1996 - 1997
The Harmonics of '96-'97 was one of the most talented collection of singers in Harmonics history. Not only were they fantastic singers individually, with so many returning members, this was a group that knew how to sing together well. Joining Kristin, Katy and Christine on soprano was the blues-y, rich voice of Thaila S. There were three new altos this year, Shannon P and Cynthia S on alto I, and Jossie M, who joined Fez on alto II. The Harmonics also welcomed Greg C, who joined Pat, Matthew, and Will on tenor. The bass section was augmented briefly by Mark E, who left during fall quarter, leaving Bob, Jon, and Ben as the group's foundation.
The Harmonics hosted the North Carolina State Grains of Time, in a show with Mixed Company around St. Patrick's Day, a show later considered to be the zeroeth ShamROCK show. The Harmonics also hosted Artists in Resonance from Cal at a show in Toyon Hall, both of which were great successes. Spring tour led this group to Southern California again, where they sang with the Pomona Ladies' Blue and White at an arch sing, and featured the other infamous trip to Tijuana. This visit was wilder, more raucous, and took four times as long to recover from as the first trip in '95. However, everyone did remember their ID this time.
The biggest project of this year was the cd, which started production in January under the working title 'Flaming Avocados in Purgatory.' This was the first cd to be recorded with a professional recording engineer, Bill Hare, the guardian angel of Stanford A Cappella recordings. This cd featured the arrangements from the last two years, such as Gone, Rhythm of Love, and Down Under, plus old Harmonics favorites Walking on Broken Glass and December 1963, that were recorded by the previous year's group. After long discussion, the title Escalator Music was chosen and a tracklist was agreed upon. This CD went on to great fame and fortune, including a CARA nomination for best co-ed CD, a track, Four Brothers, on the BOCA '98 compilation CD, and a (mostly) positive RARB review, perhaps the biggest surprise of all.
Spring show, this year in Annenberg Auditorium, put an entirely new spin on Harmonics Spring Shows. In addition to the wildly popular spy theme, it had an at least mostly developed plot, complete with our poster model, Will Budreau, as the dashing James Bond, who thwarted the devlish plan of Dr. Evil, director Matthew K.