Aggiepella: Building a group to last
Aggiepella, a Utah State University a cappella group, began as a senior capstone project three semesters ago. Since then, the group has officially become a USU club, taking on a more formal structure. The group’s goal is to last and grow for years to come.
Lauren Knowles started Aggiepella with several friends she invited from USU chamber singers. When the group began meeting, it had an informal structure, which changed when Knowles graduated from USU.
Aggiepella is now is led by club president Michael Ellefson, who is one of the only remaining members of the original group and a student at USU. In a virtual interview, Ellefson said he was asked by Knowles to run the group after she graduated.
“Lauren was also in that choir, she had been there for quite a while. So when she decided that she wanted to start an a cappella group for her capstone project, she just kind of grabbed all the emails from that semester that we were in there, of people in the choir, and sent out a big mass email and said, ‘Hey, if anybody is interested in doing this with me, this is kind of what I’m planning on doing,’” Ellefson said. “And I just thought it sounded like a blast, so I just responded and said, ‘Yeah, that would be great,’ and so, jumped on that very first semester, and then after she was graduating and moving on, she asked if I would kind of take over leading the group for her.”
Ellefson said that Aggiepella is a campus a cappella club run by students.
“If people don’t know or aren’t familiar with a cappella, it’s like a choir, but it’s a small group, and we don’t use any instruments or backtracks or anything,” Ellefson said. “We make all the music with just our voices or our bodies, so it kind of makes it fun that way.”
Ellefson said the current goal of Aggiepella is moving forward to create a better system to manage the group.
“Last semester we kind of worked on becoming an official club at USU, which was a big step,” Ellefson said. “Prior to that, it was kind of a group of us getting together, so that was a really big step for us, and so now we are working on creating a better management system. People can have some different roles, leadership roles when it comes to utilizing the campus’ advertising resources or things like that, and so far it worked great. We did some new things for our auditions, and we had a pretty decent group of auditions come in this semester, which was really amazing. So that, I think, is going to be my big push this semester. Make sure we get a good strong core group and get some leadership experience for people, and I think that will really help the longevity of the club.”
Ellefson said he wants to see the club continue in the future.
“I hear that there have been some clubs that have cropped up in the past that have just kind of died away with time, and I would like for this to be able to just continue on, and I think just creating a good foundation will help make that happen,” Ellefson said. “So that is kind of my vision for now, and we can travel to competitions and do stuff like that later on, but for me, I just want to make sure the club is strong and can continue on.”
While Ellefson’s focus is on the longevity of Aggiepella, other members expressed a desire to make the group more well-known.
Jonah Giesler, the head of media for the group, said during a virtual interview his interest is in growing the scope of Aggiepella.
“I would say definitely right now the push is to get word out more, because it is a fairly new group and so as time goes, we’ve been kind of under the radar,” Giesler said. “So now we’re trying to be like, ‘Hey, we go sing at gigs, we can go and do all that stuff.’ I don’t think that a lot of people know that we have an a cappella group here on campus.”
Giesler said he has a passion for the atmosphere of Aggiepella and is appreciative of the ability to create music through the group.
“It has just been really fun. It feels so much more like a fun get-together of a group of friends that have these talents of singing and creating music, and getting together and making that into a product,” Giesler said. “We all have these creative juices flowing through us, that we were like, ‘OK, where can I put this,’ so I feel like, especially for me, this group has really helped us to guide that energy into it.”
Giesler said the group holds auditions once a semester, most recently being Jan. 24.