Stanford Fleet Street Singers

The Stanford Fleet Street Singers
The Stanford Fleet Street Singers on tour, wearing their characteristic outfits.
Background information
Origin	Stanford, California, USA
Genres	A cappella
Years active	1981—present
Website	www.fleetstreet.com

The Stanford Fleet Street Singers (commonly referred to as "Fleet Street") is an all-male a cappella group from Stanford University. Wearing vests and cardinal-red bow ties, the group performs mostly original songs that incorporate elements of sketch comedy, but their repertoire encompasses several other musical genres, including serenades and pop tunes.^[1] Since its founding, Fleet Street has released 10 full-length albums, performed on national television, gone on tour across the U.S., and received numerous awards for its musical talent and ability to entertain.

History

Fleet Street was founded in 1981 after Timothy Biglow, Kyle Kashima, and Chris Tucci failed to get into the Stanford Mendicants and decided to combine their talents and form a group of their own.^[2] While Fleet Street is currently known for its comedic style, in the 80's, the group sang mostly barbershop music,^[2][3] which is why, after a series of name changes that included “The Fetuses,” “The Amoebas,” “The Steaming Manholes,” “The Tentacle Men,” and “The Heffalumps,” they finally settled on "Fleet Street" (a reference to Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, which was playing in San Francisco at the time).^[2]

The group's music is strongly rooted in University tradition. When the group was founded, their repertoire was centered on Stanford standards ("Hail Stanford, Hail!", "Come Join the Band", "Dirty Golden Bear," etc.).^[2] To celebrate the hundredth anniversary of its founding, Stanford University recruited Fleet Street and sent them across the country as part of the University's Centennial Campaign. Traveling through Seattle, New York, Chicago, Portland, and Los Angeles, Fleet Street quickly became the face of Stanford a cappella for Stanford alumni across the country.

Even from the start, Fleet Street's focus included not only barbershop music and University standards but also more comedic pieces. Still, the group takes pride in performing songs from traditional genres and continues to sing many of them today.^[2][4]

Accolades

Fleet Street is known to be one of the most selective and musically professional a cappella groups on the Stanford campus. The group has even proven to be competitive on the national level; Fleet Street made history by releasing the first major college a cappella album made up entirely of songs written by the performing group. Deke Sharon, the head of the Contemporary A Cappella Society of America (CASA), called their self-titled album "The most important collegiate a cappella album to be released in a decade."^[5] Fleet Street has won numerous Contemporary A Cappella Recording Awards and National Collegiate A Cappella Awards, and they have performed on NBC’s Today Show and in the Lincoln Center and the Birdland Jazz Club in New York City.

Their 1992 album 50-Minute Fun Break won several Contemporary A Cappella Recording Awards (CARAs), including Best Album, Best Song, and Best Original Song. 1994's What You Want won Best Album, Best Song, and Best Soloist. In 1996, World Champion figure skater Rudy Galindo heard the album What You Want decided to use Fleet Street's recording of "Ave Maria" to accompany his routine. In the Spring of that same year, Fleet Street reached the finals of the National Championships of Collegiate A Cappella.

Notable Alumni

• Youngmoo Kim '96, Director of the Expressive and Creative Interaction Technologies (ExCITe) Center and Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Drexel University^[6]
• Christian Garnett '07, Director of Engineering for SONNEMAN - A Way of Light^[7]
• Joel Chapman '14, Horse wrangler and in-ear bathroom attendant
• Jason Galisatus '15, Executive Director of the Bay Area Youth Summit and Huffington Pride Fellow^[8]

Discography

• Songs of the Stanford Red (1984)
• Full Moon at the Quad (1988)
• Curious (1990)
• 50-Minute Fun Break (1992)
• What You Want (1994)
• Greatest Hits & Skits (1996)
• All The Rage (1998)
• Stanford: Up Toward Mountains Higher (1999)
• Fearless (2001)
• Fleet Street [Cheese] (2004)
• Through The Roof (2010)

See also

• Stanford University vocal groups

References