Indiana University’s Resting Pitch Face, a 17-member Jacobs School of Music premier all-gender a cappella group, won in its group for the 2025 International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella Midwest quarterfinals. Known for their symphonic performances, RPF is celebrating its 10th year as a group.
The ICCA, a prestigious global competition, encourages young artists to form dream teams and participate in the competition hosted by Varsity Vocals. The groups battle through quarterfinals and semifinals for a spot in the finals in New York City.
“I've always wanted to do these competitions since I was a freshman,” Fodjo Kanmogne, the group president and a senior, said. “Every year, new members join and the group changes, and I just don't think that was what the group was going for when I first joined. But I feel that as I've been in the group, we've just gotten better and better and we wanted to musically challenge ourselves this year.
Kanmogne said the team practices three times a week for the competition. The group has been working on perfecting their set for the semifinals, but it is challenging to balance that with learning new compositions and work on improving the existing set.
Kanmogne described the ICCA as the “pinnacle of a cappella.” The group relentlessly practiced for their show “Fragments.” The group started researching songs around October and finished the set arrangement by December.
“We wanted to tell a story with our show, and not just, like, go out there and sing three songs and do choreography, but to have a story and meaning and emotion behind it,” he said. “So, me and our music director, Matthew Richards, came up with the story first that we wanted to go with, and then from there, we picked the songs to match our story in which ways we thought we would flow.”
Richards, a junior at IU said that most ICCA groups that previously did well were ones who had an underlining theme and story in their showcase. RPF brainstormed themes like friendship and love until they finalized their actual theme of the set.
“We eventually got to the point where we were like 'we want to create a heartbreaking set,'” Richards said. “We wanted it to start happy and then we wanted it to kind of go into more of like a reflective state and then to end in the sense of heartbreak and heartache. We finally figured out that idea and we started researching songs and looking at songs we already knew.”
Richards said the group’s show was comprised of three songs: "Parachute” by Song House and Kyndal Inskeep, "Death Proof” by New West and “Kaleidoscope” by Chappell Roan. Each song had a theme the group wished to bring out for audience to experience the themes.
“Parachute” talks about early stages of entering a relationship and experiencing new love. “Death Proof” confronts the feeling of love where no matter how beautiful it feels, no feeling is “death proof”’ and good things can come to an end. “Kaleidoscope” talks about the awkward stage of transitioning from lovers to friends after a relationship does not work out.
Kanmogne found the songs “Parachute” and “Death Proof” to tie the set up and Matthew found “Kaleidoscope” to recap the entirety of the set.
RPF worked closely on not just getting the pitches right but also the underlying emotion of each song.
“We spent a lot of time going over what each song meant to us and encouraging each other to find that meaning because it makes it resonate more with people,” Ally Stallsmith, RPF director of marketing and a senior, said.
Stallsmith said the members have a close-knit bond which brings a sense of belonging to the group and helps them compose good performances.
RPF is gearing up for the ICCA semifinals on March 22 in Hilliard, Ohio. Their next performance will be at IU Sing happening this Saturday, Feb. 22, at the Buskirk Chumley Theatre in Bloomington with other events in March.
Editor’s note: A writer currently on staff at the IDS is a member of Resting Pitch Face. That writer was not involved in the reporting, writing or editing of this story.
