Christmas comes early at Wharton

When Voctave, an 11-member a cappella group based in central Florida, was founded in winter 2015, the first show the members played together was a Christmas concert. Since then, the group has released three Christmas albums, including one that dropped earlier this year, and has taken its annual Christmas tour all across the country.

The new Christmas album will be the star of this year’s tour, according to founder, producer and arranger Jamey Ray, who felt both audiences and the group itself deserved a change-up in the setlist.

“Last year, I said, ‘You know what? That’s enough. We need new music.’ So, I started writing stuff in the spring for us to change our show up so that we could go back to places and people could see us again for Christmas, but with new material,” he said. “We’ve gotten really into those songs, and we very much are starting to like them as much as some of the old ones. We’re hoping that in a few years, these will be the old ones, and we’ll be cycling into some more new ones.”

But fans shouldn’t worry about losing out on any of the classic Voctave sound when the tour hits the Wharton Center Tuesday (Dec. 12).

“We’ve got a lot of songs that people want to hear again and again,” Ray said. “We still have some of our old favorites in the show. It’s kind of a mixture of some of our old songs that we just can’t get rid of yet because we love them so much, along with pretty much all of the new album.

“We want to make you laugh, we want to make you cry and everything in between. We definitely want to take you on an emotional journey, as cheesy as …

Ray said the group has been enjoying the tour, which kicked off Nov. 26 in Orlando, Florida.

“It’s been good so far. We’ve had really good audiences — a lot of people excited to hear new music. It’s fun for us that we’ve gotten to get started so soon after Thanksgiving,” he said. “This first leg of the tour wasn’t anything crazy. The furthest north we went was North Carolina. But over these next few weeks, we’re getting ready to get our heavy coats out because we’re not quite ready for this cold weather that we’re gonna have up in the Midwest.”

For those who have never seen the group live, Ray said the shows are much more than just a standard a cappella performance.

“A lot of people know us from our videos and social media posts, whether it’s just a short little video or a full song they listened to. And so a lot of people have no idea what to expect when they’re coming to see a Voctave show. We try to save something special for the people who come and see our live show, versus people who just know us from our videos,” he said. “It’s not a concert. They’re not gonna come and sit and listen to song after song and then leave. They’re going to see a full Christmas show. They’re still going to hear high notes, they’re still going to hear low notes, they’re going to hear all the chords and all the exciting things that are in the videos, but it’s going to be so much more than that.”

If audience members aren’t in the Christmas spirit by the time they leave the show, Ray said, it’s on them.

“We want to make you laugh, we want to make you cry and everything in between. We definitely want to take you on an emotional journey, as cheesy as that sounds,” he said. “It’s not going to be just sitting and golf clapping. We want people to be laughing out loud. We want them cheering and screaming. We want everything from our audiences because that makes our show so much better.”

Beyond the tour, Voctave has been singing, recording and traveling as much as possible and hopes to have some new music out early next year.

“We’ve got a number of shows coming up. We’ve got a couple of things in January, and then February through April, we’ve got a number of stops that we’ll be doing. That’s kind of a little bit of growth on our Disney and Broadway tour,” he said. “We’ve also got a few new different albums, or at least recording projects, that are in the works. I can’t say anything specific. Some things we’re really excited about. They’re going to be released hopefully in the beginning part of this coming year. We’re excited for it.”