1st Place – All-Night Yahtzee | Florida State University | 362 points
2nd Place – Distilled Harmony | Northeastern University | 332 points
3rd Place – No Comment | University of Illinois | 313 points
ICCA Wild Card Judges:
Kimberly Raschka Sailor is the current Editor-in-Chief of the Recorded A Cappella Review Board (RARB), with more than 250 reviews authored since 2005 for groups at the high school, collegiate, and professional levels. She is the co-founder and past president of the University of Southern California’s Reverse Osmosis, a group that has competed in the ICCA Finals. Kimberly also serves as a CARA (Contemporary A Cappella Recording Award) nominator and judge. In addition to volunteering in the a cappella community, Kimberly is an author and elected school board member for the Mount Horeb Area School District in Wisconsin.
Dave Sperandio has been working with a cappella music for more than 15 years as a performer, producer, and engineer. He founded a cappella production companies diovoce, VocalSource, and Vocal Mastering, and his work has appeared on releases from around the globe. Dave is the founder of the Alliance for A Cappella Initiatives and the creator of the SoJam A Cappella Festival, as well as the ‘Sing’ vocal compilation.
Thomas Paster is the director of vocal music at Northern Highlands Regional High School in Allendale, NJ. His a cappella group Highlands Voices is the 2014 ICHSA National Champions and the 2015 National A Cappella Convention Champions. They have won the ICHSA Mid-Atlantic States A Cappella Championship for the past six years and were featured on the Lifetime TV show Pitch Slapped. He is also an active composer/arranger and he writes for numerous a cappella groups. Mr. Paster received a BM from Ithaca College and an MS from the University of Scranton and has been an adjunct professor of music at Kean University and William Paterson University. He is proud to be the NJ rep for the A Cappella Education Association.
Dennis Gephart is in his 15th year as director of choral activities and department head at Port Washington High School, where he directs four curricular and three extracurricular choral groups. He mentors two student-run extracurricular vocal ensembles and is the vocal director for the high school musicals. In addition to Dennis’s school responsibilities, he has served as the Wisconsin state representative for the A Cappella Education Association from 2013-2016. He also has been the WCDA State Honors Vocal Jazz assistant director from 2007-2011, and has helped teach the Wisconsin Vocal Jazz Institute for the past five years. He holds a Bachelor of Music from UW Stevens Point and a master’s degree in administrative leadership from Marian University in Fond du Lac, Wis. Vocal groups under Dennis’s direction have received superior ratings locally, nationally, and internationally. In 2010, the vocal jazz group, Limited Edition, from Port Washington High School won the Midwest ICHSA Semifinal, and were named National Champions in New York City later that year. Since then, the group has won the ICHSA Midwest Semifinal three more times (2012, 2013, 2014). His ensembles have been selected to be part of the BOHSA compilations in 2010, 2012, and 2015.
Clare Wheeler grew up in Kenya before moving to Manchester to attend Chetham’s School of Music, where she trained as a violinist and also studied classical voice. During this time she met bassist Steve Berry of Loose Tubes, and started getting into jazz. She went on to Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London to study jazz composition and voice under Pete Churchill and Tim Garland, as well as classical singing with Penny Mackay. Clare freelanced in London as a singer and composer, and taught music theory and harmony at the Academy of Contemporary Music, before joining The Swingles in 2007. In 2012, she released ‘Crossing’, a jazz album with American composer Tyler Gilmore. A respected voice in contemporary vocal music, Clare has been a guest host of BBC Radio 3’s ‘The Choir’. It is her life’s ambition to be the voice of London’s Tube trains.