Chris Rishel

Chris grew up in the mighty cornfields of Chatham, IL, where the only options for having fun were either illegal (like setting off homemade explosives in the country, which of course he never did), or music-y things. He started off playing piano about the same time he started consuming solid food, and began composing in elementary school. Prior to junior high, his singing experience had been mostly limited to singing along with the golden oldies and commercial jingles, but in 8th grade, he joined a barbershop quartet to sing bass (because his voice was the only one that had changed). In high school, he picked up a few more instruments (and promptly put most of them back down), performed in musicals, and ended his high school musical career by playing vibes in the all-state jazz band.

After sacrificing his dream to be the next John Williams for something a bit more practical, he spent the last four years at The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign getting degrees in Computer Science and Chemistry, and wasting every free moment doing more music-y things. Along the way, he played in various university bands, rocked out with a jam band, sang with Varsity Men's Glee Club and Tesseract (yet another barbershop quartet). He also spent a good deal of time arranging for other vocal (mostly collegiate a cappella) groups (you can check out some of his work at his website).

For whatever reason, he has decided he wants to be in school until he's 30 learning how to fix people and play with computers and neurons (all the while hanging out with cool undergrads). Where else could he find said undergrads at The University of Chicago except in the coolest a cappella group on campus, Voices In Your Head (plus one of the little guys that talks to him from the inside of his brain liked the name).