[2] Founded in 1996 by former Tufts University Beelzebubs music director Deke Sharon and former Brown University Derbies member Adam Farb, the ICCA tournament takes place from January through April in nine regions: West, Southwest, Midwest, Great Lakes, Central, Mid-Atlantic, Northeast, South, and United Kingdom.
The ICCA has been presented by Varsity Vocals since 1999, when the competition was purchased by Don Gooding (Contemporary A Cappella Publishing).
The 2006–2007 competition season was a focus of the book Pitch Perfect: The Quest for Collegiate A Cappella Glory, which followed three groups vying to win the Championship.
[7] The winner of each semifinal is invited to participate in finals, currently held at The Town Hall in New York City, (the event has also been held in Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Carnegie Hall, PlayStation Theatre, and the Beacon Theatre), where they compete for coveted title of International Champion.
According to official Varsity Vocals documents, the aspects of vocal performance that are integral to a high-scoring ICCA performance include balance and blend, quality and inventiveness of arrangement, rhythmic accuracy, interpretation of song, intonation, solo interpretation, tone quality, dynamic precision, and diction.
If a judge decides that your group merits 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place in the overall competition, they circle one of these choices, which comes to correspond with an additive point value.
The following year, competitors the Skidmore Dynamics were the subject of a New York Times article a few days before they took the stage at Lincoln Center.
[10] Following their first ICCA win, and appearance on The Today Show in 2008, the SoCal VoCals were featured in an article in Newsweek Magazine.
Various ensembles compete for the ICCA national title in the comedy Pitch Perfect, while a fictionalized World Championship competition is portrayed in the 2015 sequel.