HAPPY TO SHARE GIFT OF SONG.

Byline: Karen McCowan The Register-Guard

CORRECTION (ran 3/07/04): Lisa Forkish's name was misspelled in a story on Page B1 on Saturday.

The crowd is small at first. Perhaps 50 friends and fans gather in the concrete amphitheater outside the Erb Memorial Union because they know what to expect: It's Friday. It's 4 p.m. And it's time to end the week with stand-up concerts by the University of Oregon's two award-winning a cappella groups.

Soon, Leah Forkish's warm alto is rising above the do-wah harmonies of her fellow Divisi members in an up-tempo rendition of "So Happy Together." A larger crowd gathers. A burst of audience whoops and applause signals the end of the song and more curious passersby stop. Now nearly 200 people are standing 10-deep, craning their necks to locate the source of the music.

They see no speakers, no drum set, not even a guitar.

The female singers - like the all-male group that follows - are making all those sounds with only their voices.

Divisi and On the Rocks sing a cappella - without accompaniment. It's a form of music that began with Gregorian chant and has morphed into singing as diverse as gospel, barbershop and doo-wop. Through the mid-1960s, it was also a strong collegiate tradition manifested in such glee club groups as the Yale Whiffenpoofs.

On the Rocks started in the winter of 1999, when UO freshmen Peter Hollens of Ashland and Leonardo Silva of Brazil met in a Writing 122 class and discovered a mutual love of a cappella music. They decided to organize the first such group at the UO since the 1960s.

"We scouted out four other singers from the top men's choir and started rehearsing," said Hollens, now 23. "We had just one performance that year."

Five years and two CDs later, the group attracts dozens of men to auditions for its nine to 11 spots. It also has achieved national prominence: Last year, the group placed second in the Intercollegiate A Cappella Championships in New York, and got to perform on the `Today' show.

The young women's group, Divisi, organized in 2002.

"It's an Italian word for divided musical parts that come together to make harmony," said founder Evynne Smith, a UO junior. "We started out with eight girls and a male beat boxer. Then we went to our first competition and heard all these female beat boxers. We immediately came home, fired him and started doing our own percussion."

Divisi's repertoire includes an original arrangement of the Dave Matthews Band's "Ants Marching" and the Turtles 1968 classic, "So Happy Together."

On the Rocks does everything from the jazz standard "Peanut Vendor" to The Talking Heads' "Wild, Wild Life."

The two Oregon groups swept last month's regionals at Stanford, with Divisi taking first place and On the Rocks taking second. Both groups now go to the national semifinals in Palo Alto next Saturday.

The groups are self-directed and receive no official university financial support - though UO President Dave Frohnmayer and his wife, Lynn, have made cash donations and offered their home as a rehearsal space. The latter wasn't an entirely unselfish gesture, Frohnmayer noted.

"We have great dinner music," he said. "Oftentimes they'll come in at the end of a rehearsal and sing a song just for us."

When Frohnmayer had the group sing at a black-tie UO alumni event in Portland, "they brought down the house. They were an absolute smash."

The free Friday performances have been a tradition since 2000, when On the Rocks saw a University of California group give a stand-up concert.

"We wanted to have a performance to look forward to each week," Hollens said. "Plus, it was a great way to start an audience. You catch people walking back to their dorms who've never heard of us and they stop and say, `Whoa! What's this?' and become fans."

FREE PUBLIC CONCERTS

When: 4 p.m. Fridays, rain or shine, unless On the Rocks and Divisi are out of town

Where: Erb Memorial Union outdoor plaza, University of Oregon campus 

Parking: Get real - this is the UO campus! Some metered on-street spots, but availability is dicey; LTD buses are your best bet

CAPTION(S):

An audience gathers outside the EMU to listen to Divisi perform. The free Friday performances have been a tradition since 2000.