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Whiffenpoofs Take The Stage

Whiffenpoofs Take The Stage - Before there was "Glee" or the vocal group Straight No Chaser, there were Whiffenpoofs.

And several "Whiffs" of New Haven will be detected tonight on national television, as NBC premieres the second season of its a capella musical competition "The Sing-Off."

Yale's Whiffenpoofs, 14 seniors who carry the banner of the world's oldest collegiate a capella group, are one of 10 groups featured in the fivenight show, which bows at 8 tonight and continues Wednesday, Dec. 13 and 15, culminating in a live finale Dec. 20. A Sony Music recording contract and $100,000 grand prize go to the winners.

"It's national television, so it's pretty cool," says Dan Turcza, one of the

14 Whiffs (a bass) and the group's

business manager. "It was filmed in Culver City, Calif., on the same stage as the Munchkin scene from the 'Wizard of Oz,' actually."

The show was filmed from Aug. 8 through early September, and it has led to academicyear sacrifices for members. But the L.A.-area whirlwind was "a one-ofa-kind experience.

"None of us had ever been out to Hollywood," says Turcza. You know, to live in a hotel and go to the studio every day. ... It was cool to be a part of that -- to get to know the other groups and be around the media and Hollywood personalities."

Whiffenpoofs Take The Stage

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