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Announcements

“The Sing-Off” contestants, schedule, extras announced

NBC-TV’s a cappella competition show The Sing-Off, now in its second season, has announced the lineup of a cappella groups that will compete for the $100,000 prize and a Sony Music recording contract:

  • Committed from Huntsville, Alabama
  • Eleventh Hour, a high-school group from Kettering, Ohio
  • Pitch Slapped from Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts
  • Groove for Thought from Seattle, Washington
  • Jerry Lawson & Talk of the Town from Oakland, California
  • Men of Note, Cherry Hill, New Jersey
  • The Backbeats from USC and UCLA in Los Angeles, California
  • On the Rocks from University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon
  • Street Corner Symphony from Nashville, Tennessee
  • The Whiffenpoofs from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut

In addition, last year’s winner Nota returns for a special performance.  The show’s premiere night is Monday, December 6, from 8-10 PM, with subsequent episodes on December 8, 13 and 15, with a live finale on Monday, December 20.  (Other than the finale, the episodes were recorded in August.)

As previously reported, Ben returns as a judge, along with the rest of last year’s panel, Nicole Scherzinger (Pussycat Dolls) and Shawn Stockman (Boyz II Men). The show is hosted by Nick Lachey.

New this year, Epic Records will be releasing digital tracks of each group’s performance immediately following each episode. In addition, an album by all ten groups titled The Sing-Off: Harmonies for the Holidays will be released on Epic November 30.

Ben is a People’s Choice Award nominee

Ben Folds is one of the nominees in the Favorite Web Celeb category of the People’s Choice awards. You can cast your vote here. Online balloting continues until November 9 and the awards show is January 5, 2011 on CBS Television.

New York City date added to Lonely Avenue tour

A December 14 show at New York’s Beacon Theatre has been added to the Lonely Avenue tour. Tickets go on sale Tuesday (October 19) for those in the fan club, and Saturday, October 23 for everyone else. Check the tour dates page for more information.

Fan club members can ignore expiration e-mail

Chris Janssen, one of my fellow PFofJ moderators, has let us know that if you are a Fan Club member, you can safely ignore the e-mail you may have received today about expired membership.  Chris is @benfolio on Twitter if  you would like to get in touch with him directly.

“From Above” video premiere

The video for the track From Above is now up on AOL Music. It’s also linked on this page on the Nonesuch Records site.

About the video, Ben says:

Julius (Preite, VP Animation, Fox) and Justin interpretive danced the storyboard for this video for me in a hotel room and it gave me chills – the adjacent room then complained to the front desk . This unassuming video enhances the lyric and gives the song another dimension. Thank you Julius.