December 5, 2022
Tone Cold: A new tune at ic
STORY BY Collin Ryer / edited by olivia mckeon / Copyedited by Rita Aucker
IC Tone Cold is the newest of five acapella groups on the Ithaca College campus. Founded in 2020 by a group of freshmen who are now seniors, this group blossomed during quarantine and has gone on to be a staple of cooperation and unity in the Ithaca College acapella community. Talia Fontanilla, the current president and one of the founders of the group, sat down with Collin Ryer to reflect on forming the group, its growth, and its future.
CR: So, to get started, what’s the main goal of your group?
TF: As a group, we’re trying to come together and encourage involvement in all of the different steps to performing in a way that’s fun and inclusive.
CR: What exactly are all of those steps to performing?
TF: There’s a lot, like more than people think there is. We assemble the arrangements, teach the music, and then there are performances. Just getting the music together is a lot, and we also do a lot to make sure the performance comes together on top of music. So, we have PR managers, choreographers who have a background in dance, photography and video, sound mixers and lighting mixers. We also do live streaming for all of our concerts. You did that one time.
CR: Yeah, I did that last year.
TF: There’s a lot of new experiences for everyone. For a lot of the music stuff, people in Tone Cold do that. Also, Tone Cold people do a lot of the PR and social media. And finances, people in the e-board do all that. But also, we have a lot of things that group members don’t do or don’t know how to do well, so we want to involve people who aren’t performers in the group. We had a film and photo student do our concert photos for the last few concerts. It’s a cool way to get everyone involved in the scene. Oh, and we had choreographers last year who had a background in dance.
CR: So, with so many different areas of expertise and this emphasis on collaboration, what kind of people can sort of find a place in Tone Cold?
TF: All genders, all people. There’s been growing diversity since we started the group, which is really cool. It’s important to us to have diversity in the acapella community. We’re happy to be a part of that. We’re also all really gay.
CR: Nice. Since you also founded the group when you all were freshman, can you talk a little more about why and how you started, and how you’ve grown since?
TF: So, our freshman year we were in the Accidentals, and we all really liked the performing aspect of it, but the acapella community in general was kind of split because of stuff between upperclassmen. The groups were a little separated and did not get along well. Seeing that divide as freshmen who were never involved in the previous drama but were wrapped up in it because we joined different groups, we sort of wanted to have a group that was more focused on the positivity of performing. And all of the groups on campus are really good, so it’s important for us all to get along.
CR: So, you started Tone Cold in spring of freshman year?
TF: We started it freshman year, but we didn’t get fully recognized until the beginning of sophomore year. It was in 2020.
CR: So, you guys were pretty ambitious with this and then it went right into COVID.
TF: Yup! The process of starting a new club was interesting because we did it right during COVID. We were fully online. It was pretty tricky and very different from a normal semester. We did all of our performances by recording them alone with a metronome and then we edited them together, so we were all singing at the same time. We only had four members at the beginning of the year. We auditioned new people, so we had an ensemble at least, but it was literally so much better once we were in person. I would say most of our growth has been in the past year and a half.
CR: What kind of growth have you had since you got back in person?
TF: At this point we’ve had multiple auditions and multiple concerts. We did ICCAs which is the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella. We competed at that, which was really cool. A fun fact is that’s the same competition they compete in in Pitch Perfect. And we started the annual tradition of Acapalooza. We started that last year. All of the acapella groups performed, and we did our whole concert at that. It was a very successful event; lots of people were there. At the end all of the groups performed together. It was really positive all around.
CR: So, your collaboration goals kind of came together with Acapalooza.
TF: Yeah, definitely. It went really well, like really well. We’re definitely doing that again this year, and hopefully we can keep doing it.
CR: What else do you want to see in the future of Tone Cold?
TF: Well, right now we have a much more full group with a lot of plans, multiple concerts. As a group, we are trying to come together and encourage involvement in all of the different steps to performing in a way that’s fun and inclusive. I would love to see Tone Cold continue after the founding members are gone, continuing starting traditions plus creating their own mark on the club. I want them to be able to take what we've done and make it their own and improve on all the things we've put in place.
CR: If you had one hope for the future of Tone Cold now that its founders are sort of moving on and there’s all this potential from underclassmen and incoming people, what would you hope stays as the core of the group?
TF: Mostly I want to continue the idea of making music and having fun. It’s pretty simple, but I like having a whole group where the principle is having a good time doing something we all really enjoy.