The Dartmouth Aires
Dartmouth College's oldest a cappella group, the Injunaires were founded in 1946 as a offshoot of the college Glee Club. Sometime after shortening their name, the Dartmouth Aires broke with the Glee Club in the late 1970s.
Although the Aires usually have about sixteen members, group numbers vary on a term-to-term basis. Auditions are held at the beginning of every fall term. Members of the Aires pick what songs to arrange based on the group's tastes. Because the Aires are such a diverse group of people, they end up singing a lot of different styles. Currently, much of the repertoire consists of popular songs from the 1980s and 90s, but it also includes many traditional Dartmouth songs, a few 1950s and 1960s tunes, and a select few operatic numbers.
Most of the arrangements consist of 1 soloist, a dozen or so people singing background, and a vocal percussionist. The background of arrangements consists of a series of complex "instrument-like" syllables that, when sung together, resemble the background of the original song.
On Dartmouth campus, they perform once or twice a week on average. They frequently take weekend road-trips, singing at other colleges, high schools, and Dartmouth alumni clubs. Every winter break, the Aires tour the Eastern Seaboard, while travelling further afield every spring. Recent spring tours have taken them to the ski resort town of Vail, a few of the Hawaiian Islands, and much of Southern California.
