Spring at IU is in full bloom, and the music scene on campus is flourishing along with it. All-treble a cappella group The Bloomingtones will soon be celebrating the season with their “Sounds of Spring” concert this Saturday.
The Bloomingtones are an entirely student-led and directed ensemble, and they are preparing to conclude a busy semester. In February 2024, the group performed at both the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella quarterfinals as well as the IU Sing competition, placing second in the latter.
Julianna Banfe, a sophomore majoring in vocal performance, said that the spring concert will be different from the previous two shows because it will not feature choreography and will be more vocally focused.
“I think this is a concert that’s much more focused on the vocals,” Banfe said. “And for me personally, I think that with competition season and also with time and new members, we have just grown so much vocally as a group.”
Banfe is also the co-founder and a current co-music director of the Bloomingtones. As a music director, she is responsible for overseeing rehearsals and directing the group vocally. Additionally, the role often requires her to create arrangements of pop songs.
“We’re responsible for teaching music to everybody, and in many cases, arranging the music as well,” Banfe said. “And then once we learn it, we’re responsible for cuing everybody in and giving notes on what we want for specific parts of songs.”
Sophomore Olivia Jabczynski, the co-president of the ensemble, has been a member since the beginning of her freshman year. After years of previous experience performing as a part of vocal and show choir ensembles, the Bloomingtones is her first involvement with a group that performs entirely a cappella. She said she admires the group’s commitment to being entirely student-directed and specifically values the contributions of group members who arrange music.
“Something that’s really cool is we have our music directors and some other members of the group arrange most of our songs,” she said. “Which is just really impressive. I really like hearing their work come to life.”
Jabczynski also said that while there isn’t one strict theme for the spring concert, the set consists mostly of songs by modern female artists. The setlist is made up of songs the group has performed in the past as well as some new additions, and she said she is excited to perform the new songs.
“I’m personally looking forward to doing our new songs and seeing our audience’s reactions to those,” she said. “We also have some people who have never had solos before that have solos this semester, so I’m excited for them to kind of get their moment.”
Members say there is a profound sense of friendship and community within the ensemble, and freshman member Signe Ring said that she looks forward to performing with her friends.
“I’m really excited to show people what we’ve been working on this whole year, especially if they couldn’t come to our winter concert,” Ring said. “Yeah, I’m just really excited to have a fun time singing with the girls.”
The concert will begin at 2 p.m. April 12 at the Whittenberger Auditorium. Tickets for the show will be $5 for students and $8 for non-students and can be purchased prior to the show online.
Editor’s note: An IDS reporter is part of the Bloomingtones but was not involved in this piece.
CORRECTION: This article has been updated to properly reflect when the The Bloomingtones finished second at the IU Sing competition.
