A cappella Voctave will perform at the Gallagher Bluedorn Performing Arts Center | Local News

When the 11-member a cappella group posted a “Disney Love Medley” online in 2016, it became an instant sensation. Listeners fell in love with their vibrant sound and five-octave vocal range.

Voctave will perform at 7 p.m. on February 25 at the Gallagher Bluedorn Performing Arts Center on the University of Northern Iowa campus in Cedar Falls.

“We weren’t really a planned group. It wasn’t until we recorded the love medley with Kirsten Maldonado of Pentatonix and posted the video that I was told that we had to exist as a band, that whatever the song was, we had to have a name and a website so that when people searched for us, we would exist. That’s when I solidified the band members and we became one thing,” said founder Jamey Ray. He arranges all the music and also sings.

Members bring a wealth of singing experience with them, including musical theatre, contemporary Christian, barbershop harmonies, pop and choral music. Several artists sang with the a cappella group Voices of Liberty at the Epcot theme park at the Walt Disney World resort in Florida.

Voctave’s sound “takes on a very specific flair,” Ray said. “I feel like we have the best singers in the world. That’s what we were born to do. It takes time to craft a song, to put so much emotion and passion into every arrangement. It takes years of training, and in an a cappella group, there’s nowhere to hide. Every note matters, every person’s part matters, and they are singers at the top of their game,” he said. -he explains.

“I know these singers, I’ve worked with them for years, and I know their abilities and what they’re capable of. They are the best people. We all love each other and we all have fun together. We wasted more time together laughing than anything else.

The group often performs complex arrangements of Broadway, Disney, jazz standards and Christmas music.

Over the past five years, Voctave has scored several #1 songs and albums on iTunes, Spotify and other platforms and has toured around the world. They have shared bills with Grammy, Dove and American Music award winners and made the top 25 on the Billboard charts. Their videos have had over 150 million views.

Albums include “The Spirit of the Season”, “Snow”, “The Corner of Broadway and Main Street”, “Somewhere There’s Music”, “Symphony Series” and a deluxe set of their Christmas recordings released in 2021. All their albums are available on digital platforms.

Ray, who also teaches at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida, said the music he chooses and arranges “are songs that showcase the singers. That element is so important. We were one recording group when we started, but now we do shows, and some songs are specific to a show or have a certain function. Like now, we have a brand new show closer that hasn’t been seen on our video recordings, and that only members of our audience during the broadcasts will be able to see.

Ray said the band was thrilled to be on stage again after COVID forced the cancellation of several tours. “It’s the best feeling to get on stage and sing for an audience. It is our soul, what our whole lives are. The public missed it too. Our first comeback gig, we went on stage, and we couldn’t give a downbeat for the first song because people couldn’t stop clapping.

“I think one of the things the pandemic has done is people have also realized how important art is in their lives,” he added.

Tickets are available by calling (319) 273-7469, [email protected] or at unitix.uni.edu.