PLATTSBURGH — Eat spaghetti and win prizes to get Fermata Nowhere, the Plattsburgh Middle School ensemble to the International Championship of High School A Capella (ICHSA).
“We are going to a competition in Danvers, Mass. on Feb. 10,” Cody Hampton, director of the audition-only ensemble said.
“We will be competing against groups from all over New England, basically Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, and New York.
“There are four quarter-final events in total. This is actually our fourth time competing. The end goal is to get to finals, which are in New York City. There is a quarter-final round. Then, there’s a semifinal round, and then there’s a final round. You obviously have to place to advance to get to the next round. So, the first round is best of 10 groups.”
Two groups advance to the semifinals, which will also be held in Massachusetts in April.
“That features the top eight groups from all over the northeastern part of the United States,” he said.
“It’s called the Northeast Region that we’re competing in. So, there are four quarter-final events in the northeast region, and they each have 10 groups. So there’s about 40 groups in that competition. In the semifinals, only one group advances to the finals in New York City. The final represents all of the regions in the United States and some of Europe to compete in the finals, which is the top group from each one. For us to be in the finals, we have to be the top group basically out of our whole northeastern United States.”
Hampton established the ensemble eight years ago and brings his lifelong passion for voice to his students. He sang in chorus at Northeastern Clinton Central School and with the Potsdam Pointercounts at the Crane School of Music.
“At this point, there are 23 kids,” he said.
“This year, we added a manager to the group and he’s the 23rd. He runs the sound and kind of does a lot of the management parts of it like attendance. He’s basically like a non-performance member. That’s a new role I added this year.”
In prior years, Fermata Nowhere has placed second in the quarterfinals and advanced to the semifinals.
“So we have already been in the top eight groups basically of the northeastern region,” he said.
“We have done very well. The goal is first place, but that is hard. It’s competitive.”
The students only get 10 minutes onstage to impress judges.
“It’s all student-performed,” Hampton said.
“There’s no director or anything like that on the stage. They perform with state-of-the-art sound system equipment. You get 10 minutes to kind of do pretty much however you want to customize it. We do custom sets, basically. Every group does like a custom set. We will do three songs that are contrasting styles and showcase as much as we can of the group. Dancing is part of the evaluation.
“Obviously, all the musical elements, solo interpretation, song selections, is obviously a major part of it, level of difficulty. There’s a huge rubric. The judges evaluate it all.”
The breakdown is 75 points for sound, 50 points visually cohesiveness (choreography), and a maximum of 30 points for placement.
“So if you do really well like one judge says this group deserves first place, then you get additional points, up to 30 points, 30 for first place, 20 for second, and 10 for third. Subjective ranking is what it’s called,” Hampton said.
“Each judge gets to place the top three, and that’s how they determine the winner, all those scores combined. Then, there are special awards that they get for beat boxer, outstanding soloist, outstanding choreographer, outstanding arranger. They do those four awards. In the past, we’ve had a student win outstanding vocal percussion, which is beat boxer, and also outstanding soloist as a middle-school winner. So, we’ve had students win those special awards, and we’ve also as a group have once before became runner up in the competition to advance to the semifinals.”
Competition prep includes selecting the music and setting up a detailed rehearsal schedule.
“I use Center Stage Dance Studio to do choreography rehearsals with them on the weekends so they can use mirrors and stuff and work on the choreography,” he said.
“A student, my wife and I usually choreograph everything. I just teach it to them and practice it and practice it and practice it until we go.”
Logistics also include hotel arrangements and the upcoming spaghetti dinner and raffle fundraiser on Monday, Jan. 29. Takeout only is from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., and dine-in will be offered from 5 p.m. to 7 pm.
Dinners (pasta, salad, buttered roll, cookie, beverage) are $12 per person, and the event will be held at Stafford Middle School.
“Students in the group will be serving you, waiting the tables, and stuff like that,” he said.
“There’s a raffle with tons of prizes that we are posting on social media. If you want to check that out, you can see some of businesses that have already donated. It’s just a fundraiser in an effort to support us in going to our competition.”
“There will be two performances from Fermata Nowhere, one at 5:30 p.m. and one at 6:30 p.m.,” he said.
Annually, the group tours in the winter and spring and have made appearances at Pine Harbour, Champlain Centre, New York State Retired Teachers Meeting, and City of Plattsburgh Christmas Tree Lighting.
“Our competition kind of gives us an added element of working hard to achieve a goal,” Hampton said.
“Usually, we sum up the year with a music video that we do. We’ll record a song and do a video. We’ve done about seven of those. We’ve done one every year since the second year of the group existing, even through COVID, which was very difficult but we did it.
“Our music is available on Spotify and iTunes streaming services and also via our Facebook page and Instagram. We have a YouTube page also. So people can find our music if they just type in, Fermata Nowhere, and we’ll come up.”