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Students add aca-fresh group to musical community

AJ Perez, Katie Leavitt and Mark Quiñones sharing a light-hearted moment. Perez, Leavitt and Quiñones are the founding members of the Devil Clefs, a new a cappella group formed at ASU. (Jonathan Galan/The State Press)
AJ Perez, Katie Leavitt and Mark Quiñones sharing a light-hearted moment. Perez, Leavitt and Quiñones are the founding members of the Devil Clefs, a new a cappella group formed at ASU. (Jonathan Galan/The State Press)

AJ Perez, Katie Leavitt and Mark Quiñones sharing a light-hearted moment. Perez, Leavitt and Quiñones are the founding members of the Devil Clefs, a new a cappella group formed at ASU. (Jonathan Galan/The State Press) AJ Perez, Katie Leavitt and Mark Quiñones sharing a light-hearted moment. Perez, Leavitt and Quiñones are the founding members of the Devil Clefs, a new a cappella group formed at ASU. (Jonathan Galan/The State Press)

Awash with the disappointment of not being accepted into an a cappella group in September, exploratory sophomore Katie Leavitt walked into her English class discouraged. However, when she recognized medicinal biochemistry freshman AJ Perez from callbacks and learned he hadn't been asked to join, an idea began to spark.

With approximately 76,000 students and only three a cappella groups at the University, Leavitt and Perez were astounded by the lack of groups and felt it was time to add one to the mix: The Devil Clefs.

“First it was really intimidating, but then we decided to do it and put aside our inhibitions and really go for it,” Perez said.

While the two came up with the idea in September, coming up with the structure of the club, marketing and ensuring everything was doable took months of work. In October, the co-presidents added journalism freshman Mark Quiñones to their team as music director.

Leavitt said one of the first things they knew they needed was a music director.

"Without that, we’d be kind of lost so we started putting posters up in probably October, we put them everywhere advertising that a new a cappella group needed a music director," Leavitt said. "He emailed me, and we went from there; he’s been really great for us.”

Quiñones added a flair by putting musical numbers together and making the graphics for their logo in a matter of days as well as acting as a springboard to provide feedback.

Together they moved forward in announcing themselves as a group, which made Leavitt worry about how the three other a cappella groups on campus would respond.

However, the group was welcomed by the other a cappella groups on campus, which are The Pitchforks, Priority Male and the TEMPEtations.

The groups were impressed by Leavitt and Perez’s preparedness, but also warned them of the enormity of the task they were about to undertake. Likewise, the future Devil Clefs were the first to acknowledge that they’re bound to “crash and burn” at the start, but are optimistic at the future success of the club and their ties to the a cappella community.

The Devil Clefs are holding auditions on Feb. 18 in the lobby of the music building. They hope to recruit anywhere between 12 to 14 members, both male and female.

Perez they hope to pass their name down and be around for another 20 years.

“This is new for us and anyone starting out has their concerns for the future success of the group.” Perez said, “I mean, the Pitchforks have been here for 22 years now — something like that. We want that kind of legend."

 

Reach the reporter at megan.janetsky@asu.edu or follow @meganjanetsky on Twitter.

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