.

"In general, we've become a lot more organized and efficient at learning new music, and our confidence while performing has increased exponentially," she said.

With this confidence growing stronger every day, Enchanted is looking to broaden its horizons. Though most of the shows it puts on have remained on campus, the group did score a gig last semester at the Mystic Learning Center, a recreational center for low-income youth.Cohen said the group hopes to coordinate more off-campus performances in the future.

“We really enjoyed that; I’m hoping we can do more of that,” she said.

In the long run, Enchanted has its sights set on more ambitious appearances.

“Our long-term goal is to go to Disney World and perform there, which will hopefully happen next spring before a lot of us graduate," Sheldon said.

Economos, who is studying abroad this semester, rattled off a few things he’d like to see the group accomplish before he graduates: “We want to record our first album, we want to sing at matriculation or graduation and we want to go to Disney World.”

He paused, as if reflecting on how far the group he co-founded has come in such a short time. Then: “Disney World for sure. The other two are up in the air.”