The Stanford Harmonics are a co-ed

a cappella Music performed a cappella ( , , ; ), less commonly spelled acapella in English, is music performed by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment. The term ''a cappella'' was originally intended to differentiate between Rena ...

group from

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

. Known for their alternative rock repertoire and award-winning recordings, the Harmonics have garnered international recognition for their performances and have been featured on BOCA, Sing, and Voices Only a cappella compilations. The Harmonics are one of the few

collegiate a cappella Collegiate a cappella (or college a cappella) ensembles are college-affiliated singing groups, primarily in the United States, and, increasingly, the United Kingdom and Ireland, that perform entirely without musical instruments. The groups are typ ...

groups that own their own wireless microphone equipment and have developed a live performance style that includes the use of electronic distortion and sound effects.

History

The group's third release, ''Insanity Laughs'' (1999), was received as a "breakthrough album" for the unprecedented mixing of its drum-like vocal percussion. In 2009, their landmark studio album, ''Escape Velocity'', won three Contemporary A Cappella Recording Awards, including Best Mixed Collegiate Album, and was selected by the Recorded A Cappella Review Board as one of their Picks of the Decade. In 2010, the Harmonics won the A Cappella Community Awards for Favorite Mixed Collegiate Group and Favorite Scholastic Album. In 2020, the album ''Signal Lost'' by the Harmonics won Best Rock Album from the Contemporary A Cappella Recording Awards. Their newest album, titled ''Event Horizon'', a concept album centered around grief, will be released in 2025.

Recordings

The Stanford Harmonics have released ten full-length albums, one "greatest hits" album, and one extended play, alongside numerous singles. * ''The Greatest Hits of Pitchpipe'' (1995) * ''Escalator Music'' (1997) * ''Insanity Laughs '' (1999) * ''Phonoshop'' (2001) * ''evolut10n'' (2002) - 10 Year Anniversary "Greatest Hits" Album * ''Rock Beats Scissors'' (2003) * ''Shadowplay'' (2005) * ''Escape Velocity'' (2008) * ''Midnight Hour'' (2013) * ''The Messes of Men'' (2015) - EP * ''Fault of Imagination'' (2017) * ''Signal Lost'' (2019) * ''Event Horizon'' (upcoming 2025 release)

Awards and nominations

, - , 1998 , Contemporary A Cappella Recording Awards , Best Mixed Collegiate Album , ''Escalator Music'' , , , - , rowspan="2" , 2000 , rowspan="2" , Contemporary A Cappella Recording Awards , Best Mixed Collegiate Album , ''Insanity Laughs'' , , rowspan="2" , , - , Best Mixed Collegiate Arrangement , Jonathan Pilat , , - , rowspan="2" , 2002 , rowspan="2" , Contemporary A Cappella Recording Awards , Best Mixed Collegiate Album , ''Phonoshop'' , , , - , Best Mixed Collegiate Arrangement , Jonathan Pilat for "We Are In Love" , style="background: #F4F2B0" , , , - , 2004 , Contemporary A Cappella Recording Awards , Best Mixed Collegiate Song , "Lady Marmalade" from ''Rock Beats Scissors'' , style="background: #F4F2B0" , , , - , rowspan="2" , 2006 , rowspan="2" , Contemporary A Cappella Recording Awards , Best Mixed Collegiate Album , ''Shadowplay'' , , rowspan="2" , , - , Best Mixed Collegiate Solo , Bryan Tan for "The Memory Remains" , , - , rowspan="4" , 2009 , rowspan="4" , Contemporary A Cappella Recording Awards , Best Mixed Collegiate Album , ''Escape Velocity'' , , rowspan="4" , , - , Best Mixed Collegiate Song , "The Sound of Silence" , , - , rowspan="2" , Best Mixed Collegiate Arrangement , Charlie Forkish for "The Sound of Silence" , , - , Charlie Forkish for "Imagination" , style="background: #F4F2B0" , , - , 2010 , Contemporary A Cappella Recording Awards , Best Mixed Collegiate Song , "Spiel Met Mir" from ''Sing Six: Sunny Side Up'' , , , - , rowspan="3" , 2014 , rowspan="3" , Contemporary A Cappella Recording Awards , Best Mixed Collegiate Album , ''Midnight Hour'' , , rowspan="3" , , - , Best Mixed Collegiate Song , "Somebody to Love" , , - , Best Mixed Collegiate Arrangement , Evan Smith for "Somebody to Love" , , - , 2018 , Contemporary A Cappella Recording Awards , Best Electronic / Experimental Album , ''Fault of Imagination'' , , , - , rowspan="3" , 2020 , rowspan="3" , Contemporary A Cappella Recording Awards , Best Rock Album , ''Signal Lost'' , , rowspan="1" , , - , Best Rock Song , "Zombie" from ''Signal Lost'' , , rowspan="2" , , - , Best Mixed Collegiate Album , ''Signal Lost'' , , - , 2022 , Contemporary A Cappella Recording Awards , Best Mixed Voices Collegiate Solo , ''Mitchell Zimmerman for "Ever After" (Single)'' , , , - , 2022 , Best of College A Cappella , Featured Single ‘Bad Liar’ , Single , ,

ICCA results

The International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella (ICCA) first judged live a cappella performance competitions in 1996.

Notable members

* Singer/songwriter Vienna Teng * Contemporary A Cappella Society of America (CASA) President Julia Hoffman and Board Member Ariel Glassman * Hookslide singers Jon Pilat and George Hoffman * Former Skritch lead Bryan Tan * Icon Parthiv Krishna * Gautam Raghavan, Deputy Director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office * Composer Joss Paxton Saltzman * Jade Nguyen

References

External links

Official Website
{{authority control Collegiate a cappella groups

Harmonics In physics, acoustics, and telecommunications, a harmonic is a sinusoidal wave with a frequency that is a positive integer multiple of the ''fundamental frequency'' of a periodic signal. The fundamental frequency is also called the ''1st harm ...