A new, Christian-focused a cappella group, Anchord, will host its premiere university-wide performance on Sunday in Distler Performance Hall.
Two other Christian a cappella groups, Harvard University's Under Construction and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Cross Products, will also perform. Anchord, which is coed, formed last semester and gained official recognition from the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Judiciary this October.
The Sunday performance will be Anchord's first show as an official student group on campus.
"We've been working really hard all semester; we're very excited to show what we've been working on to Tufts," said sophomore Charles Skold, the group's manager.
The performance will begin at 8:30 p.m. and run until slightly before 10:00 p.m. Under Construction and Cross Products will precede a five-song set from Anchord.
Founded in January 2008, Anchord is the newest of Tufts' 10 a cappella groups. Sophomore Benjamin Hampson and junior Katherine Runes started the group after Hampson's older brother, a member of Under Construction, inspired him to replicate the idea at Tufts.
With assistance from members of the Harvard troupe, Hampson and Runes held auditions in February and formed a nine-member group that began to have weekly meetings and practices. "After a full semester of practice and kind of starting to be a group, we ended the semester with a vision that we would become an official student group this semester," Skold said.
Anchord members began drafting a constitution over the summer, and in September they began working to apply for recognition, which they secured on Oct. 28.
"Now [that] we have all the benefits of being an officially recognized group, it gives us some legitimacy on campus," Skold said. "It gives us a presence and it is an indication that we are here to stay."
Currently consisting of 14 members, Anchord has performed at several Tufts Christian Fellowship events and at the Interfellowship Thanksgiving Dinner, but Sunday will be its first self-organized performance.
Skold has high hopes for the group's debut performance. "I think it will be a great concert [with] lots of good songs. I think the audience will be greatly pleased with the musicality of all the groups," he said. "Beyond the musicality, I think that the various messages that different songs that each group might bring ... will be appreciated by the audience as well, and hopefully get people thinking and talking to each other."
He said that as a Christian group, Anchord's songs embody the story and messages of Jesus. They seek to communicate values such as love, faith and hope, according to Skold. "Although not every song is about Jesus ... one of our purposes as a group is to further thought and discussion about Jesus and about life, and about how Jesus relates to life in a practical way," he said.
Skold also emphasized the broad appeal of Anchord's music and the diverse backgrounds of its members. "There is no religious test to be part of the group," he said.
"I kind of anticipate a really diverse audience. I think that there will be a lot of people coming who are curious about a new group," Skold said. "Our hope is that we are a group that everyone would like to listen to and that everyone would appreciate listening to regardless of personal religious beliefs."
In addition to working with outside a cappella groups, Anchord hopes to collaborate with other troupes at Tufts. "We've definitely felt welcome in the Tufts a cappella scene by the other Tufts a cappella groups and really hope to work with them in the future," Skold said."We really do hope that [the Tufts] campus does welcome us and appreciate what we add to the campus and the a cappella scene here, and we really do look forward to being a long-lasting presence here on campus."
