The 30th anniversary of the Island’s a cappella group Vineyard Sound will be celebrated on Saturday with an alumni concert at the Tabernacle in Oak Buffs, featuring three decades of the group’s members.
“It’s my first year with the group and I didn’t know what I was getting into with all the history on this Island,” said Ryan Dirgins, a student at Wesleyan University. “But it’s been the best summer of my life.”
The concert begings at 7 p.m. and will feature appearances by singers whose involvement dates back to the 1990s, including many founding members.
Throughout the group’s history, the Vineyard Sound has regularly performed all over the Island at scheduled events and impromptu concerts on streets, beaches and parks. The group consists of college students who spend their summer on the Island, singing and living together.
“The mission of the Vineyard Sound is to produce family-friendly entertainment at a reasonable cost, while spreading joy along the way,” said Aidan O’Connell, a student at the College of William and Mary.
Sponsored by Vineyard Vines, the group is hard to miss. The dress code for their concerts calls for bright pastels and shiny whale emblems. But the group said they fit in with the Island community in quieter ways, too.
“We perform all the time on Chappy and they have a town ordinance for no amplified forms of music,” said John Durham, a recent graduate of the University of Connecticut. “This makes it a perfect place for a cappella. It harkens back to the days before you could have loud concerts and the Island was full of small groups singing together outside.”
When the group arrives at the beginning of June, they spend the first two weeks hunkered down, practicing six hours a day on the back porch of their house in Vineyard Haven. In those two weeks, they memorize and arrange dozens of songs.
“When we were practicing all the time on the back porch, neighbors would come by and listen to us rehearse, taking in a free concert,” Mr. O’Connell said. “Sometimes after we finished a song, we would hear distant applause through the trees.”
After they have mastered the extensive repertoire, the singers find themselves reliably booked by organizations and families, many of whom have been listening to the Vineyard Sound for most of their lives.
“Most of our clients have hired us for years. They saw us for the first time when they were kids and they have made it a tradition to bring us back” said Issac Mast, a student at the College of William and Mary. “They always make sure to tell us we’re the best iteration yet.”
Sometimes, after a long day of performances, the 10 young men who make up Vineyard Sound said they like to walk down to the beach near their house on West Chop and gaze up at the stars. And often, according to Mr. Dirgins, the group will break out in song right on the beach, harmonizing late into the night, without an instrument in sight.
The Vineyard Sound 30th Reunion Show is Saturday, July 30 at the Tabernacle in Oak Bluffs. Showtime begins at 7 p.m.; tickets are $20 for adults, $10 for kids. Visit vineyardsound.org for tickets.
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