Stanford Mendicants

The Stanford Mendicants was founded in 1963 by Hank Adams, a transfer student from Yale University, with a group of 5 undergraduate men. The group originally rehearsed only a single song before breaking into the dining commons of Branner Hall, an all-women's dormitory at the time, and performing their song during lunch. Adams often recalled, himself tearing up, that during their performance, the women wept, and there was literally "not a dry eye in the house". Having only rehearsed the one song, they quickly fled through an open window and went immediately back to rehearsal. Their 1998 album Besides What You See received a 4.2 rating from the Recorded A Cappella Review Board (rarb.org), which is the group's highest album score to date. The group was Runner-Up in three categories in the inaugural Contemporary A Cappella Recording Awards (CARAs) in 1992. On February 2, 2019, The Stanford Mendicants finished in first place in the ICCA Northern California Quarter-Finals in Redwood City, CA. The Mendicants also took home two individual awards, including Outstanding Soloist, for Austin Zambito-Valente, and Outstanding Choreography, for Khoi Le and Gabe Wieder. == Notable alumni ==

• Chris Ayer, Singer and Songwriter • Jordan Gelber, actor from the Broadway run of Avenue Q • Founding Mendicant Dick Grant, Director of the Pacific Mozart Ensemble • Founding Mendicant John Frohnmayer, Politician and Professor at Oregon State University • Joseph Siravo, actor with The Sopranos and Jersey Boys National Tour. ==Discography==

• Untitled (1964) • Untitled (1965) • A Fellow Needs a Girl (1966) • Untitled (1967) • Untitled (1969) • Untitled (1973) • Untitled (1975) • Untitled (1977) • Untitled (1979) • Clean-Cut and Slightly Frayed (1981) • Somewhere in Hawaii (1982) • Take You Back (1986) • Pretending to Care (1987) • Aquapella (1989) • Just Like That (1991) • Feline Casanova (1992) • Back For Seconds (1994) • ''Beggars Can't Be Choosers'' (1996) • Besides What You See (1998) • Room to Grow (2000) • Best Laid Plans (2002) • Mendication (2004) • ''Beggar's Dozen'' (2006) • Roses In My Hand (2008) • Sh-Boom (2012) • Just a Group of Guys (2013) • Mendicants At Large (2015) • For the Long Haul (2018) • Trailblazer (2019) • Detour (2021) • Horizon (2023) • Unlucky (2025) == Awards and nominations ==

ICCA results The International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella (ICCA) first judged live a cappella performance competitions in 1996. ==See also==