ICCA 2010 Quaterfinals

Wow. what an experience. Noteworthy went up to Oregon this weekend to compete in the International Competition of Collegiate A cappella (ICCA). The competition was in Eugene at the Hult Center. There were 8 groups competing and the top two would go to the Semi-finals at USC next month. We were pretty excited/nervous because this was going to be probably THE toughest quaterfinal that has ever happened, but we were mostly excited because we were going to be able to see our very good friends DIVISI (they are the all female group from University of Oregon).

We left for Oregon last friday. When we got to Oregon we all stayed in 3 different homes of People from the ward there. (Apparently EVERYONE wanted to house us and were fighting over us haha). The family me and Courtney stayed with was a nice family with 3 little girls. They were so cute and we had a nice little bed to sleep in which is always good :)

On saturday we woke up and had breakfast and then went to the Hult Center where we got to meet up with Divisi. It was really fun to see them and we were all glad that we weren't in crazy competition mode...there wasn't any tension between the two groups, and we all did each others' hair and just hung out since our dressing rooms were right next to each other.

We had a meeting with all of the groups to pick the order in which we would all go...We got number 5. not too bad...opening the second act! :)

Our sound check was at about 3:40...courtney and amy had warned us that we would not be able to hear each other when we were on stage and they weren't kidding. The monitors didn't really do ANYTHING haha. we couldn't hear each other, so it's good that we trust each other so much, because we still felt really good about it.

Then we had to wait until the show started at 7....and then keep waiting until about 8:30 when we would go on stage. I found a lucky penny on the floor of our dressing room just as we were about to go on...that seemed like a good sign. Before we went on we were in the hall SOOOO excited and SOOO nervous...even though we'd already been on national television we had never performed in front of a live audience this big (there were over 2,000 there i believe). But once we got out on stage we all did the best we could and we felt pretty good about our performance.

We were still pretty nervous, however, because like i said before this was a REALLY tough quarterfinal and we hadn't really been able to hear any of the other groups perform. But we tried not to stress too much because we knew we had done our best.

So the judges finished deliberating and we went out on stage for awards and such.

First award:
Best Solo:.......AMY WHITCOMB!!! (we went crazy...she definitely deserved that one!)
Best Vocal Percussion:.....COURTNEY JENSEN!!!! (oh my...i'm not gonna lie i had tears in my eyes haha i was like a proud mother) [and also another guy from one of the groups got this award as well]
Best Choreography:.....COURTNEY JENSEN & AMY WHITCOMB....("wait what? are you serious? oh man") [divisi also got this award]
Best Arrangement:....CATHERINE PAPWORTH for "staying alive" (wow...did we really just win awards?) [divisi also got best arrangement]


then the judges gave out a special award to Jo from Divisi for her amazing bass skills it was funny how excited we were for each other. it was great!


Then they named the 2nd runner up: OUTSPOKEN
1st runner up: DIVISI


and the winner is.....:NOTEWORTHY (oh my...i didn't even realize how good it could feel to make it to semi's after all of our hard work. We got to sing Listen for the audience....i can honestly say that this is probably one of the best feelings IN the world)

then we all went of stage and cried and prayed and screamed....we were so excited!

but i think the best part of the night was when we got back into the dressing room....after divisi had finished performing earlier we had made a tunnel for them to come through on their way back into the dressing room (you know one of the ones you make after a soccer game when you're little?)...well after we had won we went back into the dressing room and there were all the divisi girls lined up to make a tunnel for us. It was amazing.

I'm so glad that both of us were able to make it to Semi's...it's going to be pretty tough!
Their score was only 9 points lower than ours...that's not a lot. but we're all just really excited to go.


anyway sorry this is kinda scatter brained haha. but yeah...ICCA was amazing. i love noteworthy, i love divisi, i love singing, i love performing there is no better feeling.

:)