On Saturday, Feb. 28th, Middlebury College’s oldest acapella group, The Dissipated Eight (D8), sang (and debuted their stand-up comedy routine) to a small but lively crowd of college students, parents and local community members at Brandon Town Hall.
D8 has performed at the Brandon Town Hall for 12 years, a tradition established through a long-standing partnership with Dennis Marden, the former president of the Friends of the Brandon Town Hall (FoBTH). He first heard about the group through a Brandon local and Middlebury parent, and, after seeing them perform, decided to invite D8 to perform at the town hall.
“She [the parent] said you have to go to see this group, so I did, and twelve years later, here we are,” Marden said in an interview with The Campus.
Marden and the FoBTH also played a major role in the rescue and renovation of the Town Hall itself, explaining that it had sat empty for 30 years and was going to be replaced with a parking lot by the town.
“We just started to raise money, we wrote grants, Brandon is amazing in the fact that they support this place. This is where town meetings used to be, so 1861 is when it was built,” Marden said.
Now, the Town Hall has different leadership under Bill Moore, the current Recreation Director, Deputy Town Manager, and Economic Fulfillment Officer of the town of Brandon. He took over management of the space from FoBTH this past year.
“With the example set by the Friends of the Town Hall, we really try to have a diverse set of offerings. Two weeks from now, we’re going to have an aikido demonstration that will be up here, and three weeks from now, we’ve got Brandon Idol, our homegrown musical singing competition,” Moore said.
Xander Bowles ’26, the group’s current music director, shared his enthusiasm for the annual event.
“I just really love performing at the Brandon Town Hall. We showcase the best that D8 has to offer in a two-hour set that never disappoints, or so we hope,” Bowles said.
D8 was founded in 1952, originally as a barbershop octet with only seven members. Over more than seventy years, the group has expanded, incorporating new music styles and performing across New England and beyond. The group periodically travels to recording studios and has recorded several albums together. Their most recent Extended Play (EP), “Careful Now” was released in September 2024. D8 holds auditions each semester and currently has 15 active members. Adorned in suits and with a deep love of music and one another, the group has become a staple on Middlebury’s Campus, performing at the semesterly Jambo alongside six other Acapella groups and at the spring arts festival Nocturne, amongst others.
“As a group, we always try to maintain a sense of history and tradition in everything we do. A given show will have multiple songs that we have been performing continuously since our founding, and our close relationship with our network of alumni ensures that we stay connected to our roots,” William Mortell ’26 said.
While they are a singing group, D8 is also passionate about community engagement. Along with singing at community venues such as the Brandon Town Hall, they perform at high schools and retirement centers such as the Residence at Shelburne Bay.
D8 Business Manager Graeme Evans ’28 oversees planning and scheduling D8 shows.
“It’s always just a lot of fun to get to share our music with people, and that’s really why we do it at the end of the day. Whenever we go into the community to high schools or other venues, we want to inspire younger people and show them what singing can be like post-high school,” Evans said.
Will Igoe ’29.5 is a new member of D8, having joined just a few weeks ago.
“I love the energy of the group, I think it’s a very positive, fun, welcoming and close group. I love music, I love singing, and the guys are so talented, so it’s really fun to sing with them, and I love our final product,” said Igoe. “I love performing in community spaces, I feel like that’s what music is for,” he added.
The group performed a 16-song set, followed by a 17th song as an encore. The set list included several ‘oldies’, songs featured in movie soundtracks, and the group’s original song “Oxygen.”
Audience members were thrilled by the set list, especially some of the solos by various members. Julian Simon, parent of D8 member Henry Dejanikus ’28, said that his favorite part of the show was when the group sang Boondocks, originally by Little Big Town, and soloed by Bowles.
“Xander does that so incredibly well. It’s really beautiful,” Simon said.
Another popular feature of the set was the comedic element that D8 seamlessly incorporated into their musical repertoire.
“My favorite part was the comedic aspect of the show,” Annika Morrison said, a student at Williams College who visited for the concert.
These aspects included individual introductions from all group members. Keeping up with a longstanding D8 tradition, their introductions were full of inside jokes and fictitious stories about themselves. Nathan Keshen ’28 fibbed that he was a classically trained Irish dancer, while Bowles announced that he didn’t know how to tie his shoes. He does, in fact, know how to tie his shoes.
“I sing a lot of wrong notes,” Bowles added.
“Fast Car” by Tracy Chapman, arranged by Mortell, a long time fan favorite, was not included in the Brandon setlist, much to the disappointment of some dedicated Middlebury fans.
“I always love when they sing Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car,” D8 fan Eleanor Harrison ’26 said. “Wanting to hear it is what brought me out tonight. It’s such a beautiful arrangement, and always makes me emotional,” she said.
Towards the end of D8’s performance, Quinn Donaldson ’26.5 leapt from the stage and led the group in serenading a randomly selected member of the audience. The singers surrounded their chosen fan, with Evans even sitting on his lap. D8 typically performs at least one serenade per show, much to the audience’s delight.
Students who wish to attend D8’s next performance at the Brandon Town Hall can mark their calendars for April 10th, when the group will be performing at the space in conjunction with other Middlebury acapella groups.
Editor’s Note: Managing Editor Yuvraj Shah ’26 contributed reporting to this article.
Katrina Schwarz '26 (she/her) is a Senior Local Editor.
Katrina has been a local editor for the three semesters, recently becoming the section's senior editor. She is a Psychology and Italian double major and was a marketing intern at Penguin Random House this past summer.
