This past weekend, while most University students were sleeping off the effects of a week of classes, the University Sil'hooettes traveled to William and Mary to compete in the quarter-finals of the International Championship of College A Cappella.
The girls in black and silver left triumphant, with a quarter-final victory under their belts. The Sils won two awards -- one for best arrangement, which fourth-year College student Blair Reinhard earned for her arrangement of the U-2 song "Beautiful Day." The second, a vocal percussion award, went to third-year College student Karen Partlow, who tied with a member of Hoos in Treble.
"Only one of us had been in a competition before, so it was new for all of us," Partlow said. "It was kind of intimidating at first, but once we got up on stage it was like normal."
Other members of the group agreed.
"The Sil'hooettes are finding themselves in a whole new world," said third-year Education student Emily Mollick, business manager for the Sils. "It's just so different from anything we've ever done."
As if winning the quarter-finals weren't enough, the Sils also will have their rendition of the Natalie Imbruglia song "Wrong Impression" placed on the Best of College A Cappella CD. Inclusion on the CD is a feat no female group from the University previously has accomplished.
The Sils also were nominated for every female category of the CARA awards, given by the Contemporary A Cappella Society of America. Despite all this, the Sils also have managed to find the time to release their latest album, "Aftershock," only one year after the release of, "Flair," the Sils' last album.
"I guess typically it would be [released] every two years, but last year we had a really big repertoire and so we were ready to put out another one," Mollick said. "That's why we called it 'Aftershock,' because it came so soon after the last one."
But for the Sils, a cappella is about more than just hard work and singing.
"I just never expected, going into an a cappella group, to gain 14 best friends, rather than just 14 people I sing with," said Mollick. "We're supposed to spend six hours a week together but we spend so much time together, we're best friends. It's amazing."
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