Elon University’s only vocal jazz ensemble group, elan, will be bringing a distictive style and sprit to the music of Sting, who wrote hits like “Roxanne” and “If You Love Someone Set Them Free,” in its spring concert “Bring on the Night” on April 28.
elan combines a cappella with jazz, but also performs other genres such as rock and pop. Past concerts have included tributes to Stevie Wonder, the Beatles and Pink Floyd.
Stephen Futrell, associate professor of music, teaches the academic course students must audition for to perform in elan. Futrell also directs Camerata, Elon’s other auditioned choir, but said the two differ in the genres they perform.
“While elan is more focused on popular commercial music, Camerata focuses on music from all centuries, for example performing a Gershwin medley or gospel songs,” Futrell said.
“Bring on the Night” will feature nine songs, including “Fields of Gold,” “Walking on the Moon” and “Shape of My Heart.” Guest vocal percussionist Lucas Seisel, choral director of Walter Williams High School in Burlington, will performm as well.
Futrell decided to make Sting this year’s theme after hearing his music last summer.
“We did Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ all a cappella one year, so I wanted to try something similar to that,” Futrell said. “I found a few published arrangements of Sting’s music, and I really like his music, so my students and I started making our own arrangements suitable for elan.”
Sophomore Anders Borg said performing Sting’s music is relatively easy after last semester, when elan first exposed him to heavy vocal jazz.
“Sting tends to write pretty repetitive songs, in contrast to difficult melodies and harmonies we have done in the past,” Borg said.
Borg is also the music director of Rip_Chord, Elon’s male a cappella group. His favorite role in an a cappella performance is background vocals, rather than singing a solo, because it is more interesting and complex.
To audition for elan, students must perform a song for Futrell, along with sight reading and sight singing.
w is open to all grades and majors and usually consists of 12-14 singers who will perform one semester each year.
This semester, there are 14 singers, with majors ranging from music to psychology and human services. The female singers are called swingers, meaning they typically sing in soprano but also swing down to their lower vocal register, and vice versa for altos.
The class meets twice a week and has no outside rehearsal time, aside from last year when the group was invited to perform at the American Choral Directors Association Southern Division Conference. The group opened for the New York Voices, a professional a cappella group, and performed in front of several thousand choral directors.
Junior Caitlyn Balkcum is a music education major. She joined elan in the spring of her freshman year. She said elan is unique because, although there are occasional instrumentals, it is usually solely a cappella.
“I am involved in several of Elon’s groups, like Vital Signs and Camerata, but elan is smaller and performs more current music, which is fun to do because I am classically trained singer,” Balkcum said.
Balkcum said Futrell works hard to make sure his students are singing as correctly as possible, and this technical side is something that is not usually emphasized.
She added that Futrell has taught them vocal techniques such as proper voice placement.
“elan is a different style than other vocal groups at Elon,” Balkcum said. “It requires a lot of stylistic and technical components, especially focusing on healthy singing techniques.”