When judges returned to the Memorial Union Theater Stage Saturday night and announced Madison’s Tangled Up in Blue had taken 3rd place in the Midwest Regional finals of the 2005 International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella (ICCA), members of the female vocal ensemble went wild. It wasn’t first place, which would have taken them to the National competition at New York’s Lincoln Center. That honor went to the tuxedoed dons of Straight No Chaser from Indiana University. “But it’s way better than we expected,” Tangled Up in Blue ensemble member Nicki BelSante said.

This evening marked the first time a University of Wisconsin-Madison a cappella group had advanced to the Midwest finals. “It’s definitely the toughest region this year,” BelSante said.

Director for the 3rd place group, UW graduate Laura Kruschke, was even more surprised by the finish, “Considering this was the first year we participated, to be considered the 3rd-ranked group in the Midwest is quite an honor.”

While the evening finals, finishing near 11 in the evening, were the most well attended portion of the event, the semi-finals for Saturday’s competition began at 2 in the afternoon.

Groups participating in the ICCA are judged on a wide range of vocal and theatrical factors. These areas, according to Kruschke, are the ability to blend as a vocal group, soloist interpretations, atonation, or the ability of the singer to sing in tune, rhythmic accuracy, overall visual presentation, incorporation of choreography, transitions between songs and effective use of vocal percussion.

Collegiate a cappella has undergone a revival in the past five years. As a graduate in music education, Kruschke believes groups and ICCA provide an outlet outside of classical musical forms. For two-and-a-half year Tangled Up In Blue veteran junior Kelly Spitzner, besides competition, “singing with 14 of your closest friends forms special bonds.”

UW Madison’s male a cappella group Madhatters was only founded in 1997 but the group enjoys a position in the Pantheon of all things Big Red just after the holy institutions of beer, UW football and even Bucky himself. “Our first crowd was 100 people, and now we’ve played to 40,000 people at Brewers and Cubs Games,” Madhatters business manager Tyler Knowles said.

Knowles also played a key role in bringing the Midwest Regional leg of the Collegiate Championship to Madison this year. “After all this hard work, it was icing on the cake to have one of our own do so well,” Knowles said.

As the full house exits and Knowles speaks, tall, blonde, broad-shouldered Madhatter soloist Steve Beguhan signs autographs for a freckle-faced schoolgirl and then an adoring 50-ish woman. Graduating from the Grainger school of Business this year, Beguhan admits that the attention he’s drawn for his performances, playing between Tom Jones and the guy who will always chop the most firewood at the cabin Up North, has gotten him to think about doing this professionally.

“Oh, he should, he really should,” interrupts a smiling, swooning middle-age fan listening in on the conversation.

The majority of Madhatters’ audience is women according to Knowles. “When we started, we would go around performing at all the sororities, and they formed our first fan base,” he said.

Historically, collegiate a cappella has mostly seen male groups coming to the stage. Women’s groups are a fairly new development, making the win for the Tangled Up In Blue women all the more sweet.

Ladies First, a smaller ensemble from Indiana Unversity that also advanced to the final eight, was formed in 1999, the same year as the UW Madison women’s group. Jenn Berg, the newest member of Ladies First, performed a song she chose, “Let Go” from the Garden State soundtrack. “When you take a song down to a vocal element, you can really see how powerful the words are,” Berg said. “People already related this song to a powerful moment in a great film, so it’s a challenge to capture that emotion for the audience.”

Jessie Odenbach, another Ladies First member, feels the strength of her group lies in each member’s power as a soloist. “It’s fun to support such different and talented voices,” Odenbach said.

During the evening, groups attempted to win over the judges’ ears by interpreting everything from Switchfoot’s high school dance standard “Dare You To Move,” to Manhattan Transfer vocalese-style numbers.

The day after their 3rd-place regional win, Tangled Up in Blue Members are already thinking about new arrangements. “Everyone has their own special song that they’d like to see performed eventually,” Spitzner said.

For Knowles, graduating Madhatters and members moving on from other college groups, the close of this season is a bit more bittersweet. Knowles, a communication arts major, plans to take the business management skills he developed with Madhatters to the professional entertainment world. A few of Indiana’s Ladies First members also plan to pursue professional vocal careers. Already reminiscing, all agree this experience in harmonization with friends will most likely go unmatched in whatever endeavor they pursue.