Grand Pause Tonic is a collection of singers as diverse as its repertoire.
The MU vocal jazz group put on its concert “One Year Later” Saturday at Whitmore Recital Hall. The group sings mostly a capella, sometimes with a piano or electric guitar accompaniment.
The group sang numbers that related to seasons or nature, from Frank Loesser’s “Baby It’s Cold Outside” to Carole King’s “You’ve Got a Friend” to The Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun.”
Grand Pause Tonic has been around for just two years, and all of its five original members are still performing in the group, though three of the six current members will be graduating at the end of this year.
Seniors Stephanie Sander and Frank Manda initially founded the group. The pair then invited friends Taylor Pancoast, Tyler Beck and Andrew Lang to join.
“We didn’t really know our identity,” Beck said. “We were just five friends who got together just singing each week.”
The group eventually completed the current outfit a year later with now-sophomore Christina Adams.
“It’s just so great to get together with a group of friends and sing the kind of music that you love to have fun singing,” Adams said.
Each of the members of Grand Pause Tonic has a distinctive singing voice that adds to the overall sound of the group, Beck said.
“We kind of thrive off of each other’s talents, because each of us have our own special talents and what we can bring to the group,” Beck said. “There’s not one single person in the group who has a similar vocal style, but we all come together and make it sound good.”
Sander, the director of Grand Pause Tonic, was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at age 19 and has had her share of struggles toward founding and directing her own vocal jazz group.
While studying musical theater at Indiana University, Sander’s symptoms started to manifest, but as she didn’t know many people very well, they went unnoticed until she returned home to her parents.
“I was putting a lot of pressure on myself to get into the (music) program, and once I got there, that’s when I started kind of getting manic, but I wasn’t able to see the signs myself,” Sander said.
Sander decided to transfer to MU in fall of 2008, and she stopped performing in an attempt to fight her disorder.
“I decided that performing might have been a trigger, when I put too much stress on myself,” Sander said. “I thought there were other ways I could express myself through music.”
She soon realized, though, that she couldn’t stay away from the stage. She learned to balance the stresses of performing with the right medications, along with a healthy diet and sleep schedule.
“I think it has become easier as I’ve just educated myself more about the disorder and been open about it,” Sander said.
Sander is one of the three graduating members of Grand Pause Tonic. The group will be holding auditions for new members sometime during the end of April. For more information, go to www.grandpausetonic.com.
