History: 1985-1986
1985-1986
Mixed Company, Stanford's first co-ed a cappella group, was founded in the fall of 1985. One of our founding members, Bonnie Zare, put out flyers on the Stanford campus intending to attract anyone who was interested in auditioning for a new "co-ed a cappella singing ensemble." At about the same time, two other founding members, Gina DeLuca and Fritz Stewart, were thinking together on the coolness potential of a new, co-ed group. Bonnie beat Gina and Fritz to the poster punch, but they all quickly joined together and auditioned for singers.
The newborn Mixed Company, facing the many obstacles of a new group on campus, rehearsed periodically during fall quarter of 1985 and lost a few people over Christmas break, without having yet had any concerts. Returning inspired in January 1986 after Christmas Break, Fritz Stewart churned out Mixed Company's first original arrangement, Road to Nowhere, which we still sang in 1995, nine years later. Mixed Company began singing dorm shows for Stanford students at the end of Winter Quarter and beginning of Spring Quarter in 1986. Mixed Company's first big show was held in the Coffee House in Spring of '86, thus setting the precedent for our annual Spring Show, which has since been held every spring in various locations, including Sterling Quad Performance Center, Cubberly Auditorium, and more recently, in Kresge Auditorium.
Some memories of that first year, from Lorraine Franks:
Bonnie Zare and I were friends from the previous year when we did Sweeney Todd together with Ram's Head. She asked me to play the piano for auditions for the "coed ensemble", as we were known for the first 2-3 months. We asked friends who were members of existing a capella groups to run the auditions, and were surprised at the good turn-out for this unknown group. I was the one who came up with the name "Mixed Company", when we were sitting around the Elliot Program Center trying to think of what to call ourselves for our first concert. We had all been throwing out ideas. No one was really sold on "Mixed Company", but Fritz finally said, "Well, we can use that until we come up with something better". I guess that hasn't happened yet! ... some of the first songs we did..."3 Latin Motets by Martini", "Go For Baroque", and "Turtle Dove". Thank goodness Fritz started arranging songs for us to sing! I also have fond memories of going to San Francisco on the train, and singing around Ghiradelli Square in front of an old violin case (for tips). We then promptly used the money we made to buy pizza!
