On Jan. 24, 2026, Lexington High School a cappella groups Onomatopoeia and PB&J competed in the Wyvern Invitational A Cappella Festival (WIAF) in Connecticut. The event was a fundraiser for Team Tobati, a school in Paraguay where students craft the awards for the competition. This year, the Lexington groups won first and second place.
According to Vivian Luperfoy, a junior at LHS and member of Onomatopoeia, the group has been attending the competition for a long time.
“We perform two songs, and we do choreography and singing,” Luperfoy said.
This year, Onomatopoeia performed “Snow Angel” by Reneé Rapp and “Step on Up” by Ariana Grande. Luperfoy, Niva Pandey, and Maggie Radcliffe created the choreography for Snow Angel. Luperfoy reflected on the conclusion of their set, along with the feelings it conveyed.
“I think that moment when we were all holding out the same position, it just felt very unified. It was a lot of fun … and [I] feel really proud of the work that I had put in—[that] the whole group had put in,” Luperfoy said.
PB&J, which has been attending WIAF since 2024, performed “Countdown” by Beyoncé and “Oscar Winning Tears” by Raye. The group focused on their facial expressions to connect with the audience. At the end of their performance of “Oscar Winning Tears,” the group successfully executed a move they call the ‘Bird Pose,’ which was difficult to perfect in practice.
“Once we [had] such an emotional moment, we felt like we were also watching our hard work pay off. And that prompted many people to cry. On stage, we felt so much emotion from what we were doing and what we were putting out, and I feel like that was a highlight of our performance,” Soham Padyana, a junior and member of PB&J, said.
Before the trip, groups expanded their rehearsal schedules, sometimes having three two-hour rehearsals in one week. Members felt that the extra hours were worth it.
“While it was very stressful, we had added so many extra rehearsals that by the performance, we were very prepared as a group,” Luperfoy said.
Before stepping on stage, the students felt a mix of nerves and excitement. The groups helped each other manage this pressure by talking and joking around during breaks. After they finished singing, they felt very accomplished. Members also spent the day meeting new people and attending workshops.
After the event, the a capella groups celebrated by following their post-performance routines, with PB&J getting McDonald’s late at night, and Onomatopoeia having a sleepover to eat snacks and watch the recording of their performance together.
The students agreed that their groups feel like families that support each other and have fun along the way.
“Being able to do WIAF and work towards this goal with these people is a really special thing, because it’s the perfect balance of being able to work towards something that we really want, and also, we do fun things. We go and we get food, we sit in a circle, we talk, and we laugh, and it feels much more like a community and a family than somebody who’s looking at it from the outside would probably see,” Nishka Cherukuri, a junior and member of PB&J, said.
