BYU Vocal Point | A Capella Obsession

I was seven years old when I first remember hearing an a capella group perform live. It was at the state homeschool convention, and a group of four brothers led the children's program. They also sang together as The Denton Brothers Quartet. I loved hearing them sing hymns in close barbershop harmony, and thus began my love for men's a capella singing. I grew up listening to GLAD's Christmas CD (read the blog post about that here!). A few years later, we got into Southern Gospel music, and the Gaither Vocal Band will always be tops in that genre when it comes to singing without instruments. And then we, along with everybody else, discovered Straight No Chaser when their 12 Days of Christmas video went viral in 2007-2008. Fast forward a few more years, and I suddenly realized BYU Vocal Point is good. Really good. Like, "How have I never heard of these guys before?!" kind of good.

You may have heard of Vocal Point without realizing it: Steven Sharp Nelson (of The Piano Guys) based his beautiful cello arrangement of Nearer, My God, to Thee off of VP director (and former member) James Stevens' vocal arrangement!

Vocal Point teamed up with the BYU Men's Chorus just a few weeks ago to film this video of them singing

Nearer, My God, to Thee - with James Stevens returning to sing lead!

The 2010-2011 group was one of the best (though, truthfully, every group is great!). They filmed this video of them singing Jump Jive an' Wail

(originally by the Brian Setzer Orchestra)...and they, quite literally, had more fun than should be allowed in a library. :)

In the fall of 2011, Vocal Point competed on Season Three of The Sing-Off on NBC. They were, unfortunately, voted off, but they did make it to the Top 5! One of my favorite performances of theirs was Footloose, originally by Kenny Loggins.

While on The Sing-Off, they chose several songs by Elvis for their Superstar Medley: Don't Be Cruel, Can't Help Falling in Love, and Jailhouse Rock. (Michael, Jake, and McKay did such a great job singing lead on each song!)

I read somewhere that they applied for permission from Michael Jackson's estate to perform their unbelievably awesome arrangement of Beat It on

The Sing-Off, but permission wasn't granted in time. Still, you can enjoy this video - the choreography is thebombdotcom.

I've never really been a fan of The Muppets, but Vocal Point's parody of Telephone Opera is so ridiculously funny.

Besides, Ben Murphy sings lead, and he has a wonderful voice - and an Australian accent. (Major cool points.)

The 2012-2013 group performed this can't-sit-still-kind-of-fun arrangement of Good Time, the Carly Rae Jepsen + Owl City hit from

the summer of 2012...complete with backflips mid-song. Their energy is infectious!

This last video for you to enjoy is a medley of songs from the Broadway musical, Newsies. Not only is the arrangement spectacular; so is the video:

it was shot in one take and includes dance teams from BYU! Check out this behind-the-scenes video!

For the love of music,

Rebekah