It was a pleasure to be back at the former Victorian swimming pool that is The North Wall Arts Centre, now an established gig venue, and this time to toe-tapping acappella twists on musical theatre classics and contemporary hits.

Enchord are eight Contemporary A Cappella Recording Awards (CARA)-nominated, self-described “aspiring professional musicians, actors and performers”. Co-founded around three years ago by siblings Rhiannon and Will Drake, who are also part of the group, tonight it consisted of bass-to-soprano vocalists, a beatboxer, and a pianist who accompanied interludes that punctuated the pure a cappella style. Offerings ranged from Sondheim to Shrek, with numbers from Ghost, Wicked, and more.

I remember first seeing our very own Oxford a cappella group (Out of the Blue) over 25 years ago, and fell for this style immediately, not least because, without the safety blanket of conventional instrumental accompaniment, it requires both vocal and interpersonal harmony. Tonight, this was demonstrated in oodles, with palpable camaraderie between the performers.

Enchord’s formula was one or two primary singers accompanied by everyone else. For me, this worked best when the sound was uniformly blended- even a little restrained - and the arrangements fresh and original. In this regard, 'Stars' from Les Miserables was celestial, and 'The Bellas Finale' from Pitch Perfect demonstrated what they are capable of as a whole greater than the sum of its parts. Too many belting solo vocals didn’t quite hit the right note. However, notable individual performances came from Tom Noyes’ sensitive piano-vocal solo, the honeyed tones of Naomi Moffat-Cook, and beatboxer Michael Coleman executing flawless polyrhythms with an engine-like fremitus.

Despite the contemporary nature of many (though not all) of the songs, there is a timeless quality to their lyrics—a testament to those dreamers who penned them and groups like this who want to bring them to life. A quality that evokes the optimism of a world "crowded with Love"; 'Being Alive', and 'Defying Gravity', crying 'Let us be Seventeen' again. And that’s no bad feeling at all.