Collegiate a cappella arrived at Stanford University in 1963, when the Stanford Mendicants were founded by a transfer student from Yale University, the school where collegiate a cappella began. The Mendicants were the first a cappella group on the West Coast of the United States.[1] The all-male Mendicants were followed by Stanford's second a cappella group, Counterpoint, the first all-female a cappella group on the West Coast.[2]
By the 1980s, as collegiate a cappella hit an inflection point and the number of groups doubled around the United States,[3] Stanford saw the founding of four more a cappella groups, each with its own initial differentiating focus: Fleet Street (founded 1981, focused on comedy), Mixed Company (founded 1985, Stanford's first co-ed a cappella group), and Everyday People (founded 1987, focused on Motown, R&B, and the burgeoning genre of hip hop music), and Stanford Talisman (founded in 1989, focused on music from the African diaspora).
By the 1990s, Stanford a cappella groups began receiving national recognition for their recorded music, created with audio engineer Bill Hare. In 1995, Fleet Street won the 1995 national Contemporary A Cappella Recording Awards for best album, best song, and best soloist. President of the Society, Deke Sharon, praised the group's work, saying, "The quality [of their music] is fantastic. They're very good performers and their recordings are remarkably professional for a student-run group."[4] In 1999, Stanford groups received a record 14 nominations at the Contemporary A Cappella Recording Awards. Sharon, said, "it's rare for so many excellent groups to come out of one school."[5][6]
As of 2019, there are ten a cappella groups at Stanford. Here, in order of founding date: