Traditions week concert will be ‘Aca-Awesome:’ The Filharmonic to perform

To wrap-up Utah State University’s Traditions week activities, The Filharmonic will perform in concert tonight.

The six-member acapella group was featured in the movie “Pitch Perfect 2,” and were former contestants on NBC’s “The Sing Off.”

“We went with Filharmonic with the ‘Fil’ because we are an all-Filipino group,” said Jules Cruz, a member of the Filharmonic.

Two months after forming their group in college, The Filharmonic joined “The Sing Off.”

“It was the very first thing we’ve ever done together as a group,” said VJ Rosales, another member of The Filharmonic, “so just like being able to perform in front of millions of people every night on the show, we learned so much from all the other amazing artists on the show, so it was very cool.”

It was difficult working together at first because they hadn’t found their sound yet, Rosales said. Over the last few years of working together, however, they’ve found a style that suits them and have grown as artists.

One of the biggest influences in their singing is their shared Filipino- American heritage, Rosales said.

“Growing up in Filipino culture and heritage, there’s definitely a tradition of expressing yourself in music.” said Cruz.

The Filharmonic prefers to sing in a natural and smooth style, instead of following the electronic sound from lot of the contemporary music they cover, Cruz said. He said singing a cappella also helps add a natural rawness to the melody that they enjoy.

“One of my favorite aspects is singing a cappella,” Rosales said. “I think that’s really cool how we don’t need instruments and a lot of bands these days use instruments, and we don’t, so I think that’s cool.”

In their upcoming concert, Rosales said the audience can expect “a lot of dancing, a lot of singing, and most of it will be just overall fun.”

They will be singing multiple different covers and even include original songs written by the artists, Rosales said.

“The theme of this tour is actually called the Get Up and Go Tour,” he said, “and Get Up and Go is actually a song that I wrote a few years ago. One evening I was sitting on a couch and all my friends were out partying and I was missing out and I just wrote a song trying to encourage myself to get up and go. Go out, VJ. Go.”

Rosales said Get Up and Go was the one of the first songs he wrote, and it was a challenge to adapt it later to fit a cappella singing.

“We’re pretty happy with it,” he said. “I think the most amazing thing is when the audience is singing it back to us, it’s really, really fun.”

The Filharmonic will perform Friday at 7 p.m. in the Taggart Student Center ballroom. Admission is free.